I’m a big Yankees fan. This has been a rough couple of days. After getting swept in Fenway Park the team traveled to Tampa to face the D-Rays, where they promptly dropped the first game by a score of 10-8.
The Bombers have put up at least six runs in each of the last four games, and yet they’ve lost each time (A-Rod has now tied the record for April homers with 14. The guy’s beyond being “on fire,” he positively radioactive!). So why all the marks in the loss column? Pitching. You can’t win if the other team scores more runs than you. It’s that simple.
“Yo Matt,” I can hear you groan, “what the heck does this have to do with acting?”
Well, c’mon, isn’t it obvious?
Ask ten people that have at least a kernel of knowledge regarding the acting industry what is the number one skill you must have to succeed professionally, and you’ll get eleven different answers. A great agent, awesome headshots, a killer monologue, outstanding training credentials, a long list of influential connections, extensive and fashionable wardrobe, union membership, a deal-making manager, drop-dead gorgeousness, top-drawer talent, unusually effective schmoozing ability, lucrative and flexible survival job, considerable trust fund, smoldering intensity and sexuality, well-toned body, constant training, sheer dumb luck, yadda yadda yadda.
Herein lies the error, and it’s made by rookie and veteran alike:
Rookie– if I can just perfect this one thing (pick any from above list), I’ll “make it…”
Veteran– that one thing (pick any from list above) worked out really well for me that one time. If I can just figure out how to do that every time…
So just to be perfectly clear, I am comparing your career to a baseball team. If you are naturally charming and audition well (hitting), but don’t have the acting chops to stay competitive when the selection pool gets whittled down for the callback (pitching), you’re not going to book the job. You have to be good at both.
All of the individual components have to be functional at a strong, competitive level if you seriously expect to book work regularly. This is precisely why a successful acting career, which I define simply as making a living exclusively from acting work, is such a tough proposition. Not many folks can put it all together.
One last baseball analogy on this topic, just for fun.
Baseball scouts traditionally evaluate position players (non-pitchers) according to five different categories. These have come to be known as “tools.” They are the ability to hit for average, the ability to hit for power, speed, fielding ability, and strength and accuracy of throwing arm. Sometimes you will hear an announcer proclaim that a player has a certain number of these tools, ala, “he’s a three-tool guy.” The more tools a ballplayer posseses, the better he is likely to be.
Were I to define the “tools” in acting career terms, just for giggles, I might do so as follows:
Overall acting ability
Audition ability
Strength of marketing materials
Strength of networking connections
Strength of alliances (agent, manager)
And just as a ballplayer must practice his art daily, let me be quick to point out that proficiency in all of these categories can be achieved via regular practice, with the possible exception of that last tool.