Talking With 'Neighbors' Actress Carla Gallo

It's 4:02 p.m. on a balmy November Friday in Venice, California, and the late-afternoon twilight has begun to set in. I'm waiting outside Kreation Kafe, an organic luncheonette, to conduct an interview with Hollywood actress Carla Gallo. She is just two minutes late, but I'm already starting to assume the worst. Between her busy audition schedule and navigating through gridlocked L.A. traffic during peak hours, it would be unsurprising if meeting with the press were an afterthought. Would I be forced to sit on the bench outside the bohemian eatery, sipping an herbal tea concoction through one lonely straw as my audio recorder gathered dust? 

Perhaps I had underestimated her punctuality, as a second later, I look up and see the dainty brunette cross Abbot Kinney Blvd. "You must be Alex," she says, smiling as she shakes my hand. "I actually haven't been to this restaurant before, but it looks really good." Her hazelnut-brown eyes match the rich color of the wooden table we're seated at, and she's clad in a gray sweater, casually slung over her shoulders atop a white t-shirt with black stripes. Not exactly what you'd expect a guest star on the aesthetically driven Mad Men to wear, yet it appears she's mastered the art of thrift store chic. "I've never had someone pick outfits for me," Gallo says. "Almost everything I get is from Goodwill." 

The first major vote of confidence for Gallo came from Marlene Clary, her first grade instructor and theatre director at Berkeley Carroll Street School, a small private school in Brooklyn. In second grade, the teacher informed Gallo's parents that she should be the lead in The Final Dress Rehearsal, a play about the final dress rehearsal of a performance of Cinderella. "I would play an actress who is playing Cinderella," Gallo says, nibbling on her taco. 

Gallo's mother, however, was less adamant about her daughter gracing the grand stage. "Since I was a bit of a slow learner, my mother told my teacher, 'I don't think she can work and learn her lines.'" Yet with enough persuasion, Gallo's mother caved in, and her daughter excitedly joined the thespian troupe. "I can remember the feeling on stage and people laughing at the comedy. It was from that point on, no joke -- I was going to be an actress." 

Gallo turned 38 in June and has nearly two decades of acting experience under her belt, but she possesses youthful zeal when discussing her work, like a child playing with toys. She fondly remembers her starring role as the edgy girl next door, Lizzie Exley, on the Fox T.V. sitcom Undeclared in 2001, which was guided by raunchy and riveting comedy figurehead Judd Apatow and his ensemble, including the 2013 summer hit This is the End's Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel.

"That was Judd's movement," she recalls. "The friendly and goofy guy as the lead actor. I don't think people really appreciated it." Gallo is referring to Undeclared's Steven Karp, the charmingly awkward freshman, based on the show's creator, that was played by Jay Baruchel. Karp was the George Constanza to Apatow's Larry David.  The gut-busting and tender, college-themed show lasted only one season, but its cult following has grown exponentially, becoming a semester staple on Netflix and IFC over the last few years.  

Anyone who's seen pictures like The 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad knows that the actors cast by Apatow and his team often appear in more than one movie they work on, and Gallo is no exception. The former film has Gallo as Steve Carell's toe-sucking temptress, and the latter film has her grinding on the dance floor with Jonah Hill before leaving an unexpected, unfortunate accident on his slacks. 

Ergo, Gallo's upcoming appearance will be as an intoxicated and disorderly divorcee in next year's Neighbors. The production team includes the big guns of bromance, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. "According to the costume designer, my character is dressing too young. I was wearing really terrible Forever 21 clothes." Gallo is more amused than embarrassed by her characters, though she is itching to expand her repertoire. "I once literally had a casting director ask my agent, 'Can she play anything other than a drunk?'" 

But Gallo's sundry display of credentials is too apparent for her to be typecast. Her IMDB sheet reads like a buffet menu, as she's taken on a diverse range of projects, making her one of the most versatile actresses in Hollywood. Her high profile appearances include the aforementioned Mad Men, Bones, Californication, and Carnivàle, an Emmy Award-winning series that incidentally ignited her most arduous preparation as an actress. 

"The emotional stuff is the biggest challenge, for me to access that," says Gallo, who believes the process has become easier with age. "As life passes, you encounter difficulties and tragedies, and so it becomes easier. Carnivàle required that of me, and it was really hard." Portraying a young dancer named Libby Dreifuss, Gallo delivered performances that remain her most stomach-churning to date, on a show that during its two-year run conscripted its viewers to murder, madness, and morals. 

Carla Gallo remains a familiar face, if not a fixture of cinema and television. "About once every four days someone comes up to me and is like, 'Hey, I know you from somewhere,'" she says, the last two words ringing the loudest. She's on the prowl for another defining role, and remains pragmatic and poised for a new opportunity. Fortunately, Gallo is seasoned enough in the business to know that genuine humility never kept anyone's name off the marquee.

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This article originally appeared on The Huffington Post.

Watch Out, the World’s Behind You: RIP Lou Reed (1942-2013)

You know the mantra: Sex, drugs, rock & roll. It's been an expression longer than Les Paul guitars have existed, but very few people chronicled the lifetyle candidly and compellingly. With the help of one man, a young New York city slicker named Lou Reed would learn to siphon his existential observations into a rock and roll art form; to write what he lived, and live what he wrote. A student of Syracuse writing professor Delmore Schwartz, Reed absorbed his teacher's philosophical and deeply meditative nature. Referring to Schwartz as the first "great man" he ever encountered, Reed would credit Schwartz as the one who inspired him to express himself in a concrete, no holds barred fashion. When Schwartz passed away in 1966, it left an inextricable mark on Reed's soul.  

Conflating the lyrical influences of his professor with his own rated-R indulgences, Reed would become a poet laureate for the twitchy drug-dealers, S&M freaks, and bastards of young. "When I'm rushing on my run / and I feel just like Jesus' son," he hissed during the chorus of The Velvet Underground & Nico's "Heroin." Backed by a purring electric viola, ramrod guitar strokes, and tunneling bass drums, Reed feverishly delivered the most visceral rock and roll experience to his listeners, as if he was spiking the needles straight into their forearms. The final track on White Light/White Heat, "Sister Ray," put you right in the middle of the debauchery -- an orgy with sailors and drag queens, shooting up smack right as the police appeared. With the Velvet Underground, Reed offered the world something it didn't ask for, but needed -- an antithesis to the Beatles. The peace and love of Lennon was cool, but Reed brought fear and loathing. 

Reed's obsession with decadence was but one side of the coin, for he was a divided soul of the gorgeous and the grotesque. His music could float just as well as it could sink.  "Sweet Jane" is a prime example of the former, with its home-run chorus and a bridge with lyrics touching enough for Hallmark: "Heavenly wine and roses seem to whisper to me when you smile." He could write for himself and also for others, making the most of the tempestuous tease Nico. Her bold and beautiful voice highlights "Femme Fatale," "All Tomorrow's Parties," and "I'll Be Your Mirror." On "Candy Says," a song about the struggles of a transgendered woman, Reed stepped aside and handed lead vocals over to Doug Yule, whose aching falsetto lifted the ballad to heavenly heights.

My first significant listening experience with Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground came indirectly from another band that epitomized New York oddity: the Strokes. It was the winter of 2004, nearly a year after the stylish ragamuffins' second album, Room On Fire, was released. Browsing through my local Barnes and Noble, my pale brown eyes caught the latest issue of Filter: "The Strokes & Lou Reed: Art, Advertising, and the Myth of the Underground." Eager to read a cover story on my favorite band and learn about one of the brains behind the Banana Album, I peeled open the periodical.    

Within the article was a portrait of New York's sage street storyteller educating his protégés. The Strokes never shied way from their adoration of the avant-garde rock godfather, but upon meeting their idol, the quintet nearly became effusive. Wondering why on earth this man could make indie-rock's hottest act shiver in their suede jackets, I listened to "Street Hassle," and then it all made sense. By the end of the month, I squandered enough cash for a pair of Ray-Bans, a dark leather Banana Republic jacket, and a red Epiphone Riviera guitar. Many sleepless nights were spent recording piss-takes of "Sweet Jane" amid marijuana smog.

The solo work of Lou Reed often takes a backseat to the Velvet Underground, but it's no less subversive. Almost Famous may be one of the definitive movies about music, but there's one scene that irks me. Renowned rock scribe Lester Bangs asks the young journalist William Miller, "You like Lou Reed?" Miller replies, "The early stuff. In his new stuff he's trying to be Bowie, but he should just be himself." Thing is, for Reed, there was never a strict definition of "himself." Nothing for Reed was off limits. Whether he tried his hand at glam-rock on Transformer, showcased his love for doo-wop on Coney Island Baby, or decided to take it back to his hometown roots on New York, every release was set to not only solidify Reed's reputation, but also alter it.   

Reed was a rebel, and his tumultuous reputation with the record industry made him either a pariah or a hero, depending on whom you ask.  Metal Machine Music was an aluminum middle finger to RCA--a 65-minute behemoth consisting entirely of modulated guitar feedback. To determine whether or not Reed's elaborate ruse was good or bad for the industry is a Sisyphean task; he never set out to make a positive or negative impact, he just liked to fuck with forms. In hindsight, his positive review of Yeezus was obvious because Kanye West's objective to experiment often paralleled Reed's own. The rule was simple: take a sound, perfect it over the course of a career, and then when people least expected it, shatter the rear-view mirror.

Who knows where Lou Reed is now? There's a chance he's with his pal Andy Warhol, roaming the galleries and plotting their next great visual art performance. Nico might be awaiting Reed's arrival, eagerly twirling the long blonde hair cascading down her back. His rhythm guitarist Sterling Morrison may be working on new song arrangements, and needs his partner to give him a second opinion. Perhaps he's back to the drawing board, learning writing tricks from his old, long-missed professor-- the man who made Reed who he was. If only everyone could have their own Delmore Schwartz in their lives. Maybe Lou Reed is yours.