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
X