Profiles in courage

I’ve just this week learned that one of my friends is about to live the dream—he is earning enough income from his acting work to live exclusively on it, and as a result he is able to leave his survival job. It’s a major accomplishment. Remember that I define success as precisely the ability to earn a living just from your acting income. Anything beyond that is gravy!

I’ve known this man a long time. He is gorgeous and incredibly talented (we have studied together extensively so I am very familiar with his abilities as an actor). However, he has been in New York for a long time—nearly a decade—and has only arrived at this exciting threshold through hard work, on-going investments in his career, and an admirable dedication to the long-term view.

I stress this because lately I have been inundated with a frustratingly high number of meetings or phone conversations with persons looking for shortcuts to success. These are people that want to spend a few hundred dollars and about a dozen hours and have something major come from this minimal effort—a role on television, or in film, or a contract with an agent or several agents.

These are folks that take themselves very seriously, which can be a good thing, but they don’t take the industry seriously, and that is deadly. You should believe in yourself. You should feel quite strongly that you deserve to be a working actor, because you do. You should be hungry and you should be seeking out every possible edge and advantage. But you also must take the industry seriously. You need to understand how it works and why and then make smart choices to improve your chances and move your career closer to where you ultimately hope to be.

Just believing in something passionately is not enough to bring about the opportunities you seek. You have to act on those passions and beliefs. Talk is cheap. Actions are much louder than words. Only when we are actively engaged with the industry, really doing things on a daily basis, can we begin to make real progress.

I am excited for my friend. He’s worked hard for a long time and now his acting and his business savvy are strong enough to support him. I know that the extra time he will have will be re-invested back into his career. I know that he will continue to challenge himself to improve, just as he has done all along. I am excited for him and also for myself and anyone else that conducts the development of their career by respecting not just their own abilities but also the realities of the industry.

On a similar note I have some additional news for you this week.  I’ll be going out-of-town to originate a role in a new play being produced at a major regional theatre in Florida.  Working on new plays is what I love most about the theatre and I am very excited for this “gig.”  Unfortunately, however, the nature of the job will most likely prevent me from making my regular updates here at EB.  I therefore leave you in the very capable hands of my guest writers, who will introduce themselves in short order.

And don’t worry, true believers– you haven’t heard the last of me!