Y1W39 Actors and Motivators

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Been listening to some interviews from some established Hollywood Actors (and am still going so this might be Part 1 of 2 if I plan to talk more about it) and as we know, Actors generally face much more extreme scrutiny than other creatives and artists of other fields can ever experience. I am an ignorant individual who doesn’t follow celebrity politics, names, personal lives and news so my focus here isn’t “who said what” as I don’t really care about that. Just listening to their thoughts on their profession, issues they face and what they do as they attempt to balance with life.I noted some points from them that piqued my interest:

• If you want things done, forget your ego and dignity and fight what you want and believe in; fight for opportunities to prove yourself despite any typecasting or judgement (age, looks, gender, etc especially in the case of actors).
  • Thoughts: This falls true for many professions indeed. Just got to show them your chops when it comes to it.
• They face and fear rejection on extreme levels whenever they audition regardless of how popular they are and it’s an accepted part of their job where everything from looks, voice, intonation, acting, charisma, etc is judged fiercely upon to the point that they feel that they’re nothing and everything they are as a human being isn’t enough. And this is just due to their experiences of auditioning without taking into account of the media and public eye.
  • Thoughts: I have not been judged to that extreme so I am amazed at how matter of fact and joking they are; their emotional intelligence is thick as nails as they still retain boundaries and are incredibly protective of their families.
  • Found myself more appreciative that I’m invisible (well at least relative to them) but at the same time I’m keen to toughen up my emotional intelligence in my own time too
• Actors are judged on whether they serve the project well and if they fit the director’s vision. Whether they are the embodiment of a role.
  • Thoughts: This probably comes down to competency and reputation if we were talking about many other professions yet here looks and voice is key to their profession also.
• Actors have to give themselves up completely to act and get into the shoes of their character and truly become, feel and experience things like them. Afterwards, they need time to recover away from people in order to gain back what it means to be themselves again.
  • Thoughts: Interesting to know that they need recovery time too; away from people at that!
• When actors have a dark character role, they actually allow darkness within themselves to come out too; it becomes emotionally draining and can work against them emotionally.
  • Thoughts: Hm the ‘surround yourself with positive people’ and positive thoughts – this advice comes to mind
• Regardless how generous you are and however much you enjoy being around people, you need to give back to yourself and retreat back for some ‘me time’ otherwise you risk burning yourself out and being unfulfilled.
  • Thoughts: Yes found this straightforward.
• Female actors get judged on their looks and age more harshly (usually young pretty models take the roles as love interests while there’s not too much roles of variety in age and looks otherwise. There’s the fear of “getting shelved” they fight against sometimes). Things are slowly improving as more females and people of other backgrounds, appearances and culture get more opportunities for representation in movies.
  • Thoughts: I do wonder if we’ll ever reach a point where headings like ‘problems faced by females/whatever minority in the industry’ won’t be around as much anymore. That we’d just focus on making good stuff for the most part. I know most of us are though so that gives me hope. Ultimately let’s just keep appreciating our similarities and differences.
• Actors who have lasted for many years are the crazy dedicated ones who have or will pull through 18+ months to 7-10 years of earning nothing or next to nothing and getting nowhere just to do what they enjoy.
  • Thoughts: There’s stories of some of them working in part time jobs of related or unrelated fields while they strive towards their long term goals so this is just another reminder to not expect everything you want to fall onto your lap (if it did, you wouldn’t appreciate it as much anyway).
  • Some compartmentalise their passion from their day job and others make their day job relevant to their field of interest; up to the individual. You’ll get there (perhaps where you didn’t expect) eventually.
• Apparently shelf life for female actors only exist if you don’t have the acting chops and persistence, so depending on physical looks alone won’t get you far in the long run.
  • Thoughts: Don’t be a one trick pony? I guess this is my takeaway here. I don’t know about this one as there’s so much ultra heavy make up, plastic surgery and photoshop happening.
• One actor said they get delightfully surprised when people show them genuine kindness in the industry. Another noted that you don’t change when you become successful but everyone else around you treats and sees you differently.
  • Thoughts: Cruel, unfair and wicked world? Yes it can be. Especially when it’s deemed to be a ‘dog eat dog world’ or ‘every person for themselves’ vibe in an extremely competitive environment with a dash of luck factoring into it. Here is where the ‘surrounding yourself with positive, supportive people’ comes helpful to counter all that. (:
  • Though if you do become successful, surely you change somewhat as well? As in you’d lean more towards hanging around people equally successful/on level as you or better than you (whether they’re in your friends circle or not)? People come and go because we all change, grow and value different things.

From these notes so far, I am unsurprised yet fascinated at the extent of which I can relate to their struggles. It’s amazing how so many creative fields overlap! (:

On Motivation…

To be blunt, despite how annoyed I get sometimes, the sporadic, with well intentions yet negative/hurtful words I get from family ultimately is a good motivator (or I’ll make it so! Or block out the unsupportive external environment otherwise!)

Stressing that there’s certainly people worse or better off than me so I consider myself extremely lucky. Sure I get these external words but occasionally they do fuel me on with stubbornness to keep going!

But as a motivator alone, it’s not enough (else I wouldn’t have left my previous career behind if it was). External motivators work in various combinations after all sometimes such as competition and top industry experts.

Almost all the time (and I’m sure professionals of any field do this), I am doing all this work because I enjoy it and that alone motivates me enough. Time seems to fly by as I get deep into projects and art learning. It’s wonderful. Instead I need to be reminded to get out of my hermit cave and do other things! Certain I’m not alone in this.

This is not a personal diary, so I won’t go into personal matters and details but I stress that it’s not easy, and seeing past the public image people tend to portray (I recall the metaphor of swimming ducks on water looking graceful above the surface but paddling madly underneath)– I am inspired by people who are fighting too to do what they are passionate in. You could say that I’m fighting to keep the external negative vibes at bay and yet I’m not afraid of showing what’s underneath sometimes, if not most of the time with this blog here.

Motivation needs to come from within most (if not all) of the time!
A good plan helps tremendously and keeps you grounded regardless how bad the weather can get – something I’m always working on the more I learn.

So got to stay focused! Currently trying to figure out my own plan again with a finer tooth comb in the next coming months! Scary but yes!

So how was the past week?

It seems like I’m becoming more of a philosophical rambler as I search for knowledge! Just a lot of the usual, fun gesture scribbles while I can’t show anything else I’m working on. Hm.

So let me say I appreciate you sticking around, given that you’re reading this! And those who take a step further comment and respond!
A special thank you! (:

And all the best to those who have moved on and are strangers again; it’s been great knowing you, may life keep rolling for the better and perhaps we’ll cross paths again (chances are is that they’re not reading this but just in case!)

As usual, I shall keep learning and blogging, that won’t change at the least!

Keep adventuuuring and fighting too, you! (: