Actor 1.

He stands before a camera in a room that usually serves as a conference room. A condescending casting director who is really just a bitter, failed actor sits on the other side of a long plastic table. Headshots, resumes, lunch wrappers, and various office supplies are splayed out before the casting director. He’s distracted, tired, greasy, and spends a little too much time looking everywhere except at the person in front of him. The actor clears his throat, not letting his nerves get the better of him. He knows this material through and through. He was born to play this role. The character is a 30-something guy from Brooklyn who lost his brother in Vietnam. This actor is a 30-something guy from Brooklyn whose brother is a marine! It was destiny. All he needs to do is nail this audition and book the job. It could very well be a game-changer, his big break. A petite woman nods behind the camera as she hits record. 

The actor is grounded and completely in the flow. He listens to the casting assistant as though she were actually his brother about to go off to war. The scene is moving and masterful though he doesn’t realize it. He’s too present, living fully in the moment before him. An involuntary tear rolls down his face. Even the casting assistant seems moved by the performance she just saw. There’s a collective breath between them, a moment of stillness. 

“Thank you! You can validate parking at the front desk!” the sloppy casting director shouts. Never once did he look up at the actor while he was delivering such a powerful scene. Dazed, the actor politely whispers “thanks” as he hurriedly grabs his stuff and leaves. During the walk back to the car, he’s fuming. The actor is livid at how that casting director treated him. Here was yet another rejection to add to his long pile. It didn’t matter. In a moment of uncharacteristic defiance, the actor looks up at the Los Angeles skyline and shouts, “I’ll show him!” 

Cut to a montage of the actor going to audition after audition after audition and getting similar dismissals. Some casting directors tell him “no.” Some just ignore him or politely say thank you. Every time the actor gets more and more determined, albeit frustrated. This isn’t what he had imagined his career would look like. He’s getting desperate for money. His parents back in Nebraska constantly tell him he can come back home. It’s a tempting option but he knows this is his dream. He was born to be an actor, and, by God, he was going to do it. He buckles down and keeps hitting the pavement. 

The audition montage comes to a scratching halt. A casting director leans in after the actor’s final line of a scene and says, “What was your name again?” The actor tells her his name. “That was very good,” she says. It’s a moment of confusion because the actor has become so accustomed to hearing No, that Yes felt like a foreign language. “Are you available to come for a callback tomorrow?” the casting director asks. “Of course!” the actor responds trying his best to keep his cool. 

Cut to the actor working on set of that movie he booked. It’s a small supporting role but he gets to work with his idol, Robert De Niro. He’s nervous, as he’s never been on a movie set before. De Niro is an intimidating presence, but the actor settles into his first scene. The director yells, “Action!” and the actor starts with his first line. He and De Niro have great chemistry. He’s fully present and, thank god, remembered all his lines. When the director calls “Cut,” De Niro turns to the actor. “Nice work, kid,” the legend says with a little pat on the actor’s back. He’s elated and can’t adequately respond to his idol giving him a compliment. He’s overcome. 

The movie turns out to be a great success and launches the career of the young actor. That supporting role leads to larger roles. Pretty soon, he’s a bonafide movie star. It was a tough road to get there but he had grit. He had perseverance. He kept going and going in spite of all the rejections, in spite of how many times he heard No. He did it. He really did it. 

Actor 2.

It’s a Friday afternoon around 4 o’clock. The actor sits in his car, with its manual windows and broken A/C. He does not want to go work this shift at the restaurant. He had a double the day before and hasn’t quite recovered. His body aches and feels much older than it is. Rent is due in two days and his check engine light just came on (again). He has a quiet moment in his car, taking deep breaths, and looking at his phone. There’s nothing new on the phone but he looks at it anyway because it’s something he does 28,494,830 times a day. No texts, no emails, no nothing. 

Cut to a montage of his shift. He’s flop sweating because he’s literally running from one table to the next. His section is already full, and the maître d’ just asked if he can take a 5-top. No one seems to be running food from the kitchen tonight and table 54 is drinking diet coke like it’s going out of style. His heart is racing as though this were a life-or-death situation. The only thing to do at the end of his shift is drink. Lots. 

Months go by and the only audition he gets is for a Hardee’s commercial. It’s for a casting director that really likes him because “she keeps calling him in” (as his agent reminds him).  Hardee’s is one of the casting director’s biggest clients and this actor has read for at least 12 different Hardee’s commercials. He’s auditioned more for Hardee’s than anything else. Every time he goes in, he has a good experience in the room with good feedback. However, they have never booked him, never given him the job. 

Months go by and still nothing. Cut to another montage of the actor waiting tables. Only this time, every couple of shots, the actor is at a different restaurant. Though he doesn’t know it, he’s trying to outrun the pain of a stalled, withering, nonexistent acting career. Change out the restaurant and maybe the pain won’t be so bad. 

The actor continues to get some commercial auditions as the months go by. They’re usually statewide or have a limited internet run. They’re non-union and would pay a criminally-low rate. It doesn’t really matter because he doesn’t book these anyway. He tries to remain positive because, at the very least, he is in a room “acting” while another human being watches him. It’s the closest thing to being on stage like he was in college, performing Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare. At these non-union commercial auditions, he gets the faintest whispering of that feeling, a small sliver of the thing that called him to this in the first place.

The actor talks to all his other actor friends. They all agree it’s a “slow time.” Things will pick up soon. Meanwhile, he makes note of every single audition or job his friends book. He stores this information away, deep within the recesses of his mind. He doesn’t want to, but he cannot help it. He will use those bits of information against himself when he’s trying to fall asleep at night. 

One day he gets an email from his agent, whose become a near stranger in his life. A theatrical (aka film or TV, aka not a commercial) audition has come through! Finally! It’s a small role, 3 lines. The character’s name is “Nice Man.” The actor feels a bizarre mixture of resentment and hope. He’s hopeful that he might be able to book something, anything. Yet he resents how hopeful that makes him, he who has studied the great playwrights…back in the day. In any case, he decides things are going to turn around for him.  

He prepares the scene, with his 3 lines. He’s done his actor homework, memorized the scene, and made smart, specific choices. There’s only so much to be done with “Nice Man” but he puts in an appropriate amount of preparation. He books an appointment at a studio to put his audition on tape. When he walks into the studio, he’s greeted by a wall showcasing all the movies and TV shows that the clients of that studio have booked. His name isn’t up there. 

A friendly acting coach walks up to him. They go into a sound-proof room with a camera set up in the center and fancy lighting equipment posted on tripods. The coach runs the camera and reads the other lines in the scene. It’s a good take. They decide to do another one just in case something magical happens. It’s doesn’t. He can live with it though. The whole 10-minute interaction costs him $20. 

When he gets home, the actor sees the edited audition from the studio in his email. He uploads it to his agent who then passes it on to the casting director. The only thing to do next is wait, which the actor does. He tries as hard as he can to let it go. The role is literally called “Nice Man.” He knows he shouldn’t care. It’s dumb. The whole thing is kinda dumb. Booking this job would be a win, though. It would be the tiniest hint of validation. He doesn’t want to hinge all his hopes on this one-day gig but he can’t help it. In a desert, any amount of water seems like salvation. 

He hears nothing. The production window for the project comes and goes. With every day, the hope for “Nice Man” slowly dwindles. Eventually the actor forgets about it and moves on. He continues living and waiting tables. He commiserates with his actor friends. They lean on each other as much as people in identical positions can. Life moves on. Keep on moving. One foot in front of the other. 

Things go on this way for a long time. Auditions pop up occasionally but they’re few and far between. Grad school becomes an attractive option. Maybe he should start a coaching business. Teaching is a possibility. Meanwhile he continues waiting tables and waiting in general. He sends audition tape after audition tape out into the ether only to be receive nothing on the other end. There’s no rejection, only silence. He tries to ignore that voice in his head, the one that says, “Many are called, few are chosen.” It can’t be that he was called but not chosen. It just can’t. 

The Point?

I don’t have a point. I just work here.

Kidding. 

Both of these fictious actors exist on a spectrum and I think most non-fictious actors would agree that they oscillate between being one of the two. In my more determined and optimistic moments, I’m Actor 1. In my weaker and pessimistic moments, I’m Actor 2. My career hasn’t unfolded exactly like either of these cases. It’s landed somewhere in between. It continues to land somewhere in between.

What’s more important, I think, is the narrative to which we subscribe. Both of these stories are some level of unhealthy. 

The first story may have given you a full-body boner. It’s a narrative most of us conjure up when we think of the “struggling actor.” When I first started out in this business, it was how I thought my career would go. I thought this because every time I saw a successful actor give an interview or accept an award, they would recite some variation of this story. “It was hard, but I kept working even harder. Every time I heard No, I became more determined. I kept working. Look at me now!” It’s a linear narrative that’s backed by thick-hided Americana. It’s woven into our cultural DNA. It truly is the American story, where anyone can become anything with enough determination. That actor could just as easily be a cowboy or colonial settler or entrepreneur. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and just keep going in the face of it all. 

This narrative doesn’t acknowledge what rejection really looks like in 2019. Rather than hearing a No, you usually hear nothing at all. You do your work in silence, darkness, and near-complete isolation, only to throw it out into the universe with no confirmation anyone will ever see it. In this business, a No is a luxury.

More importantly, what are you left with when your career doesn’t go this way, in spite of busting your ass? How does this narrative serve you when you can’t even get in the room for an audition? How does this help the actor that can’t get an agent to sign her? How does this benefit a veteran actor who isn’t being requested anymore?

The story of Actor 2 is pretty fraught as well. It’s the more common experience I see around me and a landmine I often fall victim to. Repeating this narrative only reinforces the idea that you have no agency or autonomy in your career. You are completely and entirely prey to the whims of decision-makers that you have no access to. Big players in skyscrapers determine your bookability and, thus, your worth. With this story, you have no option but to wait and hope for the best. It’s the very definition of victimhood. You are robbed of all power.  

By holding on to and repeating either of these narratives, we inflict so much self-damage. Either you’re failing at being Actor 1 or succeeding at being Actor 2. What would it look like, though, to release these stories? How would you feel if you didn’t stack your real life up against a fake life? What would happen to your mind, spirit, soul, and even your career, if you accepted what was in front you and rejoiced in the insane glory of this life? What would it look like if you buoyed on the ‘is’ and didn’t sink on the ‘isn’t?’

By the way, when I say “you,” I’m 1000% talking to myself. 

To help on this quest, I’ve written myself 5 tenants:

1. If a story doesn’t uplift and inspire me, let that shit go
2. Careers have seasons, and no season is permanent
3. You don’t have enough information to be pessimistic (as quoted by the brilliant Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence)
4. Roll, don’t fight
5. Find daily happiness

These may be cliché but I don’t particularly care. If these 5 tenants can help me find peace and allow me to put down the knife I hold up to my own throat (metaphorically speaking), then I’m going to use them. Or, at the very least, try. 

Check out this week’s photo contributors:

Tyler Lastovich

Luis Quintero

Suliman Sallehi