The Power To Say YES

Last night I went to The Actors Network to hear Joseph Middleton speak. He's an amazing casting director (just did a little movie called Twilight: New Moon. Heard of it?) and I felt so blessed to be able to listen and ask questions.

Given his amazing credits, Joseph might seem really powerful, but one of the most fascinating things he said might surprise some of us: casting directors have the power to say no. They don't usually have the power to say yes. What did he mean by this? Well, CDs work for producers. The producers are the ones hiring, so they can say yes to whatever and whomever they want. CDs make suggestions about who to hire, and producers can either listen or not.

And yet, many of us spend A TON of our time marketing to casting people and worrying that they will not know us and therefore we will not be hired. This is what Kevin is always telling us at the Actors Network, and it couldn't be more true. We can't spend all our time marketing to casting people and forget that producers are the ones with the power to hire us. But let's go a little deeper with the power to say yes...

Some people will say, great, I get that I should market to producers, but what should I say to them? Why should they hire me when they could hire Isla Fisher or Ginnifer Goodwin? This is when we have to go to our core as individuals. Who am I? Why am I an actor? What do I have to offer? Why did I give up everything in my hometown to sit in LA traffic on the way to auditions?

When you do a little personal soul-searching, the answers may surprise you. When I worked as an elementary school teacher on the upper west side of Manhattan, I loved my students, and I knew I was making a difference in their lives. But I felt a profound sense that my purpose was to effect bigger changes in the world. I realized that the way to do this, for me at least, was through media. I watched Will & Grace, and of course I laughed - it was hilarious. Millions of Americans laughed. And through that laughter, gay became more ok. (ha ha, I rhymed) The more I thought about it, the more I realized that movies and tv shows change us, open us up, expand our horizons and bring us together. I knew I wanted to be a part of that.

So the power to say yes is not just about who has the power to greenlight a project. It's about finding your own personal power - your passion - and then sharing that unique flavor of you with the world.

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Wishes vs. Goals

Perhaps it doesn't come as a surprise to my fair readers that I spend a good deal of my time counseling others through their career (and personal) forests. Well, today was no different.

My dear friend, who for the purposes of this blogpost shall be named Sela, called me today - despondent about her job. She is not an actor (really? Someone who isn't an actor? I know, it's strange...) but her job is similar in one particular way: she has to market her product to others and get them to part with their hard-earned cash. That's her job. And you know what? She's pretty good at it. But she *feels* unsure of herself at every turn and constantly worries about getting a bad review or getting let go. So even when she does well, she has in effect failed on a personal level because she didn't enjoy the ride. She was stressing all the way through.

So I'm going to tell you what I told her: the journey *is* the destination. It can be so hard to accept this for us actors, thinking that success is down the road months or even years. "I'll be happy when I book a lead role in a studio feature." "I'll be happy when I'm a series regular on network television." "I'll be happy when..."

Now, I'm not saying I don't want those things or that you shouldn't. What I'm saying is that those are the motivators, NOT THE GOALS. (I call them the wishes.)

The GOALS, on the other hand, are manageable, doable actions:
Send 10 postcards to casting directors this week.
Make two coffee dates.
Write thank-you notes to people who spoke at The Actors Network last week.
Spend 4 hours this week writing my web series.
Warm up my voice every day.

At the end of a week, when I can check off these kinds of things from my list, I know I've done my best to move my career forward. When I daydream, I'm still thinking about that amazing, hilarious, well-written sitcom I'm going to star in, but when it's time to get down to business, I'm focused on things I have control over. That control comes from DOABLE actions, and it releases me from the anxiety that can creep up so easily in a career with no set path and no guarantees.