Some Tough Love From The Industry

If you think you might quite like to be an actor… it’s tough love time. Get used to that now, stop wishing on a hope and a prayer, and start putting in the hard yards. Realistically, it takes 10-20 years of climbing the ladder before you can claim to be an established ‘in demand’ actor unless you get very, very, VERY lucky. All the actors you see on TV and in movies, didn’t just arrive there by chance. They worked HARD. Every. Single. Day. FOR YEARS.

I’m talking about actors like Dustin Hoffman, Harrison Ford, Susan Sarandon and George Clooney. No one handed them opportunities on a platter – they slogged their guts out, becoming better actors, and better people along the way.

Here’s a fun game… divide all the “well known” actors by the population of planet Earth and multiply by 100… the answer ends up being about 0.00086% …

The actors that DO succeed are a harmonious blend of talent, dedication, ACTION, positive mindset, focus, intelligence, patience, tenacity, likeability, individuality, and circumstance. They had to slog their way through a river of sludge before reaping the rewards of their labour.

BUT it is these obstacles, challenges, trials and tribulations that build their character, educate them, provide them with references to draw on, and STRENGTHEN them so that they are READY when “luck” knocks on the door with that big role they have dreamt of since they first started their journey – and it is a journey. Don’t forget that.

Readiness isn’t just about having great technique as an actor, it’s about being a fully formed human being. If not much is happening in your career, there are other aspects you need to work on other than just taking another acting class (though you should always keep up with those too) but you can work on your time management skills, your organisational skills, your interpersonal skills, your networking skills (especially if you’re naturally shy), your business/accounting/budgeting skills, your sales skills, your phone manner, your typing/spelling/grammatical skills, your computer/web design skills, your camera skills, develop/strengthen ‘special’ skills like dance, sports, circus, vocal styles etc. … ALL of these skills are REQUIRED to be a successful working actor. Not just being a good actor. That is not enough.

There is no such thing as ‘nothing to do’. There is much to be done – consistently – for the rest of your life.

The ones that can’t handle the constant rejections, or grow too impatient, or can’t be bothered putting the effort in, or are so fixated on a “destination” that they miss all the little gems along the way… are the ones that fail, and that’s ok, because acting wasn’t really for them. They liked the glossy unrealistic idea of it, and bowed out after the gloss wore off. Those are not the real actors of the world.

Real actors… act. They act for themselves, because it feeds them.

Whether it’s an unpaid theatre show in a basement, or a short film, or a semi-decent gig that actually covers your bills (but nothing else). Guess what though… an agent might have been sitting in that audience and liked you, that short film might go on to win awards at festivals, that small paying gig might have had a director that later picks you up for a huge paying commercial or a big budget feature film! Maybe not within a week, month, or even year… but at some point. Life (and especially our industry) is made up of an infinite sequence of tiny, seemingly insignificant events, that all connect like a child’s dot-to-dot puzzle to lead us to the “big” life changing moments.

Will Smith shares a story here to that effect, on how he became The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.