Once more cnn.com comes through with an interesting article that I feel contains an important lesson for we actors. The link is here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/19/film.paulhaggis.ap/index.html
Paul Haggis, if you don’t know, is a screenwriter and director. The article talks about how he struggled for years on television projects of limited artistic appeal such as “Walker: Texas Ranger” and “thirtysomething.” During this time he churned out spec scripts for motion pictures that nobody wanted to touch. Haggis says of these scripts, “I was trying to do stories I thought people would want to make into movies. I was writing suspense thrillers, trying to do things I thought I could sell.”
But nothing happened. He continues, “Finally, I got so fed up and got so frustrated, I thought, I’m just going to write things I feel passionately about. I know they won’t ever sell. I know they won’t ever get made.”
And what were these stories about which Haggis was passionate but also positive would never be turned into anything?
Crash
Million Dollar Baby
Letters From Iwo Jima
Valley of Elah (about to come out, starring Tommy Lee Jones)
That’s three straight Oscar nominations for screenplay, and “Valley of Elah” could very well make a fourth.
I see actors all the time– and I have made this mistake myself– who instead of focusing on their own unique voice and how it might fit into the industry instead try to transform themselves into what they think will be a marketable package. They chase after the money. They try to anticipate what a producer will want, and then they try to make themselves into that something without first asking if they even fit that mold. They see successful actors and try to copy those actors, even if they have little in common with those actors.
I understand the line of thinking that creates these kinds of errors. This is a business and we’re all under a great deal of pressure to book jobs. I will be the first to insist to you the importance of studying current trends in the industry, anticipating future trends, and knowing as much as possible about working actors that are similar to you. But this is also an art, and when we neglect the art for the sake of the business it’s just as damaging and destructive as when we neglect the business for the sake of the art. We have to be excellent at both simultaneously and for a significant and sustained period of time.
It’s a tall order, and it often takes us a while to put all the pieces together. But as Paul Haggis demonstrates, if we challenge ourselves to be great at what we do and allow our passion– our unique voice– to dictate our direction, then the sky is quite literally the limit!