Tony Zierra, an aspiring filmmaker with no money, stars or crew, resorts to filming the lives of his four struggling actor roommates.

Brad Rowe was cast as the love interest in Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, an independent gay-themed romantic comedy that was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival.

[citation needed] Chad Lindberg was cast in the film October Sky and in many television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER and The X-Files.

Wes Bentley won the coveted part of Ricky Fitts in the Oscar-winning film American Beauty and became an overnight sensation.

Additionally, the interest also brought problems as the people who handled the business end of the actors' burgeoning careers began to worry about the content of the footage that Zierra had of his roommates.

[citation needed] In 2001, Zierra began to edit the 200+ hours of footage into a film titled Carving Out Our Name, a name taken from a line in the Counting Crows song Round Here.

After dealing with repeated obstacles he finally completed Carving Out Our Name with backing from his friends Alex Ebert and Tim Anderson of the band Ima Robot.

Carving Out Our Name was never released due to a combination of factors, including changes in the market after the 9/11 and concerns by insiders in Hollywood that the film might have a negative impact on the actors' careers.

[citation needed] Years later, Zierra decided to take the original footage out of storage and begin editing another film that would include his own experience making Carving.

[citation needed] After contacting his former roommates, Zierra shot an update with Lindberg, Rowe and Fawcett, each of whom had gone through disappointments and setbacks in the film business.

[citation needed] My Big Break includes scenes of drug use as the aspiring actors and filmmaker get caught up in the negative side of the Hollywood lifestyle.

The film deglamorizes what is euphemistically referred to as "partying" by showing the destructive consequences that substance abuse has on the careers and personal lives of those who become famous.

In the film, Professor Mark Schaller, author of "The Psychological Consequences of Fame", discusses how celebrities often turn to the excessive use of drugs and alcohol to "escape the fishbowl of Hollywood" when they feel overwhelmed by pressure and scrutiny.

Zierra decided to directly address the problem of substance abuse in Hollywood after Heath Ledger, who had been his friend,[citation needed] died in 2008.

When Zierra first began filming his roommate Wes Bentley, the young actor had recently screen tested for the coveted role of Ricky Fitts in American Beauty but hadn't yet heard if he got the part.

The final cut of My Big Break incorporates Bentley's admissions to the press, a decade after American Beauty, that he became a heroin addict after his initial success and how his career is now getting back on track.

[6][7] Coincidentally, Ricky Fitts, the character Bentley played, became an iconic figure in popular culture because of his unusual habit of filming everything and everybody with his digital camera.

[9] In order to build a buzz and test audience reaction an early cut of My Big Break was given an extremely limited release on DVD in 2008.