LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / February 2, 2000

LULING – Many young girls have dreams of success in the entertainment industry. Lindsey Landry, daughter of Quinn and Sue Landry of Luling, made ajump-start on her budding career last week by job-shadowing TV’s “Hercules.”Actor Kevin Sorbo, who portrays the mythological hero in “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,” hosted Lindsey, 15, at the National Association of Television Program Executives convention in New Orleans.

Lindsey, a ninth-grader at Hahnville High School, has participated in drama since the second grade. Her dramatic efforts include scenes from “Macbeth”in fourth grade, the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet” in seventh grade and an appearance in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”Her intention in shadowing Sorbo was to learn how the entertainment business works and how celebrities respond to media attention.

Landry’s shadowing of Sorbo was arranged through the national School-to- Work Opportunities office, the Louisiana School-to-Work office and the MetroVision School-to-Career Partnership.

Sorbo is chairman and spokesman for “A World Fit for Kids,” a non-profit mentoring organization that provides gang, drug and drop-out prevention programming to children.

The organization contacted MetroVision’s School-to-Career office, offering to host a student “shadow” at the NATPE convention. The choice arrived atwas Lindsey.

“I said, “Yeah, pull my leg,” when she was told Jan. 21 of the plan. Once sherealized it would happen, “I got very excited, but I only told a couple of people, in case it didn’t happen.”Lindsey arrived at MetroVision’s Poydras Street office, and soon the 5-foot, 3-inch teen-ager was knocking on Sorbo’s hotel room door.

“I wasn’t expecting somebody that big! He’s 6-3!” she recalled. “I said, like,’Wow!'” After a brief interview with him, Lindsey accompanied Sorbo to the NATPE convention, met Ed McMahon and watched Sorbo be interviewed by the entertainment media and sign autographs.

“He is incredibly nice and down to earth,” Lindsey remembered of her host for the afternoon.

During her interview with him, on which she will soon write her own class report, Lindsey asked his career advice.

“You’ve got to want it more than anything else,” he responded.

A standard question on salary range got a laugh from Sorbo, who responded, “Zero to $20 million. Oh, wait! Jim Carrey gets $60 million now!”Sorbo also recalled his first exposure to live theatre when his parents took him at age 11 to see “Oklahoma.”Sorbo, a native of Mound, Minn., is developing a science-fiction/action series,”Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda,” based on an idea from the creator of “Star Trek.”In addition to the Hercules role which brought him international attention, Sorbo starred in “Kull the Conqueror” and made appearances in other TV programs including “Murder She Wrote,” “The Commish,” “Cybil” and “Just Shoot Me.”Lindsey feels she’s been inspired by Sorbo and would love to pursue acting or perhaps a job in marketing films.

“Before, it was all a kind of far-off thing to me,” she said. “Now, I want itmore than anything.”

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