The Great Acting Blog: “Eliminate The Distractions, Be Great”
Getting acting work, getting any acting work, is a tricky task, as we all know. The numbers just don’t stack-up, there are far too many actors for the volume of work available. There are the gilded few of course, who are in demand and make very good money, but most have to wait for the wheel to turn in order to have their shot. It is a surprise then, that so many actors seem not to treasure their work whenever they get some. Instead of being focussed and hard working, they let quotidian minutae distract them – one of their friends said something the other day about somebody, and then they said something else and then they’re going on holiday and blah-blah-blah, and who cares? This kind of stuff is utter garbage.
You fought so hard and were so patient in order to get the work in the first place, you’ve sacrificed a comfortable, normal, mainstream life in order to practice your craft, and yet when you get the opportunity to do so you fail to make the most of it. Bonkers.
If an associate is distracting you in some way, get rid of them. We cannot afford to be mediocre, it’s just too competitive out there. To make any meaningful progress at all we need to be able to offer something extra. And doing that requires every ounce of focus and energy we can muster. Eliminate anything that subtracts from that.
Knock it out of the park, employ an impeccable professionalism, be personable, create a situation whereby the director would be a fool not to use you in the next production. Don’t be just another actor with a headshot.
We’ve got an enormous surplus of actors who don’t care, who are happy to shrug their way through a performance. Great actors, true artists however, are rare.
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