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List Price: $34.98 | | Label: Hbo Home Video
Salesrank: 10108
Released: October 18, 2005 |
| Our Price: $3.90 |
| Used Price: $2.88 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Executive-produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney (Ocean's 11, Ocean's 12), UNSCRIPTED is an innovative half-hour comedy series that fuses reality and fiction to chronicle the lives of three struggling young actors as they navigate the rough waters of show business. Starring Krista Allen, Bryan Greenberg and Jennifer Hall, essentially playing themselves, and co-starring screen veteran Frank Langella as Goddard Fulton, a noted actor who leads them in an acting workshop at Los Angeles' fabled Tamarind Theater, UNSCRIPTED offers a revealing look at the sometimes raucous, often disillusioning world of the fledgling actor.
DVD Features:
Episodic Previews
Episodic Recaps
Description of Unscripted:
Unscripted is to cable TV as A Chorus Line is to Broadway: a look at the performers in the smaller roles. Produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney (who also directs), the HBO comedy follows the trials and tribulations of three real-life actors, Krista Allen, Jennifer Hall, and Bryan Greenberg. The 10-part series isn't documentary, soap opera, or sitcom, but a combination of the three. It's up to the viewer to figure out where one ends and the other begins. Complicating matters is the character of Goddard Fulton (Frank Langella, Good Night, and Good Luck), an acting coach--and celebrated lothario--trying to help these young thespians step up their game.
In the pilot, Allen stops by The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn to talk about her latest role: tequila spokesmodel. It may not be acting, but she has a son to support and it's an improvement on her softcore Emmanuelle past. In the same episode, Greenberg has a walk-on on ER and Hall has a stand-in on The George Lopez Show. In subsequent episodes, Allen guests on Jake in Progress and Hall does stand-in and background work on Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Constantine. Greenberg hits the greatest heights when a recurring role on One Tree Hill leads to a starring role in Prime--opposite Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep. All go to humiliating auditions for parts they don't get.
As expected from a Clooney/Soderbergh production, stars abound, including Noah Wylie, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Hank Azaria, Keanu Reeves, and Sam Rockwell (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which featured Allen and Hall). Like improvised predecessor Curb Your Enthusiasm, most play themselves. Despite greater critical acclaim, Unscripted, like K Street before it, was not renewed for a second season. It deserved better. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Unscripted Reviews:
Hollywood Reality 
2009-09-07 - For all those budding actors out there, thinking they can make it, they should watch this series based in LA, which displays the reality of auditions, acting classes and hopes and dreams of succeeding in this craft.
For fans of Bryan Greenberg, this was fascinating to watch - giving real behind-the-scenes action from the film "Prime".
And Frank Langella was excellent as the world-weary acting coach.
Not ready for the truth I guess... 
2009-07-28 - Found this again recently on DVD. Yes, it's clear why this show didn't do well: it's honest and deeper than what America will ever want to believe about their favorite dream career: becoming a big time actor. As the endless navel-gazing of Entourage continues, season after torturous season...it's clear that no one in America is really ready for the "truth" about an actor's life & Hollywood...America's fantasy about the FANTASY is what killed this show.
Unscripted: sensitive, really intelligent, funny sometimes, painfully embarrassing like life can be too. This was a group of amazing people, beautiful and uneven like the REAL PEOPLE they were portraying...a real joy to watch if you are truly interested in storyline and really good acting. This is a beautiful piece of work.
I'm so sorry America didn't have the stomach for it. Funny, it's so very normal to watch someone split a gut right there on the screen, or be tortured, raped...the strange and unusual violent behavior of American entertainment..this is the stuff they put money on in Hollywood. America...asleep at the wheel, being babysat by stuff like Entourage.
Check out "Unscripted". Five stars, over and over....
Hmmm.. 
2008-12-12 - I really enjoyed this series. Inside the world of the struggling young actor. After watching this I'm convinced actors are onstage 24/7.
The most accurate portrayal of life as an actor.
2008-02-15 - As an actor living in Los Angeles,this is the most accurate depiction of life that I and thousands of other people know. Everyone thinks that being an actor is glamorous and that everyone is rich and lives like Brad Pitt. It can be a very humbling experience and sometimes down right humiliating. When you have to book a job in order to pay rent or going into an audition where everyone is trying to psyche you out or make fun of you. The sad thing is,this is an evil business. Everyone is scraping at the bottom and trying to fight their way to the top,lying,cheating, betraying everyone to get what they want. There aren't many genuine people in this business.
As for the show,I highly, suggest anyone that wants to pursue acting or get a look into the life of an actor, pick this DVD up. It does a tremendous job at capturing the realistic side of life as an actor. Expenses, friends, loneliness,depression, having family as a support system,the high that you feel when you book a job, the lows that you get when you don't book a job or get edited out,etc.
BUY THIS TODAY!
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2006-06-17 - Oh my god I hate the acting coach guy. He doesn't give the actors any specific tips or pointers, just constantly tells them they're not good enough. I don't know why they didn't end the series with him getting hit by a bus or something.
At first I thought it was all real, then I realised that it was all staged, but the parts the actors actually got during the show were written into the fiction. The most surprising part is that they actually got established actors from the tv shows and movies the three aspiring actors got parts on to participate in the little fictonal scenarios they wrote on the set. It seems like Jamie Kennedy's new show Blowin Up is based on the same formula, probably highly influenced by this show.
The differences other reviewers pointed out between the first five episodes and the last five were not apparent to me at all.
So what did I really like about it? The believability of the actors casualness, like they're really not aware of the camera, something rarely valued by filmmakers aspiring to capture realism.
The characters, to whatever extent they were characters, go through a lot of self-questioning, having to weigh up all the different things they're being told about who they are or who they should be. Ultimately they were all a little less decisive and resourceful than I would have liked to see, but I guess that's realism, no one really has all the answers, and they did all display an admirable resilience.
It's generally eventfully written, or based on eventful realities. They don't dwell too long on one situation, or keep recycling the same dramas, it always keeps moving.
The only reason not to buy it is the price tag. Damn you, HBO.
