Last week, I was working with a small group of actors over at an awesome SAG Foundation Casting Access Project CD Workshop and the subject of power came up. Not the kind of power that studio heads wield or that members of the AMPTP think they have or that Sarah Jessica Parker had for a brief moment about ten days ago, but the kind that actors have — and give away — every single day in this town.
Let me make it really clear, here: No agent, no manager, no casting director, no writer, no director, no producer, no headshot photographer, no coach, no one in this town makes a buck without YOU. Yet for some reason, actors walk into auditions, into CD Workshops, into negotiations from a position of weakness. They are sheepish and timid and worried about what others are thinking of them. They stress over how to impress people in the room, before showing up. They obsess over what they might have done wrong, when they aren’t the ones cast. They spend way too many hours of their lives focused on ways in which these other folks “control their destiny.”
They give away their power. Daily.
And I can only think of two reasons why. One: there are so dang many actors out there that actors feel — in the pits of their stomachs — that if they don’t do whatever it takes to book this gig, we’ll just move on to someone else. Two: everyone else in this town is so damn afraid of the collective power of the actor that they have conspired with their non-actor peers to make sure actors always feel like the beggars in the relationship.
Don’t let them do that. And yes, I’m a member of “them.” I see actors walk in, sides in hand, nervous and worried that I don’t like their shoes or their hair or their headshots or their training or their choices. They’re about to step up to the plate and give me the gift of their work, and instead of realizing how awesome it is to have the opportunity to do what they’re born to do in front of someone who has invited them in to do it in front of them, they’re giving away their power. They’re trying to figure out what I want. They’re remembering the waiting room and calculating their odds of booking. They’re forgetting that I want to see their work or else they wouldn’t be there in the first place.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of CDs who relish the opportunity to sit there and screw with actors precisely because they know that the actors have surrendered their power to them. They are hungry to do it. Their favorite auditions of the day are the ones in which they can send someone out of the room and straight to LAX, never to return. Don’t let those people win. They are sad, little people who couldn’t cut it as actors themselves and chose to be in acting-adjacent professions not because they adore actors and want to spend time with the people they used to count as their peers but instead because they can’t wait, each day, to put actors through something they once went through, or to punish actors for being more successful than they ever were.
That’s not your problem. That’s theirs. Let ’em choke on it. Don’t give them fuel for that disorder. Whatever you do, don’t give them your power.
As for the argument of whether there are a thousand other “of you” we could go to, if you don’t book the role, that’s true. That’s always going to be true. And y’know what? There are actors who have said no on films I’ve cast at the micro-budget level that I can’t wait to cast at the mega-budget level. I don’t hate them because they turned down $100/day on the SAG Ultra Low Budget contract! I am still their fan. The number of actors standing behind them, eager for that shot at the SAG ULB film don’t diminish the fact that I still adore the ones who said NO. Professionals get that there are deals and there are better deals. Don’t let the numbers usurp your power.
Back to the more ridiculous reason for the power struggle (item two, of the two I listed earlier): An actor spoke with me a couple of weeks ago about an atrocious meeting she had with an agent I actually have a great phone relationship with. (I can’t imagine what our next conversation will be like, now that I know what he did to her, but that’s a column for another week, I’m sure.) Anyway, she’d been called in for a meet and greet and read after he “found her headshot in a stack of trash from months ago” (which isn’t likely, since she only moved to LA and started mailing submissions to LA agents weeks ago). She’d been given less than 24 hours’ notice for the meeting. She’d been emailed four pages of dialogue-heavy sides for the read. And she showed up anyway, because she was so excited to sign with her first LA agent that she was thrilled with the invitation to even start that potential process.
Rather than saying, “Hey, you and I both want me to do my best work when we meet up. Let’s do this next week,” she said, “Okay!” and busted her ass to make it work. And that’s when things got really ugly.
He was the total cliché “bad audition” recipient. He spent the entire time she was reading the sides either on the phone or eating a sandwich, a finger in the air toward the actor, prompting her to either keep going or stop — like he was some traffic cop at Sunset and the 405 at rush hour. Obviously, not her best audition ever (How could it be?), but she was going to show him she was unflappable. She was going to keep her chin up and continue the meeting… during which he let her know there was just no chance he was going to sign her anyway, so this really was a favor opportunity and probably a waste of time.
But the meeting continued. (I actually just typed the word “beating” and changed it to “meeting” and then realized I probably could’ve left it as-is.) This guy continued to make her feel bad about her photos, her credits, her union status, her weight, her lack of demo reel footage, her look, her everything! Any why? Just so she could hopefully have the honor of printing the logo of this bozo’s agency on her resumé? This agency that — if I were asked even before this story to list my Top 200 favorite agencies in order — would come in somewhere around the 180-mark? Are actors so totally hungry for a logo — any logo — that they’ll ignore the absence of simple human decency in order to earn it?
You do realize, actors, that agents and managers are people you interview for the position of working for you, right? These are folks you’re considering as candidates to earn a commission off your work, you know? Hell, I recently saw a thread at Hollywood Happy Hour about the pros and cons of signing with an agent who takes 35% commission and my eyes seriously bugged out when I read that. THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT?!? And you think folks on the receiving end of your submission from that shady character don’t know that you’ve basically bribed someone to call himself your agent? *shudder*
Look, it’s simple. There will never be an end to the number of folks in this town who try to separate you from your money and who try to lessen your level of power. The sooner you realize that you — being the one in the position of power to begin with — have the right to say no, deserve the best representation possible, can create your own must-have heat, and are the reason any of us put food on our tables each meal anyway, you’ll audition better, you’ll take meetings better, and you’ll FEEL better.
Stop giving your power away. It’s worth more than anything “Hollywood” has to offer. Believe it.
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/000881.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.