Life isn’t always effortless. I honestly think it’s easier getting out of the Sicilian Mob than off the Bed, Bath & Beyond email list.And the pursuit of acting is a real grind. It’s neither fast nor furious. You’re going to eat a lot of shit. You’re going to get punched in the throat with rejection. You’ll be so poor you’ll feel like you’ll never get to eat in a restaurant that doesn’t have a TV in it.
And that’s why you really gotta love the game.
Every actor dreams of what must be the thrill of life as an A-list celebrity. But when Brad Pitt decides to say yes to a role, he doesn't feel a rush. In fact, in an interview this week, Brad said he’s going to retire from acting in three years. He’s done everything there is to do in this business and the thrill is gone. Meanwhile, there’s no bigger rush than the one an aspiring actor gets when his agent calls and tells him he booked a role.
I don’t blame Brad Pitt. Keep in mind that when you’re doing a movie, you’re doing a page a day. It’s piecemeal work. Think about what actors do for 16 hours a day, especially if they’ve been a celebrity for a long time. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re living exciting lives. It doesn’t mean they’re constantly adding to their repertoire of knowledge. Imagine Brad Pitt sitting on a set all day and having a director say, “Can you stand over here and you’re gonna have the gun here but we gotta spritz your arm because you’re sweating in this position, now just hold that there because we gotta work that light.” And he’s doing that all day and he’s done that for 20 years, and by the way he’s treated like he’s royalty for being good at doing make believe, so now he’s got a warped sense of reality.
So quite possibly for the aspiring types, these are the best days. The struggle. The lows that make the highs so high your heart pounds. The tight friendships you make with so many fellow actors because you’re all in this together. And the obstacles that help you realize how much you really want it. A few weeks ago, I was all the way down in Irvine and needed to get to Hollywood for a casting workshop during rush hour. It took me three hours to get there and I wanted the 5 Freeway murdered. I’ll bet no actor in the history of workshops has ever driven that long to get to one. But when I arrived, I relaxed and did my scene and the casting director smiled and really liked it. And all the shitty stress just evaporated away. I’ll miss that feeling someday.
You gotta love the game. Enjoy your classes and improving your skills exponentially every week. Know that while you’ll come up short in auditions most of the time, you’ll learn from each one and have fun getting to live the life of a different character every day. Sometimes the journey is better than the destination. In the meantime, let’s turn it up to 11.
