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

It will never get better than that

Love you Miss Piggy

Hope this helps

X