During my SMFA session at the SAG-AFTRA Conservatory Summer Intensive at AFI this weekend, I talked about how some actors look for the quick fix, the easy fix, that edge that will get them farther, faster — but whatever you do, don’t tell ’em they have to work for it! I talked then (and I’ve written here, before) about how success in this industry is a lot like success in fitness: It takes eating right and moving your body more to have long-term health and the body you’re hoping for, yet billions are spent each year on magic pills, crazy gadgets that allow you to “melt away inches” just by watching TV, or dangerous surgical procedures.
But because folks are out there selling “the edge,” packaging templates, and offering one-size-fits all quick-fixes to folks, actors will swear up and down to me that it’s a great idea for them to start up a mailing list before there’s a career filled with news blasts worth sending, that they have to do social networking since everyone else is, or that mass mailings with a form letter will lead to the agent of their dreams. I get that they want to defend these “solutions” for which they paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars. But when they get clear with their unique brand, when they start to understand their bullseye, when they begin to research the buyers who are most likely to align with them in the storytelling process they have in common, it clicks with them that the reason their gut never could get behind the idea of doing that big email blast was because that blast was never run through The Brand Filter for authenticity.
Guys, if it’s not clicking for you, don’t jump at it just because everyone else is doing so. When everyone went on the cottage cheese and beets diet, when everyone went on the juice cleanse, when everyone bought the Ab Rocker or the Shake Weight or whatever, who got results that stuck? The friend who was going to the gym five days a week and cutting out fatty foods and sodas, that’s who!
But it’s not just that fads don’t work, it’s that sometimes, they’re flat-out dangerous. Do you ever watch daytime TV? I’m a huge “judge show” fan (like, KCAL-9 and its hours-long run of Judge Mathis and TWO episodes of The People’s Court simply rock my world) and there are a ton of ads during these shows for law firms that are putting together class-action suits against pharmaceutical companies that rushed diet drugs through the FDA approval process, resulting in tragic side effects on the part of those who took the drugs. Whenever I hear about an actor who feels he has to leave the business because he got blacklisted from “making scary phone calls” directly to producers and trying to bypass casting directors or the filtering process that has existed for decades, I realize there are people leaving the business thinking THEY failed, when what failed them was one-size-fits-all advice that will only be revealed as overwhelmingly more harmful than helpful years after its inventors have gone on to create the new Flowbee.
Absolutely, if “what everyone else is doing” resonates with you, try it. Run it through The Brand Filter first, check your gut, then commit to giving it a fair shot, because nothing works when it’s just half-assed. But think about it: If it’s what “everyone else is doing,” how effective can it truly be, if its goal is to get you an EDGE beyond that same “everyone else” population?
Ask those who’ve made it in this business what worked for them. They’ll tell you: They stayed in great classes, they got out of their own way, they built and nurtured relationships with people who are in this business for the long haul, they learned how to stop taking rejection personally, they kept showing up even when it got really hard, they never treated success in this business as a race to some finish line, they lived full lives outside of the industry, and they stayed totally grateful for the opportunity to tell stories even at the staged reading level (because you never know when that little staged reading becomes a fully-mounted production with a favor in the bank for you, because of your early help). Basically, they ate better foods more often than junk and they kept their bodies moving because bodies need to move.
Stop looking for quick fixes. Look within and get lined up with what’s gonna work FOR YOU. There is no amount of money you can throw at “the edge” in this business and cut to the front of the line and STAY there for very long. (Check back on Rebecca Black in a few years, if you think I’m wrong.) Find the discipline that you need to stick with a practical approach to a sometimes illogical business for the long haul and enjoy your life. That’s what it takes.
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001532.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.