When I took the leap of faith from retiring from teaching and delving into the mysterious world of acting and modeling, I knew their would be risks. Financial risks, risks to my relationships with family and friends and equally important, emotional risks that were going to test my character and challenge my illness to even greater extremes. I continue to share my successes, because not only do I want to feel I made the right choices, but that I am also creating inspiration and hope for others.
What you don't always know and hear is that for each of those successes in this business, there are two, three or more failures, rejections and disappointments that follow suit when auditions and opportunities come and fall away. I had been doing really well creating that thick skin and mental toughness that goes with the consistent rejection that this career foreshadows.
Today however, I had one of those unfortunate days and for whatever reason, for the first time in a while it really sucked the life out of me and sent me down some dark emotional roads. I spent one of my normal five-hour, round-trip drives to Chicago from Milwaukee and back for what amounts to a 3-minute audition. You leave most of these auditions feeling either that you nailed it and gave them your best performance and personality, or you leave like I did today. In contrast, I left with my tail between my legs, in an emotional fog, wondering what the hell just happened from the time I walked into the audition room to the time I closed the door on the way out. You may have presented your lines okay, but you have this gut-wrenching feeling that you tanked, sucked or fell flat on your face in front of the client.
Then amazingly you get into the elevator and in perfect time, you recite the script perfectly and with flawless delivery, over and over and over. That flawless delivery continues on the walk to your car, in your car and for hours to follow. Your gestures get sharper and more dramatically supportive, but it's over and 'never' happened that way. And at the end of re-reciting my monologue each time I curse myself for f@#king it up just moments and minutes before. Five hours for three minutes. Five...hours...for...three...minutes of audition time!
Then...then...I go through the incredible mental strain of questioning my career choices, assessing where I have to get to, where I need to be to survive emotionally and financially and how will I continue to support myself and my family. You feel the eyes and opinions of the naysayers screaming I told you so, or even worse, those who doubt and observe silently from afar, waiting for you to fail, only to appease their original skepticism. My irrational thoughts tell me to quit, give up.
Only then...in a split-second of self-pity do I wake up and realize that I don't worry about what other people think anymore, and I'm back to rationalizing what this really was - another chance to grow as a person and become emotionally stronger. I couldn't have found a hole deep enough to crawl into after the audition was over, but as the miles get put behind you and the hours grow new thoughts and ideals - hope and faith return. I'm not valued by the failures in my life, but by how I react to those failures and setbacks and how I grow as a person when they come along.
I guess if I had to use an analogy of what this business is like, it's a lot like hitting a baseball. The greatest and the best professional baseball players get a hit consistently 3 out of 10 times, giving them a .300 average. Meaning, they fail consistently 7 out of 10 times. Acting is very similar. For every 2 or 3 commercials you get out of 10 auditions, you miss or don't get 7 or 8 out of those. Obviously it varies with skill and experience, but it is the same principle. Go, try, fail, recover, succeed and do it again and again. You learn to toughen up and not take things personally. You learn from the experience.
Some may view it as sappy, but I love the line from the movie Castaway where Tom Hanks says, "So now I know what I have to do. I have to keep breathing. And tomorrow the sun will rise, and who knows what the tide will bring in."
That is exactly what this career means to me and what I do every day.
