The Great Acting Blog: “Where Our Power Resides”
I’m an advocate of actors establishing their own productions and taking control of their careers rather standing around in the dark hoping to be picked. One of the common complaints I here about self-production however, is that actors just want to be actors, they do not want to take on other roles within a production. This is largely due to the additional stress multi-tasking creates – actors are then trying to not only bring in work but also get the production off the ground, as well as manage their ordinary life. The stress however, is largely illusory in that we create it in our own minds. The stress is not real.
It’s true that managing multiple projects can create a fiery temperature, which is liable to boil over. But whether it does boil over or not is our choice. It’s our choice because we decide for ourselves what view to take of a thing. It’s up to us if we want to view a difficulty as a bump in the road or as a catastrophe, whether we view it as a challenge brought forth by creative endeavour or as evidence of our own shortcomings. But we can manage all of this stuff by choosing not to worry about it, to just accept it, and get on with our work.
Yes, the workload can be severe, yes we wish things would run more smoothly, yes we wish everything would happen more quickly. But most of that is out of our control.
Where our power resides however, is in knowing that we are free to decide what it all means to us.
