Sheasby 7/9/26 Sheasby 7/9/26

How to un-stuck your career

Firstly

Acknowledge the season that you’re actually in

How?

Listen to the change your body yearning for

Expansion vs simplification

Volume of work vs quality of work

How much time and effort are you actually wanting to put into acting or auditioning right now?

(No point pretending you want to go all in and apply 20 hours a week when your body is exhausted and you only actually want to invest 2 - again, the point is that we build a career which feels great rather than looks good but feels heavy)

How much are you wanting to earn from acting over the next 2-3 years?

For example, if you want to earn an average of 6 figures ($100k+) per year and want to do that from 50 days of acting a year, and want to allocate 4 hours a week for auditioning - that gives us some very clear parameters which will help inspire the most appropriate strategies to implement

Once we have truly acknowledged what it is we want & the direction we want to go…

We get to start solving our most important problems

(side note - if you feel unclear about what you want, just acknowledge what you hate about acting and where you definitely don’t want to end up!)

Those most important problems are likely going to fall in one of three categories

Problems which cause meaningless work

Problems which cause scarcity

Problems which cause exhaustion

How do we solve?

1) Meaning will come from our the ability to deliver great work

2) Abundance will come from our ability to attract flowing opportunities

3) Sustainability will come from our ability to align ourselves as an artist

So what do we do?

Build & implement strategies

From a place of trust

Which solve those problems

Resulting in dream outcomes

Hope this helps

Sheasby 31/8/26 Sheasby 31/8/26

START DATING CASTING DIRECTORS

For professional actors

Theres a real turning point which occurs when they finally accept that no job is coming to save them

Because they stop trying to control how casting directors see them

(Lets use Australia as an example)

There are 80+ casting directors - And If we apply Pareto principle that means - roughly speaking - 16 of them are casting 80% of the professional work

So we want to start dating those 16 casting directors

Why do I use the word “date”

Because we all know how fucking exhausting it is when you go on a date and the other person tries to control how you see them - Presenting a fake image of who they are rather than letting us see who they actually are so we can figure out if there’s an aligned match

So instead of desperately trying to please all 16

We want to go on vulnerable dates

Now, If you’re noticing that you still feel pressure around casting directors

It’s likely because you are struggling to accept that which you cannot control

This is a really important point

The parts of yourself that you’re most wanting to hide from the industry…

Are the parts that are most likely going to result in better work

So Stop being selfish

Casting directors are not gatekeepers

They need actors more than any one else

Their jobs puts them in an incredibly vulnerable position

And, just like you, they want to contribute to great stories to society

So give them the opportunity to see the real you

And yes, sometimes that means sacrificing short terms results for the long term relationship

Stop trying to “book a role” or “book a room”

Instead

Do the real generous thing as professional artist

Go on vulnerable dates with casting directors

If you do that

You’ll find your matches

Better to have 2 or 3 healthy vulnerable relationships

Than 16 exhaustively fake ones

Hope this helps

Sheasby 25/8/26 Sheasby 25/8/26

STOP TRYING TO BE INTERESTING

Rebels are just as boring as sheep

Why?

Predictable.

The problem with trying to make interesting choices, stand out from the crowd, come across as dangerous, etc

Is you don’t get to decide if you’re interesting

The audience does

Therefore you are chasing a result which is out of your control, which means you’re giving away your power as an artist

So you’ve lost from the start

Amateurs game

(A reminder here that there is a whole group of people out there who adamantly argue that heath was terrible as the joker.)

Professional actors who understand that no job is coming to save them…

They take their power back by doing what is truly interesting…

Being present.

There’s a reason why there are so many cliche stories about Oscar winners being upstaged by a bird that landed on the stage in Central Park

Or a mouse that ran a cross the stage on the west end

Or a moth that landed on their shoulder on set…

Animals are present

And present equals aliveness

(the opposite of predictable)

Stop trying to control how people see you

Build a system that prioritises presence above everything else

It makes better art

And its sustainable

Hope this helps

Sheasby 19/8/26 Sheasby 19/8/26

STUCK IN YOUR CHAPTER

Professional actors who have finally accepted that no job is coming to save them

Get to start doing the real work in helping themselves step into their next chapter

This requires some ugly honesty

(Sometimes we don’t always like what we see in the mirror)

Mother Nature will always win

So it’s better to be on her side rather than against her

Pay attention to what change your body is yearning for

(All of the following are going to be on a spectrum)

Are you yearning for career expansion

Or career simplification?

Are you yearning for work to be evergreen (consistent year round)

Or seasonal (on and then recover)?

Are you yearning for more volume of work

Or better quality of work?

Are you wanting to give everything to auditions?

Or are you wanting auditions to be so streamlined that you hardly have to think about them?

One point I need to make clear…

You can have everything you want

Just not at the same time

So be honest about what your priority is for right now

Abundance: flowing opportunities

Meaning: contributing great art to the tribe

Sustainability: being aligned as an artist

This usually brings up a feeling of grief - admitting what you’re probably needing to let go of for now o that you can really take care of what youre needing to solve most in this chapter

Remember

Decisiveness equals freedom

Making a decision as to which one you’re most ready for next will determine the strategy we can then use to break through to that next chapter

Hope this helps

Sheasby 19/8/26 Sheasby 19/8/26

STOP PLAYING BY DUMB RULES

Everyone in our industry is playing by imaginary rules

But the godmother of acting

Eleonora Duse

The young Italian actress who inspired Stanislavsky to make his System

Famously said “every actor has to find their own way”

So for professional actors who have accepted that no job is coming to save them

They get to start finding their own way

And how we can do that

Is to start playing by their own rules

What do I mean by rules?

There are facts, there is faith, and somewhere in-between those two

Are belief systems

Otherwise known as BS

I’ve frustratingly spent thousands of hours over the last decade helping professional actors dismantle dumb BS installed by lazy teachers

Three examples that I think do the most damage.

ONE

“This industry is competitive - You have to compete with other actors”.

Dumb rule. What would your career look like if you believed there was no such thing as competition? How would you show up on set, at auditions, in meetings? how would you start to behave as an artist?

TWO

“You have to suffer in order to make great art”.

Dumb & dangerous rule. I have been working with an actress for two years now who in that time went from 2 small guesties to recently leading a big budget feature film. We were having a chat in the sun yesterday and she said to me “Mike I had no idea it was allowed to be this easy and fun, I almost feel guilty”. Great! Her body is starting to play by new rules!

THREE

“If you’re an artist, you will be poor”.

Dumb rule!!! Met an incredible actor, not super famous, but just seemed so free from weight or concerns. He told me that his father use to tell him as a child “there is nothing but money in art”. My god - imagine what acting would look like if I started playing by that rule!?

Now, how do you know which rules you want to start installing?

Simple

Which ones give you goosebumps?

I remember One of Australia’s most successful actors telling me “why would I learn lines unless I was getting paid to do so?” and that lit me In fire. so I thought…mmmmm I’ll steal that. Suddenly I stopped hating auditioning so much because I wasn’t spending days learning lines instead of enjoying my damn life. Which of course resulted in way more work.

Point Is - Throw bricks at dumb rules x

Hope this helps

Sheasby 3/8/26 Sheasby 3/8/26

STOP GOING TO ACTING CLASS

Why do professional actors stop going to class?

Because the majority of acting classes focus on the minority of skills actually required for working professionally on set

The goal here is to develop smart skills

skills that are useful and in line with the kind of work we dream of contributing.

Three things getting in the way that

One. Stop Solving stupid problems.

Just because we’re working hard doesn’t mean we’re getting better at acting. So we need to figure out what are the most important problems we need to be solving. How. Firstly what form & style of acting makes your body feel most alive? And secondly, clearly identify the skills that are absolutely necessary in order to give that kind of work.

Then - and this leads us to our second problem - Stop listening to bad advice from de-energising people.

ask yourself, who is the best person to help me develop these skills required? Look at their proof - What have they done, who have they helped - that lets you know they are the best person to help you, for now. Remember, advice which makes your body feel clenched or exhausted, is the best kind of advice to ignore!!

And thirdly - stop overwhelming yourself by trying to be a good little actor.

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. In an ocean of techniques, there are going to be a small minority which are going to work for you for now in the majority of circumstances. These are the ones you want to become great at first. No one gives a flying fuck about your animal work if you can’t breathe as yourself in front of the lens. Amateurs try do lots, pros do less, thats why they do it better.

What’s my point?

There’s nothing to celebrate about working hard. anyone can show up.

But If you’re able to make intelligent adaptive progress at building meaningful skills…

Everything in your career will become easier.

Hope this helps

Sheasby 27/7/26 Sheasby 27/7/26

STOP WORKING AGAINST YOURSELF

Professional actors

Who finally realise that no job is coming to save them

Get to start doing the real work…

Mother Nature will always win

Better to be on her side rather than working against her

One of the most common reasons I see for burn out amongst professional actors

Is because they keep working against themselves.

One of the smartest coaches I know, told me

“Mike, the easiest energy is yours”

So the dream outcome here is that we build a career that’s aligned with our energy

Three main problems getting in the way

ONE

Ignoring your bodies signals.

Start letting the body lead.

How?

I grew up in Southern Africa

Where the lion trackers had an expression

“I have no idea where I’m going, but I know how I’m going to get there, by following the tracks in front of me”.

(In this case, the tracks are the signals our body is sending us)

Give up on results and start listening to makes what your body feel alive

Notice the patterns of when your body feels energised vs de-energised

People, place, work, activities

Then build a week where the majority of your time

Is filled with the things that make your body feel expansive!

TWO

You’re in the wrong season.

Pay attention to the weather!

Ask yourself, what works for me, for now?

Are you currently wanting to expand or simplify?

Are you wanting acting work to be evergreen (consistent all year) or seasonal (flow & recover)?

Is it more important that you have high volume of work or high quality of work?

Are you wanting to give auditions everything you have?

Or have them so streamlined that you don’t even have to think about them?

And if you zoom out… Out of the following three things, what is your actual priority:

Abundance: Flowing opportunities
Sustainability: Being aligned as an artist
Meaning: Contributing great work

(PS - Id love to know the answers to these questions so feel free to send through)

All of those questions will steer you in a direction of what you body is desiring

Which tells you what season you’re actually in:

One of Intense growth

Balanced growth

Or simply cruise control

This then allows us to build a strategy around what actually works for you, for now

So you can start aligning the results you desire, with a plan that actually makes sense!

THREE

Irresponsible Attention

Take responsibility for what your eyes, mind & body are focussing on

Write down all the things you can control and all the things you can’t

Then identify where you’re giving most of your attention day to day, hour to hour

(Simply looking through the last few weeks of your calendar, bank account & screen time will give you a reality check)

On top of this, notice the stories you’re repeatedly telling yourself

Then ask yourself:

“Who might I become if I was to let go of this story?”

Then convert that into very few, very simple actions

BONUS

One last thing

“I can have anything I want”

Yes… but this comes with a sacrifice

Here’s your choices

Do you want to do one thing incredibly well?

Three things at 80%?

Or ten things at 30%?

You choose

Point is

You can have anything you want

Just not at the same time

Remember

Decisiveness creates freedom

Decide what you want most for now

And what sacrifices that will require

Some things will have to be let go of for now

And somethings will have to go on cruise control for now.

Alright let’s wrap this up

For professional actors

A meaningful, abundant and sustainable artistic career isn’t built with a clenched jaw

It’s built when you start letting your body lead

Mother Nature will always win

Better to be on her side rather than working against her

Hope this helps

Sheasby 21/7/26 Sheasby 21/7/26

STOP RIDING THE CONFIDENCE ROLLER COASTER

Confidence

Probably the word that gets murdered the most by the industry

This idea that you SHOULD be confident

And that we can somehow force ourselves into feeling confident

(Don’t know about you but I’ve never had sustainable results from going against my body)

So If you’re a professional actor and you’ve realised that no job is coming to save you

Then stop riding the confidence roller coaster

Super charged one week

Utterly lost & second guessing everything the next

“Confidence” comes form the Latin word “confidere”

Which translated means “to trust oneself fully” - beautiful

Three things we need to pay attention to here

Performance trust
Self trust
Pressure & Acceptance

For performance trust we want two things - skills and evidence. Or at the very least, we want to be clear about the skills and evidence that we need to see in order to feel confident. Remember - A clear plan can be just as trust-inducing as the skills/evidence themselves!

Secondly. For self trust - nothing kills confidence more than expectations. Write down the expectations (real or imaginary) that you think others are placing on you. And that you are placing on yourself. Then say goodbye to every single one of them. (If you’ve been a professional for a while - might be some beautiful grieving here)

Thirdly. Pressure only exists when we are not accepting that which we cannot control. So write down all the things you are struggling to accept. Write down that which you keep resisting. And admit to yourself what you keep fighting to accept. Then lovingly write down next to each and every one of them: “… And thats okay” (Again - might be some grieving here).

What’s my point?

Confidence is not about pushing yourself with a forced smile

It’s about gently letting your body know it’s okay to trust itself again

Hope this helps

Sheasby 21/7/26 Sheasby 21/7/26

STOP EXHAUSTIVELY AUDITIONING

The next job isn’t coming to save you

So stop auditioning exhaustively.

You’ve trained

You’ve worked

You’ve kept going

But

The thought of opening up your email

And seeing another audition waiting for you to submit

Makes your body want to drop to it’s knees.

You got into acting for the love of the craft

To play with people you love in front of the lens or on stage

And these days it feels like the job has become auditioning

I heard that a lot when I graduated from drama school

“Auditioning is your job”

Okay

Then my job fucking sucks

I invest time, money and energy into something that I get nothing in return for

No pay

No feedback

Your art goes into an abyss

And you’re expected to suck it up and move onto the next one

No wonder there are so many jaded professional actors

At this rate

The end is in sight

Years, decades of work

Have resulted in exhaustion & resentment

Might just be time to throw in the towel

Alright

Let’s stop

Sit down

And do this your way

Here are three ways to stop exhaustively auditioning

ONE: ALLOCATE TIME (THEN MOVE THE FUCK ON)

The industry will try convince you to always be available

That’s a bloody great way to have a boring and frustrating life

There are very few things in life to make yourself to always be available to

Acting is not one of them

So how do we stop auditions from conflicting with our holidays, art, finances, family or health?

Well

How often do you audition?

Once a month? Fortnight? Week?

And when it comes through, what happens to your body?

You feel the urge to speed up? The anxiety to quickly get it done?

What about what happens to your schedule?

Feel like you have to move a whole bunch of things?

Cancel with friends?

Get released from a paying side job?

Yeah let’s stop that

Open up your schedule

Find one or two blocks of time in your week

For example: Tuesday 10:00-12:00 & Friday 14:00-16:00

Block it out

And that’s it.

For me?

Friday mornings 8:00-12:00 is my time for auditions

Thats it

Outside of those hours

I’m living my damn life

Hang on, what if an audition comes through for a TUESDAY and I only have time allocated for FRIDAY!??!

Oh Golly!!!!

Again, let’s slow down here

“Hey (agents name)

Thanks for sending through.

Looking forward to putting this down.

I can get this through by closing Friday.

x”

Extensions happen all the time in life

And what kind of acting job is it going to be

If they’re going to sink millions into It

Then rush the casting in just a few days???

Casting directors want the best work

Not the rushed work

Work where actors are in their fucking element

Not stressed and scrambling to get something sent through ASAP

Allocate your time for auditioning

Schedule your time for art

Protect that time like your career depends on it (because it absolutely does)

Then move the fuck on and live a dope life

TWO: DECREASE PREP TIME

Most actors would do a much better job

If they decreased the amount of prep time

(Or at least - Gave it only as much time to keep their body energised)

Parkinson's Law: the work expands to fill whatever time you give it.

Allocate 16 hours for prep?

It will take 16 hours

Allocate 2 hours for prep?

It will take 2 hours

I really struggled financially as an actor when I gave 4 full days of prep for one tape

Because I had to cancel everything else.

And eventually even replying to an audition notification became an emotional hurdle

Because I knew it came with pain, and resentment

Everything began to flow when I realised

One x 20 min prep session + One hour session with a coach

Was more than 80% of the work

Suddenly it became sustainable

If was really being anal?

5 minutes of lines just before falling asleep + 5 minutes right after waking up so the lines could soak into my subconscious

Chefs kiss

Every working actor knows

More prep does not equal better work

It’s not about how much time you give

It’s about the quality of the work done in the allocated time

If the idea of working on an audition feels exhausting for your body, it’s time for change

Remember

Two vital questions when it comes to your prep:

What would this look like if it was fun for me?

What would this look like if it was easy for me?

An actor who’s energised by the process

Is an actor who can keep going for decades

And that makes a bloody dangerous artist in the long run

THREE: STOP LEARNING LINES

Sorry?

Yep, you heard me

Sinking work into something and not getting anything In return?

What a great way to become exhausted and resentful

Which is exactly where I was.

Back in the old days

(Yes I’m that old now)

First round auditions were in the room

And it was kind of expected we had the lines down

These days?

Even call backs can be done via self tape

Which means you get to throw bricks at the ways things “should” be done

For example

Once upon a time

I was hanging out in LA

(I did this a lot from 2010-2019)

Helping an actor with a call back he had coming up with an Oscar winning director

He seemed like he was learning them for the first time

Which confused me

How come you don’t know your lines if it’s a call back?

Shouldn’t you have learnt them for the first audition?

(Side note - he was getting paid for the callback)

He looked at me with complete conviction

“Mike, why would I ever learn lines if I’m not getting paid to do it?”

Talk about knowing his worth

He booked the role

And has become one of Australia’s most successful and in demand artists in the last decade

(He usually steals the scene in everything he’s in).

But that day broke my beliefs about how things should be done

That there are some imaginary rules im playing by which don’t necessarily exist

And I haven’t learnt a line of dialogue (unless I’m getting paid to) since then (And I’ve booked way more work in the 5 years post that decision than in the 5 years previous)

Sure

There were some fumbling experiments

iPads falling over on wonky stands

Batteries dying half way through takes

Even one time asking a casting director to hold up a large piece of cardboard (she was so unimpressed - But I booked that job!)

Point being

You get to do things your way

You get to focus on doing the work you love

And let go of the work you find exhausting

Stop learning your lines

Permission to build a taping process which works for you, for now

Alive & free = sustainable

Sustainable = consistent

And consistency commands respect

BONUS TIP: SAY NO TO AUDITIONING

There are moments

Where your body won’t be able to take any more auditions

And that’s the perfect time to do one of two things

One: do the tape 100% your way, with no compromise

Or two: Give up in a healthy way

There have been several occasions over the last two decades

Where I have watched myself cry in a car

One too many times.

And putting my hand up

To tell my agent where I’m honestly at

And that I’m needing a little break from auditing for a few weeks or months

Has been, without a doubt, the best thing for my career at that time.

2 years ago, I took time off from auditions

My god I needed it

Not a single morning did I wake up with anxiety about getting an audition

And after three months

After enjoying my life again

I was chomping at the bit to play my way

Remember

No agents, casting, producers or directors win

When professional actors are pushing forceful work through the screen

The goal is healthy free flowing self expression

So protect that

At all costs

(The future of story telling depends on it)

Alright

Hope this helps some professional actors

Move from their knees to their feet

Build a life

And make great art

Sheasby 21/7/26 Sheasby 21/7/26

WHAT I HATE ABOUT ACTING

Nothing is more powerful

Than an actor who has admitted what they truly want

And the easiest way to do that

Is by admitting what you hate

Here are three things I hated about acting

For a long, long time

I hated acting when it felt meaningless

I hated acting when I felt poor

And I hated acting when I felt stuck from releasing my self expression when the stakes were highest

So what did I really want as an actor?

I wanted acting to feel meaningful, wealthy and free flowing

Clear

So let’s help professional actors

Build meaningful, wealthy & free flowing careers

There are three core pillars we want to focus on

ONE: ALIGNED YOU

The aligned version of you

Your externals aligned with your internals

Nothing more exhausting than trying to build a career and make decisions from a place of SHOULD

The industry says:

“Figure out who you should be, then become that”

Yuck

Lets do something else instead

Notice what makes your body feel alive and follow that, without knowing where it will take you

(What an honest adventure)

I remember a wonderful mentor of mine telling me

“Mike, the easiest energy, is yours”

So let’s get aligned

Three key areas

A) Energy - Are you working with your energy, or against it? Are you working with your personality? With your strengths? And are you aligned with the season that you’re actually in, rather than pretending you’re somewhere other than where you are?

B) Confidence - Not the pop psych version (whispering affirmations in the mirror). “Confidence” comes from the Latin word “confidere” which translates to “to trust oneself fully”. Yum. Two key areas of trust we want to examine here. Performance trust (skills & evidence) & Self confidence (Accepting & believing). And remember, nothings kills confidence faster than expectations.

C) Rules - Right now there are a whole bunch of imaginary rules you’re playing by as an actor. Some might work for you, some might not. One of my favourite things to do with professional artists, is to get curious about the rules that they are unconsciously playing by which don’t actually work for them or their body, helping them pick up a brick, and then throwing it at the fuckin thing. Then replacing it with better ones - ones which work for who they are and how they truly want to do things.

TWO: SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS

There are systems that work (terrible idea)

There are systems that work for you (better idea)

There are systems that work for you for now (best idea)

If your systems and process for your craft feel heavy, pushy, or stuck

They aren't sustainable

And what we want

Are sustainable systems

So you can have fun and be useful as an artist for decades to come

So lets look at three key areas

A) Skills - Are you being a good little actor and doing the work you should? Or are you making intelligent adaptive progress by using what works for you for now? The goal is not pushy pretty perfect work. The goal is free flowing self expression. So what do we need to do, or not do, in order to get there?

B) Auditions - Why the fuck would you keep auditioning if you hate it so much? Let’s look at all the little details that make auditioning exhausting, and go throw them in the bin. An actor who loves the process of auditioning will keep going. I was helping one of Australia’s most successful actors with a call back he had with an Oscar winning director the next day. He was learning his lines for the first time as he was getting paid to go for the call back. “Wait, you didn’t learn your lines for the first round of auditions?” I asked him. “Mike, why would I ever learn lines if I wasn’t getting paid to do that, I can’t bear learning lines”. I have never learned lines if I wasn’t getting paid to since. Talk about throwing a brick!

C) Joyful Jobs - Why the hell do all that work, make all the sacrifices for so many years, to then not enjoy the job itself? We want to love the work, find our people on set, piss ourselves laughing and find wonderful play in making art together. For so many years, being on set felt like being constipated on the toilet. Then one day, I was shooting a three hander scene in New Zealand with Himesh Patel & Eve Hewson. We couldn’t get through a single take without the sheep bleeding in the background. No one had dry eyes for the entire filming of that scene. But when the goal shifts from extrinsic (oscars, red carpets) to intrinsic (play) we start to fly as artists. And an artist who’s having fun playing, is a bloody dangerous artist.

THREE: ENERGISING RELATIONSHIPS

Who are we spending our days with on this journey?

We are all going to die in the decades to come

So may as well do this thing with people our bodies resonate with

Three key groups of people we want to take a look at here:

A) Colleagues - the readers, studios, fellow actors we surround ourselves with. Why would you keep showing up to tape if you don’t like who youre doing it with or how you’re doing it. Motion in the ocean, baby! Let’s find people we love playing with.

B) Growth - The mentors, coaches, teachers, examples we are looking toward for help & guidance. I see the majority of actors listening to advice they hate from people their body feels heavy around. A crucial part of our career is growth, and whose advice we take is drastically important when it comes to sustainability. Why keep going if you keep pushing in a direction that doesn’t work for you, just because some teacher who’s never done the kind of work you want to be doing told you “If you wanna be an actor, you have to suffer”.

C) Gatekeepers - Yup. Agents & casting directors get these labels thrown on to them. Believe me, no one wants you to win more than casting directors and agents. Let’s put these two relationships under the microscope and start working WITH our colleagues, not FOR them. We are all on the same side, trying to tell meaningful stories to help society breathe a little easier when the sun goes down.

There you go!

Three core pillars | Nine key areas

My advice?

Get three coloured pens

Red, Orange and Green

Look at those nine areas and mark each one with the colour that you feels accurate to where it’s at:

Green - Healthy & expansive

Orange - Isn’t really moving anywhere

Red - Exhausting & heavy

Then out of the ones you mark with a Red pen

Ask yourself

Which one is most important for me to work on over the next 6 weeks? To help me build a meaningful, wealthy & free flowing career?

(PS - email me that area and ill try make my next article on solving that one for you!)

God I love actors

And love seeing them do meaningful work

I love seeing them wealthy

And I love seeing their free flowing self expression

Alright

If this has been helpful & you’d like some help implementing the plan to transform your career, either email me back or just find me on insta (@actorsblueprint) and DM me with the word “BLUE”

Love

Sheasby

Sheasby 15/6/26 Sheasby 15/6/26

RUTHLESS ADVICE TO TRANSFORM YOUR CAREER

No one is coming to save you

Especially your agent

Stop searching for others to give you the right answers by asking shitty questions

If you keep asking everyone: “What should I do?”

You’ll get shallow answers

Instead

Ask two questions deeply

“Who am I?”

And

“What do I truly want?”

And listen gently to what comes.

Then find the people who’ll guide you in THAT direction

Remember

No HOW will work sustainably

If the WHY is not clear

Remember the main outcome:

Free flowing self expression

NOT

Pushed, forceful results.

You win as an actor when you have a sustainable system

Which allows you to play freely on cue

So build that with people your body likes hanging out with

Make your personal life bigger than acting could ever be

Then you’ll be a human who’s full of life.

Casting directors want humans in front of the lens

Not actors who are desperate to get results

Therefore

Living your life fully is win win for everyone

Make “giving up” a part of your acting cycle

Improve your skills

Give your work

Then REST

I know so many actors who threw in the towel permanently

Because they didn’t give themselves permission to give up in healthy ways

Just for a day, or week, or month, or even a year

Your cup for acting will be influenced by how full your cup is in other areas of your life

Actors love to show emotions

Humans generally do everything they can to hide their emotions

If you’re a screen actor

Your job is to be a human in front of the lens

And that means doing everything you can

To hide whatever pains, shame, wounds, insecurities you have from the person opposite you

If your starting place is “show the people around me that I’m totally fine and okay”

The script will usually take care of the rest

Be generous to directors by knowing what the point of the scene is

Look at the last beat of the scene

It will tell you why you’re about to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars filming it

Get clear on what’s important at the end of the scene

Articulate it as simply as you can

Example: “There is a spark between Romeo & Juliet”

Then simply play the opposite at the start

This means there will always be a change in the scene

And no scene stays on screen without change

A client who was leading a feature film last year told me:

80% of acting is mindset

I agree

But what’s important here is:

80% of mindset is surrender

Accept the things you cannot control

Remember one of the great laws of quantum physics

The element with the most amount of flexibility controls the system

Supple actors are stronger than brittle ones

Hope this helps

Sheasby 4/6/26 Sheasby 4/6/26

RUTHLESS ADVICE ON CONFIDENCE

“Hey Sheasby. I’m overseas about to start my first lead role in a television series. I’ve done plenty of work before but this does feel like a big step up for me. I’ve noticed that I’ve been struggling to sleep, first day of filming is coming up and I can’t seem to switch my brain or body off when I’m going to bed… I don’t know if you’ve experienced this before and if you have any tricks up your sleeve? I’m just worried over the next couple of weeks if I’m not having enough sleep I will drive myself into a hole.” - Roger (Name changed for privacy)

Roger

Love this

Thank you for sending this question in

Firstly I just want to celebrate you noticing the dissonance and putting your hand up

Sustainable change starts with awareness

So the fact that you’re noticing you’re losing sleep

Noticing thoughts around what might happen if you continue to lost more sleep

And then taking action by reaching out

Phenomenal stuff

Half the work is already done :)

What to do from here!

Firstly

In 21 years since turning professional

I have never

I repeat

Never

Had a relaxed first day on set

So the fact that you’re noticing worry creep in

Before you have your first experience with your new tribe of play mates

Yeah that’s totally normal

“First day jitters”

Is a very common experience

And I love when actors (even very experienced ones) own it

By walking around making “it’s my first day” jokes

Seems to me

The more experienced the actor

The more willing they are to give themselves permission to be where they are.

But that’s just some niceties

Lets get real

You need sleep

And not just some nice advice to help you accept where you are on your first day

You want a sustainable approach to get you through the marathon of this first leading role.

Roger

It sounds like the pressure is building for you

You need some confidence

So let’s give it to ya!

As my wonderful coach, Angie, taught me

The word “Confidence”

Comes from Latin

And translates to:

“To trust oneself fully”

What a gorgeous concept

But

We have two types of trust at play here

One

Performance Trust

Do you have the skills?

Have you done enough prep?

Is there enough evidence that tells you you can trust the work you have to give?

This is where directors, other actors, and your coaches, mentors can play a huge role

They provide reference points for us to get a gauge on reality

So this is where I step in

Roger

I have seen your prep

I have seen the way you’ve developed your skills over the last 2 years

I have seen the roles grow in size and professionalism for you

I promise you, Rogde

You’ll be one of the most prepared people on that set

You can absolutely trust that all the work that has gotten you to this point

Will be there for you to give on set when the time comes

Which leads me to trust number two

Self Trust

This is about acceptance

Why is acceptance so important?

Because pressure only exists when we are not accepting things outside of our control

Let’s admit here

All the things we are currently not accepting

It might be particular colleagues who’ve been cast

It might be the way your director communicates

It might be the costume decisions that have been made

It might be the set design

It might be dialogue changes

It might be the accomodation

It might be costume decisions being made

It might be the changes to your exercise and laundry and eating routines now that you’re away from your home base

It might be something someone said

It might be your hairline

It might be things going on at home

It might be the health of your pet

The weather

The trafic

The location of your hotel

The way you look

The way you sound

The changing schedule

Etc

Just admit what you’re not accepting

Write them out

Stare at them written on the page

Now you have one question

Is this IN or OUT of my control?

If it’s within your control

Get curious about what you can do to change it, then take action

If its out of your control

Look at it

Take a deep loving breath

And say outloud

“And that’s okay”

“I’m not accepting that the director doesn’t give me as much attention as the other cast members… and that’s okay”

“I’m not accepting that the whole set design is different to how I imagined it… and that’s okay”

“I’m not accepting that I’m starting to lose my hair… and thats okay”

“I’m not accepting that my cast mate is different to the one I was originally told would be playing the role… and thats okay”

“I’m not accepting the quality of the writing... and thats okay”

Now

We have two technical ways at looking at confidence

Trust in your performance

And

Trust in your self

However

And here’s the things

Confidence is half the battle

No matter how confident you feel going into your work

Beliefs will win the war when the pressure is on

Beliefs

Not faith

Not facts

Beliefs

The imaginary rules we adhere to because we subconsciously think they are real

No amount of confidence will help you

If at the end of the day

You don’t feel you’re enough as a person

Yeah

We are going full mindset stuff here

But the truth is

Most people come to me for confidence in skills and self

When really

It’s beliefs which are keeping them in a cage

Imaginary rules about the way the industry operates

Imaginary rules about how they should behave

Imagery rules about what will happen if they achieve certain things

And most importantly

The expectations artists believe are on their shoulders

Expectations

The killer of confidence

The killer of presence

The ultimate builder of pressure

In 2014 & 2015

I had two gigs

Playing the lead role of Henry V at the Sydney Opera House

And being cast as one of the main 13 roles in Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge

I prepped so bloody hard for both jobs

I had so much confidence in my skills and my self

But the truth was

There were so many imaginary expectations I believed were true

And I folded in both opportunities

Because of the expectations I believed others had of me

I believed that the theatre company expected me to be the best Henry V they’d ever had

I believed the expectation that my parents would be proud of me or love me more if I was good in the film

I believed the expectation that everything would be okay once I started making Hollywood money

I believed the expectation that I would be enough only if I did a good job as an actor and made the audience & industry love me

I believed that when I won an ward everyone would know i’m good enough

You see the pattern

Expectations place an emphasis on results

Which means I stop giving attention to the process

Which results in a lack of presence and a lack of connection

Which means I’m dead as an actor.

On paper they might seem a bit ridiculous

But we are human beings

And we are designed to survive

And sometimes we believe that if we do something in a particular way

The tribe will be happier with us

And therefore we get to stay at the fire another night longer

Instead of being cast out alone in the wilderness to fend for ourselves

So better to work with nature rather than against her

Totally normal and okay to care what others think

But when the ratio flips and we spend more time giving attention to expectations

Rather than focusing on the things which matter most (playing, connecting, breathing)

The work suffers

And our career suffers

Roger

Get curious about what expectations you might be placing on yourself with the new role you’re stepping into.

Now, what’s important about beliefs

Is that they are totally interchangeable tools

And we can sub them in and out for others

It takes a lot of work - Just like doing reps in the gym

It takes a heck of a lot of repetitions to increase the myeline around the particular neurological pathways

To help them flow faster

But one thing is for certain

The brain is plastic

And therefore changeable

So lets sub in some new beliefs that will remove expectations you may have for this new role

Roger

No matter what… you’re enough

Thats it!

The destroyer of all expectations

No matter what happens on this job

You’re enough as you are

You’re enough as a person, you’re loved by those who love you, and you’re safe to play as the glorious actor you are

No matter what… You’re enough

You’re stepping into a new normal, Roger

Leading a big new series

So time to build you’re new normal your way

Trust your performance by continuing your progression with skills, gathering evidence & surrounding yourself with trusted colleagues and coaches

Trust your self by accepting all the things that you can’t control

And make the choice to believe new beliefs that serve you

You’re enough, Roger

No matter what

Sleep well

Hope this helps

Sheasby

PS: I work privately with a handful of dedicated artists each year, so if you’d like to explore working together, feel free to email me at info@actorsblueprint.com.

Or, if you’d prefer to start on your own, my online course has over 3 hours of video tutorials which walk you through how to build your acting career, your way:
www.actorsblueprint.com/course

Sheasby 25/5/26 Sheasby 25/5/26

RAPID HOT TAKES TO HELP YOUR CAREER

ONE

Your greatest weakness is your greatest strength

The thing you want to hide most from the world or the industry

Is usually your super power as an actor

TWO

Be extremely careful about who’s advice you listen to

Advice in the acting industry is unbelievably frivolous

And can be downright dangerous at times

Advice which makes your body feel pushed, heavy, trapped

Is the best advice to ignore

THREE

Get really great at waiting

It’s the lack of sustainability in between jobs which builds resentful actors

So put acting on auto drive whilst you continue to live meaningfully

How?

Carve out one to three blocks of time during your week allocated for taking your profession seriously

And work out a minimum day rate (or hourly rate based off a ten hour filming day) so you know your worth as an actor

This will help prevent you from saying yes to things where there might be underlying resentment

You’re allowed to say “My minimum day rate is...”

You can always negotiate from there to make sure you’re able to give your work sustainably

FOUR

Confidence comes from the Latin word “confidere”

Which means “to fully trust”

And a great way to fast track trusting yourself fully

Is by putting your body in the actual arena

This means looking like a fool and making mistakes

Learning through experience

Rather than avoiding real work because you’re waiting until you’re truly prepared and ready

You’ll die having given a fraction of your potential if you keep waiting for perfect conditions

Remember the pattern in Shakespeare

The kings who don’t accept the fool becomes tyrants and die horrible deaths

So become confident by kindly allowing yourself to look like a fool

FIVE

“Script analysis”

Is a fancy way of saying

“Make the script make sense for you”

SIX

“Actors are only actors with other actors”

No human survives alone

And no actor lives in isolation

Yes - Your career will be determined by your average level of skills on your average day

But also by the quality of human beings you invest your time in

So spend your time with people who make your body feel alive

SEVEN

Skills and people are everything

But they don’t mean anything

Without curiosity

So foster a healthy ability to let your body lead you in the direction it wants to go

What’s currently making your body feel inspired?

Follow that (without apology)

EIGHT

If you’re wanting to throw in the towel with acting

It’s almost always a moment where you simply need a break from it

So get good at giving up at acting.

A day, week, month or even a year away from desperately clawing after results

Can do wonders for your creativity and flow

NINE

There are no rules

But most of us have some damn clear stories going on which we treat like rules

About the way we believe things are

Not facts

Beliefs.

Remember to think of beliefs as replaceable tools we can use

So if there are stories you’re telling yourself about why things aren’t going in the direction you’d like them to

Permission to write them down and curiously replace them others

For example

This morning

I heard a well known painter say

“From the time I was a little boy

My father would say to me

There is nothing but money in art”

TEN

If you have the desire to have children

But feel worried about how kids might impact your acting career:

Being a parent makes you realise what’s worth caring about

And what’s not worth caring about

So the ratio between thinking about doing something

And actually doing it

Flips radically in favour of the latter.

Kids squeeze time

And that forces decisiveness

And decisiveness makes time abundant

I repeat

Decisiveness makes time abundant

ELEVEN

Goals can kill your career

The most energising creativity comes from letting your body lead

Even if you have no idea where you’re going

Keep following those tracks of what makes your body come alive

TWELVE

Grief is one of the most important emotions to build a healthy space for as an actor

Because there is continual loss in an artistic career.

A healthy relationship with grief

Means a healthy ability to bounce back to your baseline

And the healthier your ability to bounce back

The more you get to stay in flow

So respect the bodies process for loss

THIRTEEN

Hot take

Throw away briefs and punctuation for Australian scripts

In this country

The vast majority of audition scripts are early drafts

Written by writers who are being rushed to get something together

Who are scrambling the night before with a glass of wine in hand

So make it your own

No one cares about you getting in right

They care far more

About the moments of human connection you can provide in front of the lens

FOURTEEN

There are approximately 10-15 casting directors in the country who cast 90% of the professional screen work

So building healthy relationships with them is crucial

But remember

They are not “gatekeepers”

They are humans who don’t have secure work too

Understand that we are on the same bloody team

It’s got nothing to do with if you’re good or not

It’s about finding matches

And just like dating

Give the other person an opportunity to see who you really are

Not show off some shiny version of you.

YOU are the most valuable currency you have in this industry

Not who you think or feel you should be

Nothing burns you out more than trying to curate some perfect image

Of who you think you “should” be in order to get work

FIFTEEN

One of the top three reasons you’ll throw in the towel with acting is financial pressure

Remember

No one lives solely off money made from acting every year over the long term

There will be glorious weeks, months and hopefully years

But no consistent decades where money sustainable flows from you being on stage or set

So accept reality as it currently is

Focus instead on helping people solve a problem you genuinely care about solving

Then when money does come from acting

It’ll be a wonderful cherry on top

SIXTEEN

How does an actor win the game of acting?

By having a process which becomes the reward itself

That is as good as it will ever get

A fun process in a sustainable process

And a sustainable process makes you fucking dangerous

As I’m entering my 3rd decade of working in this industry

Im blown away to see who has stuck around

Who is now leading our industry and making beautiful work

Hint - it ain’t the people who create work with clenched jaws

…

Curious as to how these sat with you

Hope this helps

Sheasby 15/5/26 Sheasby 15/5/26

HOW TO PUT ACTING ON AUTO-DRIVE

I use to think I was an absolute boss at managing my time

Turns out I just didn’t have kids yet

I’m frustrated that haven’t written in a while

I’ve been acting in Victoria

Smiling at my new baby son

And helping high performing individuals increase their ability to perform under pressure

The pressure of leading films

The pressure of preparing for shows

The pressure of waiting in between acting jobs

But I miss this weekly ritual enormously

And I heard myself say to a dear friend the other day

With an exhausted tone

“I guess I just don’t have time to try get things perfect anymore”

Ooo

No time for perfection…

Just because I don’t have my dream amount of time to write at the moment

Don’t mean I can’t write

Let’s go

I’ve been noticing a pattern

Professional actors

Who have reached a level of maturity in life

Who know their worth

Trust their skills

Have fabulous work under their belts

(I’m talking actors with incredible film credits

Actors who couldn’t walk down the street in certain cities,

Main stage theatre show regulars,

West End locals,

and in one case almost a thousand episodes of television under their belt!)

But are completely exhausted

They don’t want to put down another self tape

They don’t want to feel poor in-between now and their next job

And they hate that their energy is so drastically dependant on whether they get an audition that week (or month) or not

They want…

No…

Need change

They need some form of autonomy back

They need to live life their way again

Regardless of what they hear back from that last self tape

Regardless if their next gig is in 6 weeks or 6 months from now

Okay

Let’s get clear on our problem

It’s certainly is not skills

It’s not experience

It’s what happening in between the work

When I hear the sentence

“Mike, I’m just sick of acting, I’m feeling so exhausted by it, I don’t see how I can keep going”

I usually interpret that as:

“I love acting so much, but I’m hurting. I don’t have a way to handle the moments in between the work”

Thus

This becomes our next project

Putting acting on auto drive

So you can get on living your life

No matter the chaos that comes

Remember

It’s not the best actor who wins

It’s not the actor who has the most experience, or strongest network, or who’s been doing it the longest

It’s the one who is able to adapt most who flourishes

Flexibility wins

So let’s adapt

Open your weekly schedule

Allocate one to three blocks of time for acting

Thus, giving yourself just enough structure in order to feel free to live again

For example

(and please this is just an example - expand or contract to what suits you)

Monday morning 10:00-12:00

Wednesday evening 19:00 - 21:00

Friday morning 10:00-12:00

Then?

Take those times fucking seriously

I don’t mean take yourself seriously

I mean treat those blocks of time as professionally as possible

Self tape comes through?

No need to panic or rush

You already have your time allocated for your profession

Need time to read that script?

Work with that coach?

Go to class to up-skill?

Reply to those networking emails?

Easy!

The time is already booked aside each week for you to handle it

“But what if it’s urgent and needs to be done immediately!?”

Dear artist

I’ve been doing this professionally for two decades

I have one - ONE - example where my agent called and said

“The director wants to meet you for the role but leaves Sydney tonight”

In that case, I was happy to cancel my arvo and adapt

But that happened once

My point is:

This industry will try convince you to rush

Don’t

If you manage your time professionally

You won’t have to desperately react

You can respond your way from a healthy and professional place

But

If you always make yourself available to exhaustingly react to the industry

You will keep exhaustively reacting to it

Simply not sustainable

Now

Some points of resistance

“I don’t want to spend 2-6 hours a week acting - I just want to be getting paid to act every day”

Alrighty

Let’s approach this as logically as possible

No actor in Australia gets paid to be on set every day for their career over the long term

There will absolutely be periods of weeks, months or even occasionally years where this will be the case

But over decades?

Nope

Some learn right after drama school

Some learn 3 years after leaving drama school

Some learn 14 years after leaving drama school

The VAST majority of this career is waiting

So learning to wait (live) well in-between artistic work is crucial

Another point of resistance

“2-6 hours on acting each week is bullshit! I should be working on the craft of acting all day, each and every day”

Okay

One

No casting director wants an actor who just lives and breaths acting

Who has no life to bring to the lens

Two

Work will expand to fill to the time allocated for it

A self tape will take 45 minutes or 45 days depending on how much time you allocate for it

Three

Amateurs stay amateurs because they try do lots

Pros do less, thats why they do it better

A few focussed hours each week making intelligent adaptive progress with wonderful people supporting you

Is far better than fifty cloudy de-energising hours pretending you’re doing beneficial work just so you can feel like you’re a tortured artist

If I allocate professional time for my art

WTF will I do with the other 30, 40, 50 hours of the week?

Well

You get to do…

Whatever you want

You get to build it your way

I hate the idea:

Of an artist spending their career exhaustively trying to make it to the next pay day

Rocking up to give their work from a place of desperation and strain

I love the idea:

Of an artist living for a living

Allocate a few times in the week to give your art as professionally and playfully as you can

Treat that time with respect, compassion and care

Share that time with great people

And outside of that time

Aw shucks

You know…

Live

Have relationships

Join a soup kitchen

Build families

Walk in nature

Celebrate the joys

Grieve the losses

Thank the bus driver

Say fuck yes

Say fuck no

Say fuck maybe

Say sorry

Find forgiveness

Find beauty in your scars

Turn your scars into your super power

Find innocence again

Move in the direction your body is nudging you in order to feel more alive, expansive, energised

And when it comes to building financial stability in between acting work?

To cut long advice short:

Help people solve problems you genuinely care about solving

There is a reason I help high performers increase their ability to handle pressure

Because at 25 I achieved my dream of leading at the Sydney Opera House

And I was completely miserable

Because I had no language, tools or processes to help me perform under pressure sustainably

So now when I work with an athlete, artist or leader who is really struggling with reaching their potential in high stakes moments

It’s like every part of me shows up

Because my body knows how painful that problem can feel.

My reservoir for giving acting work I care about is deep

But my reservoir for helping a performer with the pain of pressure is endless

Anyway

Let’s get to my point

What am I encouraging here?

I’m encouraging actors to building meaningful lives

Why?

One

Because 70 years are going to fly by

You will soon be dead

And in three generations time

No-one on this earth will remember your name

Or care about what your work was like on Home & Away

Acting work will flow up and down in waves

Some years multiple jobs

Some years none

We know this

And what’s the worst case scenario of going down this path of treating your profession more professionally?

“People will think I’m not serious about acting any more because I’m not available all the time”

Trust me

People will respect you far more as an artist if you respect your own time and craft

Don’t let the fear of not acting get in the way of all thats worth living for

Hope this helps

Sheasby 24/3/26 Sheasby 24/3/26

How to Approach Training

Every year

Across the globe

Actors commence their acting training

And every year

Countless time and energy is wasted

Here is my take on what is worth focussing on most

First things first

There is no such thing as a truly lazy actor

But there is such thing as an uninspired one

I don’t care if your studies in acting last six weeks or four years

Staying inspired becomes essential in sustainably rocking up every day

Nothing will kill your work ethic faster than working toward goals you don’t truly care for

Let’s get inspired

How?

Simple

Ask yourself

What makes your body come alive?

What is the art that makes your body feel energised, awake, open, free?

And who are the artists making it?

As many examples as you can find

Music, history, stories, rappers, ballet dancers, an olympic performance, your grandmothers ring, a photograph, a painting, etc

Boil that list down to a handful of examples that resonate with you most

That if I told you - “at the end of your training you will be giving work at that level of generosity” - It would make you feel like your efforts have been worth it

Then

Find the pattern

Those few standout examples will have some things in common

Authentic

Vulnerable

Raw

Open

Dangerous

Fierce

Honest

Whatever

Pick the two or three words that represent those pieces of art

That becomes the harbour we want to start steering our ship toward

Why is this important?

Why is giving our brain a clear and honest place to start focussing on?

The Reticular Activating System

RAS

A bundle of nerves at the base of the brain

Acts like a secretary between the conscious and unconscious

Consciously we can handle about 30-40 bits of information per seconds

Unconsciously?

Millions

Over your studies

You will have millions of bits of information coming toward you every day

How does your RAS know which bits of information are worth sending through to your conscious mind in order to focus on?

The ones you tell it to!

Look around the room you’re sitting in right now

Look for everything that is blue

Blue blue blue blue blue

Now close your eyes and tell me everything you remember seeing that was yellow

Yup

Our brains are incredible at proving us right

Acting like a lawyer in every moment to prove the stories we tell ourselves are true

Always finding evidence to back up our beliefs

(Very helpful for evolution)

What’s important here is the RAS doesn’t understand the negative

Example: DON’T think of a pink elephant

Yup

“Don’t fuck up this audition”

You get my point

Want to sustainably remain inspired?

Help your brain out

Give yourself a clear focus for what your body honestly wants to work toward

Now

A quick history of acting lesson

Modern actors are inspired and influenced by the generations above

We grew up seeing the same actors in the spotlight

Meryl, Deniro, Pacino, Davis, etc

These artists changed the game for all actors today

And of course

They were inspired by the generation before them

Monroe, Brando, Dean

Dean is widely regarded to be the first man to cry on screen

This was a big turning point for acting

But why did this shift occur?

Who were steering these actors toward more “real” performances?

Stella Adler, Sandy Meisner and Lee Strasberg

Three giants in the world of acting coaches

And all of these three coaches

Studied under the great Russian director

Stanslavksi

They then took his “system” and over the years

Started to refine their own methodologies

Adler focussing on imagination

Meisner on presence

And Strasberg on emotions

To clarify

Stanislavski

Influenced Adler, Meisner & Strasberg

Who taught Brando, Monroe, Dean etc

Who influenced Streep, Deniro, Davis, etc

Who have influenced all modern day actors in the western world today

But an important question becomes

Who the hell influenced Stanislavsky?

Man I tear up every time I think of this next person

In 1800’s

Eleanor Duse

A fourteen year old Italian actress

Got up on stage

With no makeup

And blushed

She actually blushed

In a time when it was the norm to use facial gestures & hand movements to express emotions

This little girl had the courage to throw away limitations

And do things her way

She gave herself permission to feel things

And Stanislavsky lost his mind

It was watching young Eleanor

Which inspired Stanislavsky to spend the next few decades building a “system” for acting

The very system that has influenced all modern day acting in the western world

What’s my point?

We are standing on the shoulders of giants

We are standing on the shoulders of an incredibly brave young girl

Who was famous for saying

“Every actor must find their own way”

Yes

Every actor must find their own way

Let’s talk about how we can spend the next few years training

Whilst doing it our own way

Let’s begin at the end

Death

Death gives our lives meaning

Without death

What would be the point in doing anything?

You could just handle it in a couple hundred thousand years

Death makes survival meaningful

And for the last two hundred thousand years

Survival has been incredibly meaningful

Why?

Because it’s been so bloody difficult!

Before the 1940’s a little scratch could mean death

Now what helped us survive as species?

What allowed us to go from the middle of the food chain, to the top?

Technology, yes

But something else even more important

Connection

Our ability to connect as Homo Sapiens

Resulted in more resources, more protection, more reproduction

A human being

Alone in the wild

Is a pretty useless creature

But together we were able to do some amazing things

Lasting 200,000 years as a species on this earth

Connection

Equals survival

Which equals meaning

Now

What helped us connect?

What have we done since the beginning of time?

Stories

Meaningful stories

Both literal

“Doug went to water hole, eaten by lion, don’t go waterhole”

And metaphorical

“In ploughing the field today we will help pull the sun across the sky”

Now

How do we share meaningful stories to the tribe so we can connect and help our species survive another day?

We could sing, dance, paint, speak poetry, direct, edit, make a meme or a tik tok

Or we could act

As actors

We get to play a part in sharing meaningful stories which helps the group connect and survive

“But what if the work isn’t meaningful?”

I hear you say

Quick story

In my third year of NIDA

At the height of my pretentiousness

I want sitting in an ICU ward with my mate who had become paralysed after eating a slug

It was a very fearful time

No one really new what was happening with Sam

But he had a wonderful Ugandan nurse called Baba who came to see him every day

Baba and I were talking about film one day

I asked her what her favourite things to watch were

“Home & Away and Love Actually”

She said

I scoffed arrogantly and proceeded to share the most “artistic” examples of work I could think of

She smiled at me

“You know Mike

Most people don’t enjoy their lives

They work very hard

Try to handle their responsibilities

And at the end of the day

Want to spend 30 minutes or maybe an hour

Getting some sense of relief or ease or joy

They want a little story to help them breathe a bit easier”

I never scoffed at the idea of working on Home & Away again

I might not think its the most humanly complex work in the world

But there is a reason why it keeps getting made

Or why anything keeps getting made

It’s providing some kind of value to human beings

And that is bloody meaningful

We as actors

Get to play

We get to be a part of sharing meaningful stories

Which helps our tribe connect

Helping our species survive another sunrise

Let’s keep going

Let’s dive into acting

Specifically

Screen Acting

Now

No one here is spending their time, money and energy with the end goal of becoming an extra

You want to be as generous as possible within your field

So I’m going to assume that giving leading work on screen is your focus

All acting coaches have their biases

And I certainly have mine

I’m not a comedy specialist

I’m not here to help you get better at three camera sitcoms

I’m not trying to make you better at Shakespeare

I’m very boring

Leading work. Drama. On screen.

Thats our context for our development.

Let’s distill acting down to it’s most essential parts

And then look at how those parts might change due to our arena of screen

Acting

We have a character - a human being

We have a context - a moment in time

And that character is connecting - relationships

Our three core areas of skill development in acting become:

Character / Context / Connection

In one sentence

Our focus in acting becomes:

Having moments of human connection

(Pleas note: “Having”, not “showing”)

Over the following months and years

It will be our responsibility to create powerful systems for each of those three areas of our training

But

What about for screen?

What adjusts or shifts because we are trying to get better at screen acting as opposed to stage?

At the end of the day

If I go sit in the back row of a theatre production

At the very least

I need to be able to hear the story

So voice becomes an essential area of training

But what about for screen acting?

Let’s look at how most people approach skill development for screen

You get a scene

It usually involves some high stakes

And we are pushed in the direction of extremes

Darkness and light

Why?

Well its bloody fun

You get to do the kind of work that people remember

But let’s explore this a bit more

The actors you love

The scenes that you remember those actors by

They’re usually doing one of two things

Extending themselves toward darkness (fear)

Or extending themselves toward light (love)

And damn we get some magical moments when skilled artists stretch themselves in those directions

But

Here is an important question

What percentage of a leading actors performance is spent in those two areas of light and darkness?

A very very small percentage

Maybe 1-5 percent of a leading actors work is spent shouting or crying

So what are they doing the majority of the time?

Not shouting

Not crying

Breathing

They spend 95-99% of their time on screen breathing

We have to be really honest

The majority of screen classes

Are focussing their time on building the minority of skills required for screen acting

This is a big thing to admit

It might feel good to spend your time trying to shout or cry

But we as actors can move a hell of a lot further and more sustainably

If we allocate our resources toward building the skills that will actually be required most

In an ocean of technique

There are a small handful

Which will apply to the majority of actors

The majority of the time

These are the ones worth focussing on getting great at

Bascis

Like breathing

I’m going to say this as clearly as I can

The movie star is dead

Screen work is moving away from actors who can technically do things “right”

And moving toward humans who are willing to give themselves permission to be where they actually are in front of the lens

Said another way

YOU are the most valuable currency you have in this industry

Not who you think or feel you SHOULD be

And it starts with breathing

Want to have a conversation on screen?

Start with breathing

Want to connect with another human being on screen?

Start with breathing

Want to be a leading actor on screen so you can do those big scenes where you get to cry or shout?

Start with breathing

Remember

Being interesting is not in your control

Just like your reputation

It’s determined by others

But if a mouse or bird can hop onto a theatre stage and steal the audiences attention

It tells us that being present in the most interesting thing a human can do

And what can we do which will result in us being present?

So we can have moments of human connection on screen?

Breathe

Now

If youre like me you might have moments in the shower or alone on the couch where you think

“Damn that was a good little moment of acting I just did”

Sorry to say

But sadly its true

Acting in isolation doesn’t count

It’s never about acting well

It’s about acting well when its difficult to do so

Why?

Because its almost always difficult to do so

The conditions on set are almost never perfect

Things are rushed, time is money, someone is sick, lines are changing, losing light, its 4 am, no one has eaten in 8 hours, people are stressed and over caffeinated

It’s hard

And we want training to reflect realities

The first stage of training becomes

Can you breathe as yourself in the actual arena

In front of the lens

On camera

With that lens boring into your soul

And all the stories or beliefs you carry about how you think or feel you should be start to raise their heads

Again

You are the most valuable currency you have in this industry

And something that’s really hard for young artists to understand…

What you regard as your weaknesses, ugly bits, faults, etc

On screen

Those are your fucking superpowers

So find comfort in the chaos of baring your soul as you breathe in front of the lens

Now

I havn’t shut up for a while

This all might sound like a lot

I half apologise

It’s a first lecture before you commence your studies

But why attempt to break acting down into many parts?

Mastery of craft develops as you increase your ability to split things into smaller parts

And why is that important?

Any one can work hard

Anyone can rock up with a bulldog mentally

Try to push through with resilience

This is not what creates artists

Intelligent adaptive progress creates artists

Where we keep following curiosities

Curiosity

Become incredibly valuable

Curiosity is absolutely a super power

The ability to let your body lead you toward your next revelations and stages of growth

That is bloody sustainable

Okay

Let’s wrap this up

I’ll make my last important point

Remember

Live

Live your life

Do not put your life on hold for acting

Casting directors want actors who are full of life

So don’t make acting your life

Instead

Prioritise living as a human being on this earth

Have things you care about

People you would die for

A body that feels things

A mind thats curious

Now

If you haven’t listened to a single thing I’ve said

Fine

Let me just give the one piece of advice

If you make virtuosity the goal

Everything else will become easier

So much of your career will take care of itself if you make getting better the goal

Virtuosity

Is the most valuable thing

The wealthy can’t buy it

The impatient can’t rush it

Nobody can take it

You can only get there through slow and honest work

Make being good your priority, and everything else will take care of itself

Let me know how your training goes :)

Huge love

Hope this helps

Sheasby 6/2/26 Sheasby 6/2/26

What Smart Actors Do

World War II

The American strategic bombing campaign

The 8th airforce was tasked with destroying German industry

Where did they focus their attention?

Did they try to attack all of German industry?

There was an overwhelming amount of industry to attack

Instead

They focussed their attention on destroying one small part of German industry

The ball bearing industry

Why?

Because the vast majority of modern machinery

Requires ball bearings in order to operate

America knew that if they destroyed one small component of German industry

The majority of the industry would collapse

Now

The German ball bearing industry was highly concentrated in one area

Schweinfurt

So instead of trying to bomb every industry factory in Germany

They focussed on bombing the ball bearing factories in that one single location

Hit that area

The factories grind to a halt

Machinery required for Germany’s military collapses

Boo-yah

The 8th airforce bombing campaign was built on the simple but radical belief:

You don’t have to destroy everything to win the war

You only have to destroy the right things to win the war

This is leverage

Now

How can we use this to make fulfilling progress as actors?

Well

Let’s be blunt

Most actors

Try to bomb the whole industry

Hustle more

Network more

More headshots

More classes

When Acting Becomes Impossible

Hey Sheasby

I’ve taken several years off from acting since covid

I want to get back in

But it just feels impossible

Any advice?

Miss Monkey

(Name changed for privacy)

—————————

Miss Monkey

Firstly

I love that you’ve taken a break from acting.

In an industry like ours

With as many imaginary rules as their are

I wish more actors did this

Just step away

For a day

A week

A month

A year

A chapter in their life

To just focus on other important things

Casting directors want human beings who are full of life

So I think it’s crucial that actors live fully

Get out into the world and do things which make them feel alive

Travel

Study

Work

Have relationships

Volunteer in soup kitchens

Join the reserves

Obsess over gardening

Carry responsibilities

Cook

Teach

Learn

Forgive

Fight

Help

Cry

Etc

You get my point

Despite not having acted in years

I think with all the life experience you’ve been collecting

You’ll be better than ever

At being able to really have moments of human connection in front of the lens

So please

I invite you to bring all of yourself to the table in this next chapter

Secondly

Yup

Totally hear you

It might feel bloody impossible looking at it from the outside

I can imagine strong stories popping up

“I’m older now”

“I don’t have any jobs to show from the last few years”

Stories that might make you feel like you’re less valuable in the eyes of agents, casting directors or producers…

“Impossible”

That word

Impossible

Man

That word brings up a memory for me

Remember that situation several years ago

Where there was a group of kids trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand?

They needed desperate help before the water rose and they all died

And who do you call when you need people who are really good and saving others in water?

NAVY SEALS

And guess what the SEALS said about the situation?

“We don’t have the skills”

So they called the people who did have the skills

A motley crew of individuals from around the world who happened to do that kind of diving as a hobby on the weekend

Going deep into tight, dark and muddy caves under ground

The guys with the skills rocked up

But the distance they had to go to reach the children

The fact that the cave was still flooding

And the issue of having to transport children under water

For over a kilometre

Children who have never scuba dived in their life…

After 3 days

The divers had a meeting with the SEALS

They said

“It’s impossible”

And that they simply could not help

The entire rescue team was defeated

They knew

The loss of those divers with their incredible skills

Meant the loss of the children lives

But one SEAL

Did something really interesting

He pulled the divers aside before they left

And he asked them

“I know you said it’s impossible

But

If you were to do the impossible

What would that look like?”

The divers gave their two cents whilst rolling their eyes

They listed a bunch of ridiculous things that would be “impossible” to do

Logistics that no diver would think is sane

Then

They left.

A few days later

After witnessing some progress made by the rescuers that stayed and commenced working on the impossible

The divers with the skills returned

Ready to help again

And two weeks later

The kids were safely back in their parents arms

The divers had suddenly done the impossible

And I mean the impossible

Those kids were drugged, put to sleep

Placed in scuba gear whilst unconscious

Hands tied behind their backs so as to take up as little space as possible

Then one by one

They were escorted by a diver

Through over a kilometre of muddy dark tunnels

Back to the opening of the cave

It was insane

Any diver in the world

Knows how insane that is

And yet

They did it

They did the impossible

Stick with me here

The divers went on to be recognised internationally for their efforts

Given awards by the King of England

All the bells and whistles

But those divers

The ones who did the actual rescue

Went on to talk of their regret

The shame they will always carry at having given up for those few days

When they believed things were impossible

Now

What the hell am I trying to get at here?

Skills are so so fucking important, Miss Monkey

It makes you incredibly generous and valuable to the tribe

But no skills

None

Can compete with curiosity

A curious question

Can defeat the impossible

What would the impossible look like?

What would this look like if it were easy?

What would this look like if I were to actually have fun?

Under pressure

Ones attention becomes critical

Where someone chooses (consciously or unconsciously) to place their focus

Can be a gloriously dangerous thing

A quality question

At an appropriate time

Can completely change lives.

You have the skills, Miss Monkey

Yes

Skills are incredibly hard to build

But

They are easy to reignite

Trust muscle memory

Trust your body

It might take a few ugly bad reps

A handful of terrible self tapes

And a few practice runs of what it’s like being on set again

But

You’ll be back and running in no time

Don’t judge those first few steps as too ridiculous

Judging the first step as too ridiculous

Often prevents people from building their dreams or pursuing what makes them feel most alive

There will be some practicals of course

Some logistics to manage

If you just want to get in front of the camera again

A class or a few colleagues to connect deeply with will be essential.

If you want to work professionally on set again

There might be some helpful contacts to start connecting with

Casting workshops provide no excuses for getting in the arena again

And once you are back in the arena

Having moments of human connection in front of the lens

With colleagues and casting directors

You might even want to reach out to an agent or ask around to help you find a good match

Your wheels will be spinning again

Steer this with curiosity

Add the element of time

And eventually

Your wheels will gain traction

And you’ll be driving again

But this time

After taking time off to live your life

To experience everything you have

The pains

The joys

The loves

The losses

You’ll be more ready to do it your way

And far more generous at giving it to others

Miss Monkey

Skills are no match for curiosity

Curiosity

Is the most beautifully valuable thing in this craft

Take care of it

Wishing you the best on this journey

Keep me updated

And please

Stay soft in the face of adversity this holiday

Curious & kind

Hope this helps

Sheasby 10/12/25 Sheasby 10/12/25

My Biggest Mistake as an Actor

My mother has a photo album of my childhood

Every so often

When I’m at my parents house stealing their food

I will pull it out and have a flick through the pages

There is one photo in particular

Which always draws my attention

It’s of me when I was just a few months old

Lying safely in my fathers arms as he rests on the bed beside me

But it’s not the photo itself which intrigues me

It’s the context in which the photograph was taken

I was born in an area of Southern Africa called uMgungundlovu

“Place of the elephant”

And during that time

There was a hell of a lot of extreme political violence going on between the Zulus and Xhosas

Plenty of rioting and mob violence.

“Necklacing”

An act of cruelty in which someone had a tyre squeezed over them

Then doused in petrol and set on fire to die an agonising death

Was commonly used to strike fear in the opposing side

Obviously

When these things are happening in the streets where one goes to buy groceries

It doesn’t exactly make people feel like they know what is going to happen if they go outside

What they might see

What they might feel

What they might experience

So when I see that photo of me lying in my bed as a baby

Being held by my father

Whilst my mother takes the photo

I can’t help but think of what they must have been feeling in that moment

About what the next day might bring

About what violence will be happening just a few kilometres down the road

This would be tough for anyone living in this time

And it would naturally produce tough people

With tough mindsets

People who would build homes with 6 foot high walls & barbed wire

Burglar guards on every window

Emergency alarm points spread throughout the house

And have German Shepards keeping an ear out for intruders

People who would make sure that they can take care of themselves

Regardless of what’s happening beyond those walls

People who would become great at being independent

No relying on others

No relying on governments

No relying on strangers

No relying on help

So of course

As a younger actor studying at drama school

This is what I did well

I didn’t need a hand

I could work in isolation

I could build, prep, rehearse, plan, dream, play

Alone in my college dorm room

I could experiment with 20 choices

Then rock up to school and present my “perfect offer”

And of course

This extended to when I graduated

Finding an agent

Building skills

Making career choices

Yup

All alone

I had plenty of influences, of course

From reading interviews

To obsessing over YouTube clips

And b-roll footage of actors working on set

But at the end of the day

I was in a room

Alone

Making decisions

Coming up with fool proof plans

It was on my shoulders

And

I LOVED IT

I thrived on this idea

I was tough!

Independent

Strong

I did not need a handout!

I did not need help!

But

Anytime I tried to take that independence out into the industry

Beyond the walls of my safe zone

I noticed something

I noticed I was pretty damn sensitive

To resistance

To play

To challenge

To conversation

To questioning

I might have presented a tough, independent exterior on the outside

But on the inside

I was brittle

Easy to crack

Deeply sensitive to anything going differently to how I planned

Many nights did I lie

Staring at the ceiling

Thinking obsessively about what I said to that other actor at the bar

Or how I answered that casting director’s questions

Or how I wasn’t able to handle that piece of direction

And when this happened

I would always want to escape to a cabin in the woods

Where I felt safe to do me

Without any challenge from the world

You see

At 25

I still hadn’t realised

There was another stage of growth

Waiting for me to step into

And it all came to a halt

After 113 shows of leading Henry V for Bell Shakespeare at the Sydney Opera House

I finally realised

Toughness

Independence

Was no longer serving me

It was the production manager

Driving me back from another MRI scan after both my shoulders had given out

Who eventually said

“Mike

Everyone is here to help you with open arms

But it’s you who has to accept it”.

Growing up where I did

There was a saying

Ubuntu

“I am, because we are”

In other words

People are only people

With other people

I’m going to say that again

People are only people with other people

It’s the idea that no human exists in isolation

And it made me realise

That no actor exists in isolation

Actors

Are only actors

With other actors

In an art form where we connect with others

In order to help share meaningful stories

It’s our colleagues, readers, casting directors, writers, agents, producers, mentors, coaches, directors, teachers

Who make us…

What’s my point

My biggest mistake

Was thinking that I had to build my work and career in isolation

No actor exists in solitude behind their walls

There is simply a price to pay in being an actor

That price?

Vulnerability

Pour yourself into connecting vulnerably with others

Why?

Because

You’re only an actor

When you share yourself

Your work

And your career

With others

“I am, because we are”

Go give yourself to the tribe

Hope this helps

Sheasby 31/10/25 Sheasby 31/10/25

How do you know it’s going to work out?

Mike

I have an anonymous question

Six rejections. Six weeks. Three in one week. It feels disheartening. Particularly when I might start imagining my month with that booking to then find out after all that, it didn’t go my way. Or when I forget I auditioned and I get the update or see the deadline article. Or when I believe I slayed but don’t even get a callback. The question is… How do I know it’s going to happen for myself? Or ultimately, how to know if I suck? And by “happen”, I mean the superficial sense. When it all starts becoming easy. Bookings, gigs, offers begin flowing. And projects get bigger and bigger and more juicy and more exciting. Budgets get funner and the caliber of other creatives get more recognised.

Anyways, longtime reader x

Miss Piggy (Name changed for privacy)

…

Dear Miss Piggy

I love you

And I love this email so much

Thank you dearly

Let me get clear on your question

It sounds like you are asking:

How do you know that you will eventually get to a place where it all becomes easy

And by “easy” you mean

Booking gigs

Offers begin flowing in

Projects getting bigger

Projects becoming more exciting

Getting paid more

Colleagues being more recognisable or respected artists

Shit me

This is such an honest question

Thank you Missy Piggy

I want to tell you something that happened yesterday

I have been working with a particular actress over the past year

She came to me with a bloody strong work ethic

Some decent skills

A few small jobs behind her

But no real proof to tell her that things were going to work out

No great agent

No massive jobs

No real call backs or meetings with directors

Since then

(Because of her work ethic and commitment to change)

She has ticked every box she wanted

Incredible agent

Call backs for great work

Meetings with directors

Booked an American show

And booked the lead in a feature film shooting in Europe

You know what she said to me yesterday?

“Mike, I’m just waiting

I’m waiting to hear about this call back

I’m waiting to hear from production about my stunt training

I’m waiting to hear about the deal memo for the film

And whilst I’m waiting I have only had one audition and it feels so quiet

Then

After a pause

She said

You know

I still feel the same

But I just have new problems to solve

Bingo

I need to get a few things across, Miss Piggy

No matter where you are at with your acting career

No matter what stage you find yourself in currently

No matter how much - or how little - work is flowing in

Their will be problems to be solve

How much stress or joy you bring to solving those problems

Is up to you

My suggestion here…

Find joy in the effort of solving problems.

Solving problems well

Will come from quality answers

And quality answers will come from quality questions

So surround yourself with people who ask quality questions

And always

ALWAYS

Keep the channel between your creative impulse and releasing it open

How?

Always have that space in your week or month set aside for you to give your art

And maintain the relationships with those who you love creating with most

Friends, colleagues, readers, classmates, coaches, mentors etc

But there’s another side to your question that I want to raise

Whether things are easy/flowing or not

Is massively influenced

By the timeframe I am using to measure it by

Let me explain

7 years ago

I did my dream acting project

Incredible role

Incredible cast

Incredible director

I stood on the red carpet at Venice Film Festival for it

I was nominated alongside Joel Egerton and Ben Medelsohn for it

Prada gave me a free suit and shoes for it

And it helped me book multiple other jobs

I judged that period of a few month as “flowing and easy”

6 month later

Dead quiet

1 year later

The busiest I had ever been

2 year later

Completely dead

3 years later

Only a small role in a film

4 years later

Nothing the whole year

And so on and so on

I’ll share how this year has gone for me to help you understand the complexity of what flow and ease does (or doesn’t) look like

In January of this year I was devastated as I was locked into something where my rate was the lowest it had been in years

I still took the work gratefully

By March I secured the biggest contract I had ever had

By April I got a job filming on an incredible project in Nepal

By June I was jobless but knew my big film was coming August

By July the film fell over and I was back to having nothing

By August I felt I might be too old and that the industry wanted nothing to do with me

By October I secured my next series filming in Melbourne over this coming summer

The day after I got that role I was rejected for another job which would have brought in 6 figures for just a few days of work

Now

If I took a magnifying glass and judged myself or my career by the day, week or month

Man

I might be the biggest gangster in acting

Or the biggest fucking loser

Depending on which part I focus in on

But this up and down

This is exhausting

And unsustainable.

The wonderful thing that comes with experience

Is the beautiful plateau

The middle ground between all the extremes

The normal.

There are very few extreme game-changing days within acting

It would be a mistake to gauge how you’re doing as an artist

By using those extreme days as your measuring stick

Instead

And what I believe is far, far more important

Look at your normal day, Miss Piggy

Your average work on an average day

They will outweigh the extraordinary days by at least 100 to 1 in any given year of your career

So it is a far wiser choice to focus your attention on building a wonderful normal day as an actor

Where are you waking up?

What does the first hour look like?

What’s your exercise look like?

Who do you call?

What do you eat?

What does your practice look like?

Who are you creating with?

What’s your average work feel like?

What does your call with your agent feel like?

What was the quality of the work you gave in that self tape?

Did you click send with a sense of “I gave my best”?

Yes

It’s boring to some

And unromantic as hell

But as I tell every artist I’m about to work with for 6 weeks or three months

I care way more about where you are, what you’re working on and how you’re doing it in 5 years time

Than in 5 weeks time

I understand that its easy for fresh graduates to feel the urge to hustle and push

But are those first few years out of drama school more valuable than the 4 decades after?

My last point…

If you are in your thirties

And have had 6 rejections in 6 weeks

You’re in a pretty bloody incredible position Miss Piggy

It means people believe you have value to provide to the tribe

They believe that something is there

And if those opportunities are in the arenas where you get to find joy in the effort

Where you try to solve meaningful problems

Where you get to strive toward making your work that 1% better

You’re already doing the thing

This is as good as it gets

You’re in the arena trying to contribute something of value through your art

It will never get better than that

Love you Miss Piggy

Hope this helps

Sheasby 28/10/25 Sheasby 28/10/25

No Proof For Confidence

Confidence is a rational response to past experience

A rational response

To past experience

For example

I am extremely confident that the sun will rise tomorrow

Because every day of my life

It has

Easy to be confident about that one

I have almost no confidence that this evening

I won’t have to clean up the farm yard mess in the kitchen

Because every day for the last two and a half years

My daughter has proven otherwise

Not to say it won’t happen

But my confidence is low on that one

Makes sense

But

What about actors

Confidence

(Originating from the word “confidere” in Latin)

Means

“to have full trust”

And we hear this word in the world of acting all the time

“Trust

Trust yourself

You just have to trust that things will work out”

But what if you don’t have the past experiences

To help you rationally predict that things will work out in the way you want them to?

We know it’s not always wise to keep using previous results to predict future ones

But there’s a stuck point here

If an actor wants new results

They have to create a new normal

A normal in which they have “full trust” in the process

But

What if there’s no results?

No past proof to make rational predictions from?

So it’s not logical for us to have confidence?

Stuck

We do not want to stay in the same spot

But we don’t have the confidence to progress

Somethings gotta give

Someone has to go first

If I have learnt anything from the incredible Angie Ford

It’s to go first

Go first with the new processes

Go first in building new normals

Go first with the story I’m telling myself

Go first with what I’m choosing to believe

Often times

When there is no proof

It might feel like in order to make progress

We have to jump off a cliff

Surrender to things we cant control

A bloody vulnerable thing to do!

I need to get something across here

And bear with me as I give some gory details

I got into NIDA at 18 the very first time I auditioned

I had no proof to say I should be confident

I vomited in the bathroom at the call back and still walked into the room to give my work

During the filming of the Nightingale

There was a scene in which I had to leave the room for a few minutes

To be consoled by the voice coach because of how afraid I was of

Before going back in and filming

What’s my point?

If you have no proof

Start building it.

Confidence will come

From putting your body in the arena

Over and over again

But what about the fear!?

Confidence is not the eradication of fear

Please

Do waste precious time or energy wishing your fears away

Your body is doing it’s job

Let it

But just because you’re afraid

As most professional actors are

Doesn’t mean you can’t still jump off that ledge

In fact

It seems like going first

Jumping off that cliff

When you have almost no proof things will work out

Is sometimes the most important thing to do

Hope this helps