Getting Used to Rejection

As an actor we all know that rejection is part of the game.  Rejection is something we have to face daily and just keep moving forward.

But knowing rejection is common doesn't make it any easier to take.  And the ugly thing is that it doesn't really stop.  No matter how famous or talented you are there will be some role you didn't get or some award that goes to someone else.

I had one of those weeks recently where I could do nothing right.  Every audition, every class, every workshop went wrong and by the end of that week I was certain I was the worst actor in all of Los Angeles. 

I'm not going to lie, I may have quit acting multiple times and cried a bit.  It was a tough week.

You know who got me through this bad week?  Leonardo DiCaprio.

Yep, Leo.

I thought about how not only has he never won an Oscar - he wasn't even nominated this year for his performance in "Django," which was pretty darn good. 

What it made me realize is that with acting, as with any art, everyone has an opinion and many disagree with mine.  You can't create art if you are worried about what other people will think or if you will be rejected.  It will stifle you.

I've been doing this for quite some time and the rejection still hurts.  I wish I could be one of those people who just takes it in stride and moves on to the next thing.  But I'm not, I have a tendency to fixate and worry about what I could have done differently.

In the end, I don't think you could have done anything differently than simply bringing yourself into the room.  Don't try to be anyone else.  Just be prepared and be who you are.  Either they'll want you or they won't. 

And if they don't then you don't need them either.

Pretty-Girl-Syndrome

Last week Samantha Brick made a lot of headlines by complaining about the downsides of being a beautiful woman.  Many people immediately attacked her and disregarded her point entirely claiming she isn't that beautiful.  But, the truth is that whether you thinks she is beautiful or not is besides the point.  She thinks she is beautiful which gives her confidence and confidence will make others see her as beautiful. 

So, back to the point of her argument.  Are there downsides to being a pretty girl?  I know what you're thinking: this is Hollywood, being pretty is all you need to make it.  If you were actually thinking that, let me stop you and say, You are wrong.

Girls come to Hollywood after being the prettiest girl in their high school, small town, or college acting program.  I've noticed these girls often suffer from what I call Pretty-Girl-Syndrome.  No one has ever told them no; they have never had to wait in line for anything; they have never once in their lives been rejected. 

But, now they are in Hollywood, the land of beautiful girls and they are competing for parts with some of the most beautiful women on the planet.  They better learn quickly how take rejection.  Most don't.  These are the girls that after not "making it" in a year go home.  Or maybe they do make it into a movie, but then get panned by the critics or the movie bombs and suddenly they are facing a new thing: rejection.  They are often the ones that collapse and then you never hear from them again.

One of the things that I am grateful to have is the protective shell of thousands of rejections.  I am used to being rejected.  I don't expect anything to work out, so when it does I am pleasantly surprised; but when things don't go my way, I am not shattered.

Now for those of you who are Pretty Girls.  If you aren't finding immediate success, remember rejection is part of the game of Hollywood.  If you are doing well in this crazy town: don't expect things to always be easy.  This is a fickle place.  Enjoy it now, but be prepared to work later and be nice to everyone you meet.

For those of you who aren't pretty girls, don't forget to be proud of being a character actor and take comfort in your protective shell of rejections.

What I Learned in a Year

It's officially been a year since I started writing this blog.  The reason I began was to share some of my experience and pitfalls with my actor friends out there.  I explained Why You Should Listen to Me, which is pretty much that you probably shouldn't since anyone who claims to know anything in Hollywood is probably wrong.

I have to say I've learned a lot just from writing this blog.  Reminded me that I need to enjoy the journey, not to worry about my competition, and how to face rejection.  I got to share with you guys my success at making a movie in 72 hours, what inspired me at the Playhouse West Film Festival, and how I survived the Los Angeles Actorfest. 

Of course, I'm always learning more and am often reminded that I don't know everything.  Just this last week, I had one of those auditions that was not perfect and I forgot some of my own advice, by not owning my audition and losing my confidence.  But with every failure comes a chance to do it better the next time.  You know, what doesn't kill you ...


As the last blog in February it's time to see how my Career goals are going:

Goal: Attend class unless working an acting gig or sick
Actual: I didn't miss a single class this month :)

Goal: Work on scenes from plays I can put up.
Actual: Working on "Vanities" with a couple ladies from my class.

Goal: Read two plays a month.
Actual: I read "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday" and "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress"

Goal: Find and attend a good on-camera class to supplement my acting classes.
Actual: Finishing up that commercial class with Chris Game.  I am thinking about starting to get a group of actors together to work on camera once a week.

Goal: Complete editing on both my films before the PWFF early bird deadline.
Actual: Not looking so good, but they will be finished!!!

Goal: Write and produce two more shorts this year.
Actual: Let's finish these other two first.

Goal: Continue to help at the agency once a week.
Actual: I've gone to the agency once a week and have been working on a Pilot Season project to help them be super organized.

Goal: Find three casting offices that I can help out at as a reader.
Actual: This month I continued helping out at the TV office and got to help them on their new Pilot.

Goal: Blog every Monday.
Actual: Blogged every week.  Plus you can check out my other blog: Being Crafty and Cultured in Los Angeles. 

How do You Keep Yourself Going?

People always say how difficult it is to be an actor because you hear "no" all the time.  This is actually  not true - most of the time you hear nothing at all.  The way most actors find out they were rejected is when they see another actor playing the role they auditioned for on TV.  Oh, awesome, that goofy bug-eyed girl got that commercial I went in for ... again.

But there is no way around it, being an actor is a life filled with rejection.  And I'm not going to lie: it is difficult and it will get to you.  The people who have longevity in this business are the ones who can take the rejection and keep moving forward.

When the rejection starts to get me feeling down, I look at the reasons I chose this career in the first place.  I love to act; I love the theater; I love performing; I love movies; I love plays.

My first step in fighting the rejection blues is by watching some of my favorite actors in their best performances.  I get the classics down and watch Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Singing in the Rain - the movies that made me want to be an actor in the first place.

Another way for me to fight the blues is by wandering around in the play section of my favorite used bookstore, The Iliad.  I grab a couple well-loved, marked up, highlighted plays for a couple bucks and curl up in a dark corner somewhere to read.  One secret of mine: I always act out all the parts in my head while reading a play.

If I am not on an upswing yet, then I pour myself into being more productive.  I find new classes; go to workshops; find offices to intern at.  Suddenly, I am too busy to feel depressed over some lousy one line role or a cheesy car commercial I didn't book.

What do you do to keep yourself moving forward?

Should I Send a Postcard? (Or how do I advertise me?)

Every year at the Holiday time since I moved to LA, I send out cards to Casting Directors.  The first year out here I bought the giant box of cards at Costco, printed a few hundred postcards of my face, and got the Casting Director book at Sam French.  I sent a card to every CD listed in the book. 

Since then I have cut way back.  This year I am only sending cards to the CDs I have met over the past couple years.

So, are postcards or other cards worth sending?  Some people equate mailing postcards to driving from Los Angeles to San Diego and throwing a headshot out the window at every mile marker.  I don't necessarily agree with that, but I think mailing postcards is something you should do judiciously. 

Before mailing a postcard ask yourself, do I have something to say?  I don't consider I changed my hair cut or I got new headshots to be postcard mailing worthy.  If you are in a play or got a co-star coming up on CSI then that might be worth it to you. 

For me, I only like to send postcards to the people that already have an inkling of who I am.  The CD's who have called me in or who I've met at a workshop are always on the top of my list.  A few other top casting folks who I really, really, really want to meet might sneak in there as well.

I heard some wonderful insight about postcards from the casting director, Bonnie Gillespie.  She compared them to a billboard for Coke on the highway.  That billboard is not designed to make you immediately pull over and find the nearest gas station with Coke.  It's there to leave an impression so that the next time you're thirsty and shopping for a beverage you will want a Coke.

When CD's go through their mail, they will glance at the postcards for a split second and then throw them in the trash.  That's okay.  They don't need to save the postcard and tape it to their computer for you to make an impression.  But if you make enough impressions maybe the next time they are casting your type they will think of you.

Here are a couple more helpful hints about postcards.  Some CDs tell their interns to toss any postcards without a handwritten note on them.  So, even if you just throw on a "Thanks for reading this" and sign your name it may help get your postcard seen by the right people.  Another CD suggests putting them in a nice envelope so it looks like a card or something else they'd want to open.

Postcards should just be part of any plan to advertise yourself.  The most important thing is to keep doing stuff that is postcard worthy and keep creating!

Like Me, Please Like Me!

Edward Norton once said that one of the things he disliked about being an actor is that it's a career that requires other people giving you permission to do it.  Unlike a painter or poet you can't just go to your basement and be an actor.  Sure you could do a monologue for your stuffed animals, but an actor really needs an audience that listens and responds.  You can't act in a vacuum.

Remember Sally Field winning the Oscar and her joy in realizing that they liked her, they really liked her?  It took her winning an Oscar to figure that out?  Wasn't she America's Sweetheart when she was Gidget?  But, that lack of self-confidence is not uncommon in this industry which can have you being rejected on a daily basis.  Even the most talented actors are worried about when the next job will come along or if there will ever even be a next job.

An actor friend came to me recently concerned that she wasn't being cast in the shorts and webseries her other actor friends were filming.  She went into that downward spiral of questioning her talent, thinking she had none, and eventually landing on maybe it was time for her to give up.  On the outside, you can look into this situation and see all kinds of possible reasons she wasn't cast.  Maybe the parts weren't right for her or maybe they wrote parts specifically for someone who could bring in equipment or money.  But, when you are the actor inside looking out, it's hard not to take it as a comment on your own abilities.  We want so much for people to want us to be in their projects.

One reason actors constantly need approval from others is because we are unable to stand back and see our own work.  This is especially true in theater, but even on film it is nearly impossible to judge ourselves.  I remember an interview with Tea Leoni where she was asked if she ever watched herself in movies.  She said no, she hated watching herself because she could never see past her huge front teeth.  I've enjoyed a number of Tea Leoni movies and have never once noticed her front teeth. 

We are terrible judges of ourselves.  I know I am.  I can't tell you how many auditions I was sure I bombed that I then got a callback or cast.  And as far as looking to others for approval, what I've learned is that some people are going to like you no matter what.  Other people will hate you and you won't be able to change their mind, even if you were Meryl Streep.  You can't worry about what others think, eventually you'll find the people who like working with you and those are the ones worth worrying about.

How many times can you face rejection and still keep going?

Recently, I read an article about how Kathryn Stockett's novel "The Help" was rejected 60 times by publishers before finally being bought by Amy Einhorn Books.  She never gave up, even at rejection 59 she kept pushing. 

Not to take anything away from her amazing resilience and perseverance, but most of us actors face this amount of rejection or more in any given year.

Mark Ruffalo went on 800 auditions before someone finally said yes to him.  That's right he had over 800 rejections and still kept on trying.  Finally, his persistence paid off and now he is not only one of the most talented actors out there but also very successful.

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I had friends who thought I would try this for a bit and when it didn't work out just go back home and get a regular job.  Some still ask, "when are you coming home?"  The answer is: I'm not.

After Melissa Leo was let go from her breakthrough role on "Homicide: Life on the Streets" she didn't book another part for a few years.  If she had taken that as a sign that she needed to give up and go home she wouldn't have an Oscar today.

Actors have multiple opportunities for rejection every day from your agent's submission on a breakdown to the preread to the call back to the studio test.  For every actor you see on an episode of CSI think of how many actors were rejected for that part. 

Why do we keep putting ourselves through so much rejection?

Because someone has to get the part and there will be that moment where you are the right person at the right place at the right time and the part will be yours.

On the days you feel like you can't face another rejection those are the days you have to push the hardest.  So, keep on pushing guys!

Why should you listen to me?

First off, you probably shouldn't.  In this town, anybody who says they know anything is probably lying and trying to sell you something.  In Hollywood there are no hard and fast rules and when there are "rules" you can always find someone who has broken them and made it.  I am just an actor who has done this long enough to have made most of the mistakes an actor can make and for all the mistakes I haven't made, just give me time.

I once read (and I don't remember where, so this is me trying to quote it as best I can) that "anyone can act, that's why you see so many people getting off the bus in Hollywood trying to be an actor and so few people getting off the bus in Houston trying to be an astro-physicist."  I think that is one of the amazing things about this business, anyone can "make it."  But, for every fresh-off-the-bus-actor who is offered a series regular role on the next "Friends" there are literally thousands who go home after two years of waiting tables, never knowing how to even get close to being in that small circle of working actors.

Just to be clear, I am not one of those people who gets to make a living being a "working actor."  I have a survival job, but I have gotten paid to act on rare occasions and it's like heroin, I work the survival job in order to pay for my few hits.  That's why you have to love it more than anything else you could possibly do.

There are ways to slowly chip away at the inner circle of Hollywood elite and after a lot of work you might find yourself among them.  You have to understand that it is a life long process.  If you are willing to sacrifice and put in the time, you can make it - whatever "making it" means.

I am starting this blog to share with you the bumps I have hit along my journey, in hopes that you can learn from the mistakes I've made.  In return, I only ask that when you are accepting your Oscar that you give me a shout out.