Here We Go…
I always considered starting a blog. I would watch movies as a kid where the protagonist — usually a teenage girl — would sit on her fire escape and type away as a voiceover read you her stereotypically moody thoughts, and the shot slowly panned out. It was the staple of early 2000s teen movies. I dreamt of my own fire escape in the apartment I’d one day have, and convinced myself that whatever I wrote would be better than the mess of cliches I was hearing. But as I stumbled my way into adulthood, I lost touch with the side of myself that had romanticized writing. I no longer saw the girl on the fire escape as a symbol of freedom and creativity — she was now a wannabe, desperate for someone to tell her she’s artsy.
In college, I was surrounded by actors who were incredibly multi-faceted. They were directors, producers, set designers, and — of course — writers. My insecurities about my lack of direction outside of acting left me resenting these other talents people seemed to hone so easily. Sure, I’d dabbled in most of those things, too. But if I didn’t see myself as a writer or director or whatever as much as I saw myself an actor, was I missing something? It sure felt like it. The culture of acting school was that if you were not creating your own material from the ground up, you were doing something wrong. For those of us who focused just on the performance, it was as if we were falling behind. Others were able to match our focus, and somehow have time to do a million other things. I resented my job, which I couldn’t attend school without, because it was an easy source of blame for the time I never seemed to have. I began to see my peers creating shorts and web series on their own time, and suddenly their individual projects were helping them get cast in other things — university productions, thesis films, even paid gigs and getting representation. Meanwhile, I was feeling stuck, wondering why acting wasn’t enough to get me an acting job.
After I graduated, my job became full-time so I could start paying rent (on an apartment with no fire escape), and that left me just enough time to submit my headshot and resume on Backstage each morning and feel like I’d done my duty for the day. A few months of this felt like the right path. Waiting tables and making the occasional self-tape was the actor’s life, right? Once the pandemic hit and I was no longer able to work, it became clear that something was missing. I would try to write, but nothing came out. I opened a TikTok account, hopeful that it would spark some creativity, but the best I could do was hop on a dance trend. Weeks turned into months, and though I’d picked up some new hobbies like painting and crocheting, I hadn’t created any new content or been hired for a single acting gig. And then I made a change.
About a month and a half ago, I decided I was sick of waiting for my career to take off out of nowhere. I can submit for roles and make self-tapes everyday, and still have plenty of time to follow a completely different career path that would earn me a fulfilling living in the meantime. Hungry for some intellectual stimulation and a return to the academic environment I seem to thrive in, I began studying for the LSAT — the Law School Admission Test. I was invigorated with a renewed sense of purpose. Hours of studying each day and countless practice tests proved that I was on the right path, as my practice score began to hover in the competitive range. A funny thing happened once I began to lose myself in a trade quite different than my own: the opportunities started to come.
What nobody told me as a kid is that opportunities — much like love — find you when you least expect them. Now, this is not to say that they come easily, or without persistent work. While studying for the LSAT, I continued to submit for roles daily and make self tapes. But once those auditions stopped consuming me and I was able to see them for what they really are (one opportunity each, not a measure of my worth as an artist), I started to do better. I submitted a self-tape for a short film being produced by an artist collective. The collective was started by a few of my friends from college, and I’d auditioned for them previously without success. But this time, with my newfound confidence and ability to see my value beyond each audition, I nailed it. I knew once I was called in for a second callback that something had changed, and this new me was on the right path. Sure enough, I booked the film, and I’ll be shooting this weekend. The first project I’ve been cast in since early last year.
In addition to the role and the career shift, I started working as the Community Supervisor for the collective. Though the position is unpaid, it’s given me the chance to use my creativity in a new way, facilitating an environment for my fellow creatives where the opportunities and collaborations are limitless. I am so grateful to the collective for giving me all of these creative outlets in a time when I was feeling so hopeless.
I would be remiss not to acknowledge how incredibly fortunate I am. Having the freedom and comfort to chase these dreams and follow these opportunities, even when unpaid, is truly remarkable. That fact is not lost on me. Though I sometimes sit in my woes perhaps more than I should, I will never take for granted how lucky I am to be in this position. The things I lament are never for lack of gratitude, but rather lack of confidence or sense of purpose.
That being said, all of the wonderful things coming my way were not enough to stop the thoughts from returning last night. I am not creative. I am not an “idea person.” I am an actor waiting on other people to give me a chance, and my alternative career path is merely a distraction from how little I have to contribute to society. These are the thoughts that plagued me, and that I am consciously working to reverse with this essay/post/whatever you’d call this. My angel of a boyfriend, a musical genius and the most hard-working person I know, was not having this. Desperate to reverse this line of thinking and prove me wrong, he encouraged me to write. Almost dared me. When I told him I can’t write because I have no original ideas, he responded with, “What about someone walking down the street? Could you write a page about that?” I nodded, stubbornly holding back a relenting grin. “Then do that. Write one page each day. Write about anything, it doesn’t matter,” he said. And so I did.
I’m not quite sure what my goal is with this piece, or with any I may write in the future. I post them here, on my public website, without delusion that anyone is scouring my acting site for updates, but with the thrill of knowing that a person may stumble upon them at some point. Hello, friend. Thank you for indulging me. I guess I’ll see you next time.
