Laine Monica Baker is Brains of Minerva’s Marketing Intern. She was born and raised in the tiny town of Webb City in Southwest Missouri. She began acting at age eleven in a local production of Annie and continued throughout high school. Her favorite roles include Jo in Little Women, Dory in Merrily We Roll Along, and Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing  Technicolor Dreamcoat. Although her resume consists mostly of musical theater credits, her true passion lies within the film industry. After attending Missouri State University for one  year, Laine transferred to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Los Angeles where she is working towards her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Acting. Laine resides in Hollywood and expects to graduate from AMDA October 2011.

I met Lauren Sweetser my freshman year in our first acting class at Missouri State University, under the instruction of Kurt Gerard Heinlein. She was down to earth, determined, laid back, with an infectious laugh, and not to mention gorgeous. She can talk shop with the best of the boys, and out-shop any woman in the tri-state area as long as a Taco Bell is nearby. Most of all, this chick was (and is) disgustingly talented. Lauren and I hit it off right away and not much has changed from 2007 until now, except for one little thing; my best friend from college is now a supporting role in an award-winning film, Winter’s Bone.

Lauren was taking an acting class at the Creative Actors Workshop in Springfield when her acting coach, Scott Arthur Allen mentioned a breakdown for a local table read. It was a new script based on a best-selling novel by Daniel Woodrell, called Winter’s Bone. It was a gritty, heart-wrenching story about Ree, a young girl who must fight her way through the wilderness of the Ozarks, and the low-life criminals within it, in order to find her father and save her family. Allen explained that it was simply for the creative team to hear the script aloud, and Lauren went into the project expecting nothing more than to have a little fun and hopefully, meet some new people. She landed the role of Gail, Ree’s best friend at the table read—beating out two hundred other girls for the part. The development of the film was kept pretty quiet, and Lauren didn’t anticipate that she would be involved if the story happened to take off. In fact, Sweetser didn’t hear much about it for about a year and a half—until 2008, when the topic resurfaced and word spread that pre-production on Winter’s Bone had wrapped, and a start date for shooting was just around the corner.

Scott Arthur Allen suggested Lauren send in another video audition, this time for the role of Megan, a smaller part in the film.. However, something went awry: Lauren attempted to send her video to be shipped overnight, but somewhere along the way, the tape was lost and the casting team and director, Debra Granik never received her audition footage. Granik remembered Lauren from the table read, and since they had maintained a friendly correspondence over the last several months, Debra asked Lauren why she hadn’t auditioned. The decision was made for Lauren to make the short hour-long trip to Branson for a face-to-face audition for the role of Megan, which resulted in three callbacks with Debra and other members of the creative team. But eventually, she received the first of many phone calls that would change her life: Her acting coach, Scott, called to tell her that Granik wanted her to audition for the role of Gail. Lauren was shocked and pleasantly surprised; after six callbacks she booked the job just one week before shooting was scheduled to begin.

One of the great details about this film is that it was not shot on some LA soundstage with child actors and elaborate set-dresses; but rather, inside of a house in the heart of the Ozarks—a place both Lauren and I hold very dear to our hearts.

“This was somebody’s home,” Sweetser says. “It was incredibly humbling—to see how these people live completely juxtaposes how I live and where I’m from. There was no judgment from either end. It was strange to be in their house and chatting with them, eating lunch with them, and then the crew would say ‘Okay guys, time to shoot,’ and the family would just go to a neighbor’s house or wait outside… it really put things into perspective and made it so real. The little girl who plays Ashley—she lived in one of these houses—this was just her everyday life. They are such good people, and I hope to see them again—because we spent so much time together, and learned so much about their lives. You can’t get much more real than that.”

On Thanksgiving Day, 2009, Lauren was at her home in Fayetteville, Arkansas with her mom when star of the film, Jennifer Lawrence, called her cell phone. “It was inaudible,” she laughs, “I kept asking her if she was okay—if she needed to go to the hospital or something and suddenly she just screamed—SUNDANCE! And my jaw hit the floor. My mom and I freaked out. It was so strange—I’ve wanted to go to Sundance just as an audience member since I was a little girl, and now, to be a part of this… it was just incredible.”

Lauren called me just minutes after speaking with Jennifer, and I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner in my apartment in Los Angeles and could not stop screaming. I couldn’t believe it—the sweet southern blonde had done it—her very first film had made it into one of the most famous film festivals of our generation. Hearing the word “Sundance” in the same sentence as your name is something every actor dreams of, and Lauren was living it.

It’s hard to believe that a tiny Midwestern story has catapulted into a huge success headed by accomplished director Debra Granik. Lauren, her family, and best friend Ginnie Johnson traveled to Utah for the premiere of Winter’s Bone at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2010. They were elated to see that this ambitious little indie was making waves. A couple weeks later, Lauren and her friend Megan were watching the Miss America pageant on TV, and checking the Sundance awards online. “I was trying not to assume anything,” Sweetser recalls. “Plus we were hungry and I was getting tired, so we decided to go get some dinner… and then my mom calls and says we’ve won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, and that was enough to make me scream out loud! Then we get in the car, and minutes from my apartment, she calls back and tells me we won Grand Jury Prize. And I was screaming, and Megan was screaming—Megan had no idea what it meant but she was screaming because she was happy for me. It was insane. I got inside and there was Parker Posey talking about this film and I couldn’t express my feelings verbally—I just stuttered and made random gasping noises. I mean that just doesn’t happen every day—much less for your first film.”

The kicker of this whole thing for those of us around Lauren, is that on the night of her college graduation, May 14, 2010, the local screening of Winter’s Bone is premiering at the Plaster Student Union at Missouri State University. How many people can honestly say that on the night of their college graduation, all of their friends and family also got to watch them make their debut on the silver screen?  But as promised, my dear friend is never lacking in humility:

“The best part of all of this—is the fact that people get to see my work. You don’t ever need a compliment to validate what you’ve accomplished as an actor, but it’s so nice to hear it every now and then. Being a part of this has been so surreal and I feel honored to be a part of something so great.”

I always think it’s silly when journalists ask actors/performers if they ever imagined “this” could happen to them. Because the obvious answer is YES. If you don’t believe it can really happen, you’ll never make it in this industry. But what I did ask of Lauren, was if she ever imagined that her “big break” would happen in this way—in Missouri instead of California, during school instead of after graduation, and a success story that hundreds of girls dream about for years with no definitive resolution.

“I had goals for college and what I wanted to do. One of my ‘lofty’ goals was becoming SAG eligible. In LA, that’s not lofty but in Missouri, it is. There are actors in LA who have worked for years and not gotten this lucky and here I was in the Midwest doing just that—a movie. I wouldn’t call it a big break—but it’s definitely a jumpstart to the beginning of my career. This is really Jennifer’s [Lawrence] BIG break. She’s been doing this for a long time and she’s already being highly sought after—and she deserves it.”

And just what do her parents and the town that raised her up to be the woman she is today have to say about all of this? “They’re PUMPED!” Lauren laughs emphatically. “I have a really wonderful camp of people rooting for me—I have a fantastic family. My brother still likes to remind me how un-cool I am sometimes just to keep me in line, but that’s his job. I learned a long time ago to weed out the negative people in my life. Everyone is super supportive and excited. I am so lucky to have all of that. My parents always taught us to be passionate about whatever it is we wanted to do. My dad used to say ‘If you wanna be a trash-woman and you’re passionate about picking up trash, be the best trash-woman you can be. He does construction and he’s never cared what we wanted to do—they both just wanted us to be happy.”

As of May 20^th of this year, Lauren will make her permanent move to the west coast. She’s in the process of looking for representation, and hopefully the release of Winter’s Bone in June will help that.

“You can never assume things in this industry are going to amount to something—that’s just setting yourself up for disappointment.” Lauren is determined to keep a realistic outlook: “I’ve maintained the attitude that even if this film does nothing, I will be happy because I’ve never been allergic to hard work, so I’ll take the next step regardless of how Winter’s Bone turns out.”

Sweetser’s main focus is on film, but she has definitely expressed interest in working in television as well. “I got into this because I like playing characters of certain depth; … good writing. But work is work, and sometimes at the end of the day you need a paycheck. But this—Winter’s Bone—the script was something that when you read it you were screaming –YES- this is what I want to do. I think the collaborative art of story telling in film is incredible and there are amazing things you can do with it given the opportunity. This is an amazing story that people won’t be able to forget after seeing it.”

Lauren offers up a bit of advice for the up-and-comers like herself: “Surround yourself with good people—it keeps you grounded.” Lauren says. “Keep your blinders on and don’t fall into the traps of the Hollywood scene. You have to think of LA as business place, not a playground. You work hard, sometimes you get to play hard, but it’s important to work a lot harder than you play. And from a business aspect, networking is essential. I can’t tell you how many times even at Sundance I met probably at least five people who knew someone I knew—you have to be good at networking, and if you’re not good at it, get good at it.”

It is no question that this remarkable young woman has changed my life for the better, and I have no doubts whatsoever that when people see this film, they will see what I have had the privilege of seeing for several years; true, raw, talent. And more importantly, the hope that all performers still share: that breaks—big or small—still happen.

* Note: A screening of Winter’s Bone will be shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on May 25^th at 7:30 PM followed by a Q& A Session with Debra Granik and some of the cast.

Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions