“Aaaaaahhhhh!!! I fucking hate this fucking bitch!!” Sofia screamed at the tippy top of her lungs. Screaming had become the preferred mode of expression inside our North Hollywood apartment. Okay, technically it was a ‘Valley Village’ apartment but I tell people ‘North Hollywood.’ That’s only if they’ve never been to Los Angeles. If they have, then I say ‘Studio City’ apartment. Whatevs. Semantics.

Sof’s voice hung in the air for just a moment. And then, as though it played out in slow motion, a pale blue plastic cup went flying over my head. It made a bee line for the wall opposite the TV where it landed with a hollow thud and fell to the floor. I looked at Sof. She stood there, proud of her decision to throw the cup. It was artistic. It was animalistic. It was beautiful. As my roommate prowled for something else to throw, I continued nursing my shattered ego on our pleather couch, last night’s leftover Taco Bell coursing through my veins.

“Who the fuck does she think she is?!” Sof demanded as I moved a coffee mug out of her reach.

“I don’t know. Gandhi?” I replied with all the emotion I could muster, which was nil. Nil emotion. I felt nothing except some early onset indigestion from the day(s) old crispy potato soft taco I just chewed my way through.

Once again, my optimism sent me flying head-first into a wall much like that pale blue plastic cup. I thought this time would be different. Alice was a referral. A referral for goodness’ sake! She was the only friend in Los Angeles that I coaxed into passing along my headshot and résumé to her agent. That alone was a Herculean feat. People hoard their agents like they hoard water on a deserted island.

The moment Alice agreed to perform this Christmas-style miracle, I started fantasizing how this agent was going to jumpstart my nonexistent career. This agent would constantly remind me how lucky she was to discover a talent like mine.  I would be her most prized client for whom she’d work tirelessly. She’d spend most of her time on the phone with studio executives saying things like, “He’s the next Jim Carey but with the dramatic chops of de Niro.” I’d be on TV…have money… attend those fancy LA parties where there’s no food because no one eats because it’s LA…then the movies…Oprah would want to do a piece on me for OWN…then comes the Oscar…

“So what the fuck else did this fucking twat say?!” Sof was circling the room resembling a bird of prey looking for its next meal.

“Nothing. All she said was that I need more credits and my demo reel is shit,” I said. I was staring at my phone re-reading the text from Alice. The words were engrained in my mind.

“How the fucking shit are you supposed to have more credits!! Doesn’t this dumbass realize that’s her job!?!”

“I don’t know.”

“Guuugh! I hate this fugly bitch! Hand me that cup!”

By the time this incident happened, I was quite well acquainted with rejection. I had been acting since middle school. I attempted some professional work in high school. I had a degree in theatre and my résumé was a lengthy mother. By the time I was 19, I signed with my first TV/Film agent back in Atlanta. I was eligible to join both the stage actors union and the screen actors guild. So here I was at 25, laying on a cheap plastic couch in the Valley having already racked up a substantial amount of rejection (hence the plastic couch). So why did this particular rejection sting so bad? This agent was, by no means, the first agent to pass on me (and certainly wouldn’t be the last).

Let’s rewind to about twenty minutes before Sofia threw the cup…

I could barely open the door fast enough. My keys were shaking I was so excited to tell my roommate about the meeting I had with Alice. (FYI: people in Los Angeles don’t have coffee with friends, they have “meetings”) I dramatically enter our living room. As usual, Sof was doing 8 things at once while she sat on the floor with the TV on, her laptop open, make-up splayed out in front of her, drinking what was probably her second French Press of the morning.

“She’s going to pass my stuff along to her agent!!”

“WHAT?!?! WHO??”

“Alice!!!”

“WHAT?!?! Praise be the gods, Don!! This is AMAZING!!”

Even though I knew nothing about this agent, the fantasy of her was getting stronger by the second. This was going to be the opportunity of a lifetime. Sof immediately jumped into action and matched my frenzied energy. She muted the TV (The Chew was on so I knew she was serious). We both dove into our laptops and flung into research mode. We needed info on this agent. Research was a daily practice for me and Sof because googling how to be an actor is the next best thing to actually being one. Within seconds Sof pierced the air, “I got her!!” and she did. She found her. Eunice Dracony. The woman who would be my unraveling.

Sof’s eyes flickered in the glow of the screen. “Okay, now this looks promising…oh…okay…wow…interesting. Have…h-have you found her yet?”

Her tone worried me. After a few more seconds, I finally pulled up the agent’s page. My heart was pounding as I scanned the words before me. There she was, Eunice Dracony. A few minutes went by as I pieced together her professional profile. It turned out to be…lackluster. My heart-racing joy quietly sank into disappointment. Sof sat waiting for my response, withholding her judgment. That was our motus operandi. We usually suspended developing an opinion on anything until we know where the other stood. Maybe that’s co-dependence. Whatevs.

Our eyes met and Sof saw my disappointment. With nonverbal communication, we made a pact. We knew what we had to do: It was time to rationalize. We needed to rationalize the ever-living crap out of this. As desperate actors, Sof and I had a jujitsu-level ability to completely wash over reality. We could take the disappointments of life and masterfully paint over them with a hue of our choosing. It’s like having diarrhea but claiming you’re happy to be “releasing toxins.”

The first thing that needed to be rationalized was the size of Eunice’s roster. She represented approximately 7,000 clients. That might be a slight exaggeration but, just for fun, let’s suppose it really was 7,000. If she spent an equal amount of time on everyone, that translates to 4.114 seconds per client during an 8-hour workday. That amounts to 17 minutes and 49 seconds per client during an entire year. And that’s if she works 5 days a week for all 52 weeks of the year. And let’s be honest, she’s probably not in the office on Arbor Day.

All the beautiful things I saw in my future (the parties, the career, the Oprah) were unlikely if my agent could only devote 18 minutes a year to getting me in front of the casting director of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. So how do we rationalize it? Well Eunice has a small boutique agency with no other agents on staff so she needs a large cesspool of actors to keep herself financially afloat. I’ll just rise to the top of it. As my career takes off, she’ll pare down her roster. Also, Taco Bell is healthy because there’s something in this burrito that has been dyed the color green. Vegetables are green. Boom. Done.

The second thing that needed rationalization was the contents of that massive roster. Just exactly who did Eunice represent (aside from my friend Alice who is legitimately brilliant)? Basically, it was a ‘Who’s Who of Who-The-Hell-Are-You.’ I wasn’t expecting Scarlett Johansson to be on there, but I was hopeful I’d recognize a name or two. Or a face. Or a show that one of them had been on one time. Instead I’m looking at the profile of Joe Schmidt who did a student film back in the 90’s and a short film called Dracula’s Juicy Booty Hoes III and wondering what the heck Eunice did all day long.

In this business we call these types of actors “emerging artists.” They generally emerge from one piece of shit to the next. Hopefully they emerge to better shit and finally make their way into the good shit. I was smackdab in the middle of that emerging stage! I was maybe in the stage before that stage, a pre-emerging artist. However, I was awash with judgment that Eunice’s entire roster seemed to be emerging. It appeared that not one of her clients was a working actor. Fear not! I was still able to rationalize this. Eunice takes chances on people. She sees raw talent and strives to develop it. I’m an emerging artist. Maybe I could emerge as one of her clients. Maybe she could get me in Dracula’s Juicy Booty Hoes IV! Great.

I would like to take a step back and give a little credit to Eunice. In fact I would like to give a little credit to all agents. They’re hustlers. They have to be. They hustle harder than any one of their clients. You think Kevin Hart works hard? Take a look at his agent (and then pass him my reel). They also face more rejection than any actor ever will. Think it’s difficult to be passed over for a role? Imagine your agent having 10 clients get passed over that day. Every time an actor gets into a casting office, there were probably 5 other offices that wouldn’t see them.

Agents face constant rejection. They bear their pain and the pain of their clients. I do not envy agents. I do not want that kind of life. The good ones are born to do it; the bad ones burn out fast. If someone told me I had to show up to work tomorrow as a talent agent, I would move in the middle of the night to a place where acting doesn’t exist and people still wear loincloths. That being said…Eunice’s roster was painfully underwhelming and it appeared her clients didn’t work.

Sof and I took a collective deep breath and slowly closed our laptops. “Well, Don, she’s all we got. She’s also not that bad,” Sof said with her uncanny combination of reality-check-meets-untainted-optimism. She was right. It was Eunice or bust. Even with a depressing professional profile, I wanted in because something was better than nothing. And I was balls-deep into nothingville.

I wanted in because I was tired. I was tired of the hunt. I was tired of shelling out money I didn’t have for workshops with bottom-tier agents that never respond to follow-up emails/calls/telegrams/vials of blood in the mail. I was tired of sending out blind submissions to every agent that had a mailing address. I was tired of asking every human I met who their “rep” was. I was tired of feeling the zero: zero traction, zero autonomy, zero career. Mostly, though, I was tired of hearing that voice in my head. The one that kept telling me moving to LA was stupid and that I would never be a “real” actor because who was I kidding. That voice was getting louder. So as I sat on the floor blankly staring at my roommate, I put all my emotional eggs into one Eunice-shaped basket.

Sof unmuted the TV while I scrounged for food. All we had to do now was play the waiting game, of which we were both experts. Any time there was the tiniest career nibble, there came the lengthy waiting game. Rejection rarely comes swiftly. We knew this particular waiting game could take days or weeks.

A mere 20 minutes goes by though when I get a text. It’s Alice! It’s about Eunice! It was the fastest turn around I’d ever seen. We were barely halfway through Rachel Ray. Eunice must have loved me so much that she wanted to sign me immediately. Praise be the gods indeed!

Sofia sat up lightning fast as I read the text out loud. Things went into slow motion. The words came out of my mouth but they weren’t making sense. Eunice didn’t want to sign me. Alice was sorry to relay the message. In fact, I could tell it pained her to relay the message. Apparently, Eunice said I needed to have a higher quality demo reel. She said I needed more credits. She was only taking on union actors.

I was too emerge-y for this agent who specialized in talentless no-names. How?! Didn’t she know I was the talentlessest of all the no-names? My name was so “no” that it was practically “yes.” And a better reel? How is a talentless no-name supposed to have a better reel? You only get a good reel if you work on quality things. And you only get quality work if you have a quality reel. And you can only get a quality reel if you have a quality agent. And you can only get a quality agent if you have a quality reel. Suddenly my head exploded and there were bits and pieces of my brain all over the walls and ceiling. I collapsed on the couch while Sof picked Patrickbrain out of her hair. I was done. That was it. I reached for last night’s Taco Bell that was left out on a table and Sof reached for a pale blue plastic cup.

Throwing. Screaming. Climactic. Then came the letdown.

Once I was certain that the landlord hadn’t reported Sof for domestic violence, I made my descent. Down the rabbit hole I tumbled. The rest of the day resembled all the other days where bad news whacked me over the head. Sof and I would bond together and wallow through it. She’d play triage nurse and attempt to slow the emotional bleed-out. We would always order a pizza (or two…or three) and binge on Netflix and trans fats. It was a rhythmic process of self-soothing and self-pity.

We went through the routine but it felt different this time. Then it hit me: LA had finally won. Eunice Dracony was the last straw. I didn’t mention it to Sof in between bites of sugar-coated lardballs but I was done. Not just play-play done but actually and wholly done. In that moment I knew that I would soon move across the country and back into my parent’s house. It’s no wonder our greasy pizza-like product didn’t bring its usual consolation.

Sure enough, no less than two months later I was back home. Back in my old bedroom, the one I slept in as a teenager. Back in my old life. Everything was familiar but slightly askew. I had outgrown my life in Georgia but there I was, trying to stuff my fat ass back in it. Depression slowly wrapped itself around me. My youthful naïvety gave way to painful comprehension in the months that followed. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t unique. I was exactly like every other idiot who stepped off the bus in Los Angeles that August day a few years earlier. I went out to California to grab my dream by the genitals and conquer the world. As it turned out, California conquered me, put my genitals in a death grip, and sent me crying back to my mama. I was defeated. I had failed.

It took about four months of being back home before I started to feel like a human creature again. The process of building another life for myself was slow. I reconnected with old friends, got a survival job, and tried to brainstorm what was next. My acting career was deceased but at least other pieces of my life were coming together.

That’s when I saw the Facebook post.

Alice announced that her agent, the infamous Eunice Dracony, my arch nemesis, and professional harbinger of chaos, had taken her life. I sat there quietly reading and re-reading that post. It wouldn’t sink in. Eunice had succumb to suicide. She had been galvanized as the symbol of my undoing. Over time I managed to paint her as a fire-breathing gatekeeper. She was the catalyst for the abandonment of my dreams. She was the living projection of all my fears/inadequacies/failings. But here she was, staring me in the face as a broken human being, fighting her own demons, and having lost against a tragic disease.

I was flooded with guilt. Lots of it. I had been cruel, maybe not to her face but I was cruel in my assessment of Eunice as a businesswoman and ultimately as a person. I criticized her while wanting something from her. Then I crucified her when I didn’t get it. I made her into something that she wasn’t, all because I was unhappy with my own stuff. I trashed someone I never met and knew nothing about. Shame came in waves.

She was 38. She died by gunshot wound to the head. Before she started her own talent agency, she was an actor. There was a picture with her obituary. She was incredibly beautiful with piercing eyes. It was the first time I even saw her. I felt deep sadness. For her, for her family, for her clients. That’s when I realized I was Eunice. She was me. At one point in time, she was bright and ambitious and went out West to chase her dreams, dreams that were probably identical to mine. And now she was dead, she fell victim to darkness and illness.

This was nearly 4 years ago and so much has changed. I have a vastly different perspective on my experience in Los Angeles, my career, Eunice, life. I was young and selfish back then (some might argue that I still am). I was hungry but completely ignorant of how the business worked. I had the audacity to look at Eunice’s professional profile as a personal failing. I did that because I saw my professional profile as a personal failing. Were I to encounter Eunice now, I hope compassion and understanding would take the reigns. I hope I would applaud her for her hustle. I hope I could acknowledge the strength that lay in simply showing up and getting in the game. I hope I could appreciate how quickly she responded to me and provide feedback.

The irony in all this is that not an ounce of her feedback was untrue. I look back at the “demo reel” I sent her. It’s laughably bad. It pains me to look at it now and to think that I actually let another human being watch it with their human eyes. I had zero idea what I was doing. Back then I only had theatre credits on my resume (some of it from high school productions!) but that doesn’t mean much in the world of TV and film. I hadn’t hustled to get in front of a camera. No student films, no indie movies. Nothing. I had done nothing to prove that I was knowledgeable about the industry or that I was willing to work hard. Of course Eunice wasn’t going to take me on! Few agents would. I wouldn’t sign me!

But that’s just it. We don’t know what we don’t know. Learning can be a painful process but hopefully one that makes us a softer, wiser person. I now look back at Eunice with the clarity that she was one of the great heroes of my story. She was an instructor, a teacher. She was a moment of reckoning. At the point when Eunice entered my life, I was on the fast track toward bitterness and cynicism. It’s a cliché but so many people walk around Los Angeles (technically they sit on the 405) as a talking cadaver, lifeless. Their dreams shriveled up and died somewhere along the way. That was soon to be me if it hadn’t been for Eunice. She forced me to make a change. My career is now the healthiest it’s ever been and that’s largely due to the choices I made after the Eunice incident. At the time, I thought she was the war ship that sunk me. Instead, I think she was the tugboat that helped pull me to safer waters. For that I will always be grateful.