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Photo by Irene Fertik UCLA Today

After hours - The actor

Welcome to a new series about UCLA faculty and staff who balance their work lives with fascinating, all-consuming hobbies, second jobs, volunteer work and other interests after leaving campus. In this first installment, a part-time employee in the Corporate, Foundation and Research Relations unit of Development in External Affairs tells how acting on a whim launched her second career.

NAME Zoe Cotton
TITLE Administrative assistant
MOONLIGHTING Acting

GETTING STARTED “I used to work as a senior administrative analyst and managed the James West Alumni Center. I noticed the building’s fire inspector on billboards around town. I asked him how he got into that, and he explained how he had gotten an agent and was doing modeling and commercials. I thought, I could do that. The fire inspector, Kendall McCarthy, told me to write to his agent and to use his name as a referral.”

INSTANT SUCCESS? “When I went to the agency, they asked, ‘Have you ever done anything like this?’ I said, ‘No.’ They suggested I take some lessons, so I took acting and improvisation classes. I did a nine-month internship with the West Coast Ensemble Theatre in Los Angeles and joined their theater group in 1997. Shortly thereafter, the agent signed me. Whoopee!”

FIRST JOB A 1997 national commercial for KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce.

AND SINCE? Film: “China Doll,” “Missionary Revival,” “The Dog Walker.” Television: “Cold Case,” “The District,” “ER,” “American Dreams,” “10-8,” “The Shield,” “The Division,” “Unsolved Mysteries,” “The Orlando Jones Show,” “Women at War,” “The Judge Hatchett Show.” Theater: “Summertime,” “Second Chances,” “ ’Night, Mother,” “Legends,” “Sally Hemings: The 2nd Mrs. Jefferson,” “Gwen & Gwen,” “Family Names,” “My Mother’s Keeper,” “Sunday Evening Haircut,” “State of Art.” Also, numerous commercials and print ads.

Photo by Irene Fertik UCLA Today In addition to acting, Zoe Cotton often poses for stock photography (above), which can be used in magazines, on billboards and even on Web sites.

CREDENTIALS Membership in Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, West Coast Ensemble, Towne Street Theatre.

HOW DO YOU DO IT? “I give credit to the people I work with at UCLA. Janet Lustig is the director of my department, and Nancy Deutsch is the deputy director. They’ve been so nice to me and have allowed me to go early to auditions. It’s the perfect setup. If I’m lucky, I’ll go to two or three auditions a week.”

ROLES THAT GOT AWAY “There was a feature movie role I went out for the other day. I was going to be a basketball player’s mother — I wanted that one so badly. And there was a commercial I really wanted, for Aleve. It was a national commercial. When you get nationals, that’s when you really make the money, and you’re seen everywhere. I’ve had some nationals; I’ve been lucky.”

HOW TO DEAL “When you’re new, you torture yourself. After a blown audition, you get in the car, pull down the mirror and talk to yourself: ‘Why didn’t I say it this way?’ Or, ‘If I’d only gotten the chance to say it another way.’ You beat yourself up. But they teach you how to handle it. You learn to let it go. My agent sent me out on an audition for ‘The Practice,’ and afterward I called him to say I thought I had blown it. He said, ‘Zoe, don’t even go there. Next!’”

CHANCES OF LEAVING UCLA FOR IT “I don’t have an ending in mind right now. I enjoy the people I work with, and they enjoy me. They allow me a lot of freedom with my time, and I work over to make up for that. I’m enjoying my little second career and will stay with it as long as the cameras like me.”