Buckle Up Buttercup

Hell yes there are things I'd rather be doing than sitting here writing this sentence and the sentences that will surely follow, one after the other, lined up like good little soldiers, unless the phone rings in the next few seconds. Not that my phone actually rings. I didn't choose that ringtone option. I chose something called Graham Cracker Dream or Rattling Mamba or This Little Piggy. I don't know.
I'd rather be working. I'd rather be on set or on stage. I'd rather be acting. 

That's not happening though. And not for the lack of trying! 

Not for the lack of keeping positive and putting myself out there, although the county lines of exactly where the fuck out there seem to blur or at least shift on a daily basis. 

"This is the business."

That's what everyone in the business says. Even the people who are working. This is what I tell young actors who ask me for advice. 

98% of this business is trying to find work. 1% of this business is actually doing the work. The last 1% is getting to enjoy the after glow of whatever it is you just finished before you start tormenting yourself about the fact you are now out of work and had better get something quick. 

I don't know if those numbers are accurate. They certainly feel like they are.

Not working is hard. Not doing what you love to do, what you feel you were meant to do, born to do, is really fucking hard. It crushes me. It wraps itself around my chest and I find it difficult to breathe. It is a chain that grows every day, link by link. 

Then of course there's the truckload of bullshit that comes with not working. Foremost of all is the self-doubt. 

After all, there's nobody else to blame. 

It's not my agents' fault. It's not the casting director. It's not the director or the executive producer or the local weatherman, my tenth grade gym coach, the guy at Subway who never seems to understand what light mayo means or the woman who cut me off in traffic the other day. Bitch. 

No. This is on me. 
My dream. My responsibility. My shit. 

Nobody else is standing there taping or that audition. 
Nobody else is driving over an hour to stand on a piece of tape and perform in front of a casting director or the assistant to the casting director or the assistant to the assistant to the casting director. It's just me standing there. 

So that's why it hurts so much when the pay off isn't a positive one. 
You can tell me it's not personal. It's not that the casting director didn't like me. I just wasn't right for the part. I wasn't what they had in their minds what a doctor, or lawyer or serial killer or space alien should look like. You can remind that my only job is to prepare the best I can for the audition. The rest isn't up to me. It's all out of my control.

You can tell me all that and you would be absolutely correct. Absolutely.

You can present me with all sorts of rational thinking but I promise you I'm not anywhere near the Town of Rational Thinking. I'm on the border, staring down at the dusty road, kicking my worn boots into the dirt, cursing myself, telling myself over and over again, "I'll drive into town in a bit. I just want to sit here and be anger and sad right now."

Rejection sucks but it's as ingrained into this business as sunburn is to lifeguards.

Nothing prepares you for hearing someone say no, even though you know, more than likely, it's about to sweep your feet out from under you. It stings every time. You can tell yourself I didn't really that job anyhow or Fuck them or They'll be sorry but it still stings. Like a six hundred pound wasp sitting on your chest.

So what do you do?

I have no fucking clue. That's the honest to God truth. At the very least, I'm going to be honest with you.

I have no answer for you as to how to handle the depression that comes with not working. Not because I'm an asshole but because I'm not you. You're not me. Your path is completely different from mine.

We've gone through different things.  We handle things differently.

That's why diet books, self-help books and most organized religions are bullshit. You're asking a large number of people from different eco and social backgrounds to think the same way. Never going to happen. Never going to work.

You have to take all these books and plans and lectures and whatever's and find something in all the rhetoric that applies to you, that you can use to better yourself or shed those fifteen pounds or whatever it is you want to accomplish.

Acting is the same thing. 

My path is different from yours. 
Let me say that again.
My path is different from yours.

What I did to get where I am (for better or worse) is not going to work for you. I can't tell you how you should handle rejection. I can't tell you how to land that role you want so badly.

I can't give you the secret to acting success because there is none. There is no EASY BUTTON.

There are no guarantees.

I know professional, well-known actors and actresses, who have worked seven months on a show and as soon as their last day on set wraps, they begin to hyperventilate because they don't know when they'll work again.

There are no guarantees. Nobody owes you anything. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

That famous actress who you worked with for one day and had one line with in one scene who liked and retweeted your tweet (OH MY GOD SHE RETWEETED MY TWEET!) will do nothing to get you work. That like and retweet mean nothing.

The shocking truth is...are you listening? Lean in and take this part in carefully.
It's not so much about talent. It's about looking right for the part and dumb luck and timing.

BOOM!

Ouch. Right?

Well then how the fuck are we supposed to prepare for that?
If you find out let me know.

Can I offer the same words of wisdom (Now listen carefully, Grasshopper) that were offered to me? Can I pass along the words I occasionally offer to actors who have found themselves in the exact same spot I currently find myself? Sure. What you do with those words is totally up to you.

Ready? I mean, this is earth shattering stuff here.

Audition. Move on. Set it and forget it, as they say.
If it was meant to happen, it will.
Be prepared. Be professional. That's your job.
Keep your head down. Keep your mouth shut.
Don't make a pig of yourself at crafty.
Sign the NDA. Do the work. Return all items to props and wardrobe.
Go home. Shower. Go to bed.
Wake up. Drink some coffee. Do it all over again.

Or not.

AND IF IT DOESN'T? Well then buck up, Buttercup, because this is how it is. If you wanted easy you should have chosen another profession.

You wanted to be an actor. You have no one to blame but yourself.
I wanted to be an actor. I have no one to blame but myself.

And that's a hard pill to swallow even though most of time it feels like just the opposite of the kind of pills you swallow.

This is a tough business. You have to be tough. It has nothing to do with wanting it. You just have to be able to withstand that hurricane of drama, politics and stupid, fucking happenstance that comes along with trying to do what you love to do.

I'm not giving up. No way. I've worked too damn hard to get where I am which, for the record, is exactly eleven feet, four inches further than I was six year ago.

Baby steps forward. Never back. 

Well, there it is. The secret.


just keeping it reel
j. matzer
copyright 2018
all rights reserved