Acting Without Hope

As the expression goes

Throw a man in the middle of the ocean

Leave him there without saying a word…

He will die within minutes.

However

Throw a man in the middle of the ocean

And tell him you’ll be back in 24 hours …

He’ll be there alive when you return.

Why?

What’s the differentiating factor?

Time

Time gives hope

Time gives our scared little minds something to cling onto for security

Your internal dialogue can switch from

“Things are bloody hopeless”

To

“It doesn’t matter if things are difficult right now

In X amount of time I know I will be okay”

And the second the brain believes it will be okay

Easier breaths ensue

Now

Curious

What about actors?

At no point in an actor’s career are they told

“By X amount of time this particular result will happen”

There is no timeline from apprentice to worker

To manager, partner or owner

There is no clear path to better pay or security

It’s all fairy dust

Made up as it goes along

You can be standing opposite Oscar winners

Getting paid $13,000 per week in April

To begging your agent to try get a student film to pay you $300 in May

To then trying to get an agent in June after being dropped

My father is an engineer

He is in his seventies

To the best of my knowledge

He has had approximately three job interviews in his entire career

I’m not sure he’s ever been rejected for a job as an adult

As for me?

I’m 37 years old this month

Living in Sydney Australia

Raising a daughter

And I have been rejected for work three times in the last two weeks

And that’s just normal for our biz

So

How the hell do we survive?

How do we keep going when there are no timeline security points in our career to hang onto?

No “by this stage you’ll be fine”

Okay

Two parts to this

Part One: Rejection

Rejection & acting go hand in hand

The two are inseparable

And

Due to the nature of a supply & demand industry

She simply isn’t going anywhere

So better to work with her rather than avoid her

Rejection is less of a problem to solve

And more of a factor to manage

So

Let’s build a process for rejection

Three steps to handling rejection

Firstly

Grieve

Having a career as an actor means dancing with grief constantly

The loss of a moment, a line being forgotten, scene being cut, day on set being removed, character being cut from the script

Your work being cut from that film

A role being given then taken away

An audition you’ve sunk weeks into not even going past the first bloody round

Going through a several month long process of auditions, call backs & chemistry reads

To finally receiving an email saying

“Sorry, we went with someone else, thanks for your work!”

For hundreds of thousands of years

Humans around the world have established their rituals for grief

Why?

Because as Homo sapiens

Our bodies need processes to lose things and for that to be okay

To say goodbye to that which is now gone

To honour the change

From thinking we had something

To the desperate pains and anguish that come when realising we no longer do

And what’s the underlying principle that ties all those various rituals together?

Giving our bodies permission to be where we actually are

Let ourselves feel the emotions swirling, bubbling and bursting through

Man I use to fight this so hard

As a 25 year old artist

4 years out in the industry

I did not want to experience loss

I was done

It simply hurt too much

And I kept asking “when will this stop hurting”

To the point where I just didn’t want to rock up anymore

But

A beautiful singer I really admired

Once commented about other pop singers

“Everybody is singing love songs like

“I don’t need you”

“I don’t need nobody”

To me

That’s no love song

To me a love song is admitting that I love you

I adore you

And I will lie down in the middle of the road and let you run me over”

Gulp

There is no art without true expression

And true expressions cost something

It costs a piece of ourselves

And to me

There is an element to this industry which revolves around finding oneself to be okay with being vulnerable

Without knowing if its safe to do so

Not knowing if you’ll get a “Yes we love you come work with us!”

Or a

“Sorry not this time kid”

Now

There absolutely comes a time where it’s too much

I find the level of pain associated with the rejection

Is often highly influenced by the context of where I find myself to be at that point in my life

I got rejected from a year long series when my partner was 6 months pregnant

Man I grieved that one

Hard

I didn’t even bother

I just walked straight in the door

Hopped into bed and heaved it out for an hour

Do I want to admit that I was a middle aged man crying in my bed?

No

But

A day or two later I was back on the horse

Because by that point I respected my bodies process for loss

Unlike my 25 year old self biting the steering wheel in my car after fumbling an opportunity to work with Russell Crowe

Anyway you get the point

First step in the process for handling rejection

Grieve

Give yourself

Or more accurately

Give your body permission to be where it actually is

And if that means shedding tears over losing something that was important to you

Than I wish you well as you step into your time of healthy sorrow

Second step

Connect

No homo sapien thrives in solitary confinement

Where I grew up in Southern Africa

There was an expression

I am, because you are

Meaning no one lives in isolation

Who I am as a human is because of who you are as a human

And I can only be me

When I’m in relationship to those around me

So

Connect with your people

Connect with those that remind your body it is totally safe to be where you are

My daughter doesn’t care if got rejected

My best friends don’t see my value entwined with getting the role or not

My partner will still want to sit on the couch with me and steal my bacon and eggs in the morning my agent calls to say “sorry mike”

These things remind me my body is safe

That even though I might feel like my tribe doesn’t want me

It actually does

So

Step two

Go first

Reach out

Open your arms

To those who will hold you when you’re a snivelling mess

Who won’t try to fix you when you’re feeling sad

But simply allow you to be there

Step three

Decide

Once the mess has been released

Once the hugs have been had

You get to choose

You get to chose the lesson

You get to choose what the rejection means

Does it mean the end of your career?

Is it a nudge from the universe telling your body to take a break from acting for a few weeks or months?

Does it mean absolutely nothing?

Is it a nudge in the direction of skill development?

Is it the slap in the face you needed?

Is it spilt milk in your master plan to take over the world?

Is it a wobble in which you can see a few things you’re incredibly grateful for?

Human beings are incredible meaning makers

So just a little reminder to choose your story

You get to decide the meaning

Not your agent

Not the industry

Not the wingers down at the pub

You

You get to decide

So

A wee little process for rejection

One - grieve - give your body permission to feel what it’s feeling

Two - Connection - remind your body it’s part of the tribe

Three - Decide - choose what the experience means for you

Now

Part Two

How to remain hopeful when it’s hopeless

There is no timeline

There are no certain milestones in an acting career that you can rely on

There is no “after 10 years in the industry you’ll be okay”

No results are guaranteed

Therefore

One could argue

There is no hope in being an actor

Ooooo

Hang on

“Being an actor”

What do you need in order to call yourself an actor?

I’m serious

I think it’s a bloody great question to ask yourself

Are there certain things you’re waiting for in order to step into your skin as an artist

“When I get that certain size role, then everything will be okay”

“When I get that lead in a film, then I’ll feel like an actor”

“when I’m earning consistent money as an actor in the Australian industry then I’ll be comfortable saying I’m an actor”?

Better to notice those stories then pretend like you don’t have them

At least then

You can say goodbye to them

(Once again grief raising it’s head)

Being where you actually are as an actor sometimes means giving up hoping for things outside of ones control

Now

What’s left when there is no hope of results?

There is joy in the effort

Absolutely

Are you enjoying the process of being an actor when there are no results coming your way?

Results can make it easier to enjoy being an actor at times

It was easy to enjoy being an actor when my family flew out to New Zealand to stay in my four story house whilst I was filming a BBC series

But without a doubt

the most I have ever enjoyed acting

Was in 2016

I had a mattress on a wooden floor

No furniture

When it rained in winter the room would flood

And I would have to once again dry the mattress off during the day with a $14 heater from K-mart

Whilst my neighbours must have kept thinking I was wetting the bed

But

I had my classes to go to

My coach to work with

Three colleagues I loved playing with dearly who I would tape with each week regardless if we had an audition or not

But most of all

I trusted in the process which was giving me joy

Trust

Ew

Sounds like the f word

Faith

Yes

Acting is a faith based industry

Let’s make no apology about that

And no - Religion does not have a monopoly on faith

It’s faith based

Meaning we trust things will happen even though there is no proof that it will

An incredibly vulnerable thing to do

Placing ourselves in jeopardy

An extraordinary actor told me that

He told me that when he was doing an indie theatre show before anyone knew his name

Six years later he was showered with awards for his work in a show opposite Blanchett

And guess what

He still has no guarantee that he’ll be okay in 6 years from now

But the point is

He went first

He didn’t have any results telling him everything was going to be okay

But he still focussed everything he could onto what he could control

Made sure too keep his focus on finding joy in the effort

Then surrendered up the rest over trust

Okay

I don’t want some rainbow ending to this

To keep going when there is no proof of results coming your way

You are absolutely putting yourself in a position where you may get incredibly hurt

Pain is coming your way

But find me an actor that doesn’t get rejected

Find me an actor who isn’t vulnerable

Find me an actor who doesn’t experience great sorrow in this business

And I’ll show you an actor who is not in the arena

So

Continuing as an actor

Means stepping into a vulnerable arena

With no proof that any results will come

And yet still

Somehow

Trust yourself

Hope this helps

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