Jaywalking Towards My Goals
After a dry July, getting recognized at a coffee shop one morning in August sent my ego soaring.
A man clutching his coffee cup staring at me with a confused expression on his face. “Are you an actor?”
“Uh, yes.” Aren’t we all in this place?
“What have I seen you in?”
Absolutely nothing you’re watching most likely. “Oh I don’t know..”
“I got it! That VR game with [omitted because it is soon to be released]”
OH MY GOD I AM AN ACTOR. I’m doing things. I’m doing THE thing! “Yes that’s me!” Commence a bunch of people stealing glimpses of me and me thinking I am the coolest person in the world for 30 minutes.
Senior year of high school, I read just about every autobiography by a popular actor you could buy and took every word to heart. I believed their words were a roadmap to the stars. Something in my brain liked to skip over the paragraphs about the long periods of barely affording rent and other struggles. Mindy Kahling narrowly escaped assault on the subway from Queens to Manhattan a few times when she was working a 9-5. Amy Poehler hung onto the vague compliment a celebrity gave her during an afterparty that got her fired from her day job. She lived on those two sentences of motivation for a month. It was really those words and boxes of mac n’ cheese. I have an entire shelf of autobiographies. Despite my sincere preparation in the form of teenage magical thinking, my inner voice still echos OOO OUCH THAT WAS HARD OH NO THAT WAS A BAD ONE NOPE! HOPE I MAKE IT THROUGH THIS TIME! DOES THIS GET EASIER? OOF THAT WAS CLOSE OH DEAR WHAT IS HAPPENING AND IS THIS RANDOM? Especially now with the double strike, that DOES THIS GET EASIER question is super repetitive.
And then I get a gig. I wear the costume, I step in front of the lights, and all that’s real is how much I feel at home when I’m acting. It ends. I travel back to my apartment glowing from the inside out, and I promise myself I’ll always find a way to keep doing this art form.
Answering: is this random?
In August I got my first voice-over gig: Literary Lover #1. I didn’t know it was a voice-over gig. They had me memorize a monologue and submit a self-tape performing it. Before that callback, I wrote them a nice paragraph about my love of literature and historical fiction. When I got to the studio, I discovered in the holding room that not everyone…no one…wrote a paragraph on their favorite books. A producer waved me into the recording studio. The director shook my hand. He loved my audition. (Then why am I just speaking into a microphone today?) He asked me to just be myself, then handed me a script he wanted me to read word-for-word. (I don’t know why the casting call asked me to prove why I’m right for the role if personality has nothing to do with it. I don’t know why they asked me to arrive hair and makeup ready and in the outfit I auditioned with. ) So, is it random? Yes. And no. I choose to believe that making the casting director read an extra long paragraph about my taste in books kept them on my actors access profile long enough to warm up to me. They could have thought I was super annoying and desperate. But instead they hired me. Ta da!!
Answering: What is happening?
When job applications aren’t going as planned, you start doing things you swore you’d never do after college: like accepting an unpaid internship.
The gap in my resume due to covid has not been kind to me lately. Not when I’m facing the NYU graduating class of 2023. I have the experience and I sure as hell have the willingness to learn and attention to detail but so does everyone else. I needed to re-strategize. I abandoned Indeed and starting sending emails. I started schmoozing. I networked in-person! I put in double the effort on unpaid positions and sent follow up emails with language as warm as a fresh baked tray of cookies. I toed the line between - I am so busy gigging all the time in my very professional career, but I can make time for a zoom call with you + please I’ll do anything. Well it worked. I’m excited to start as PR assistant at this year’s Boston Film Festival. The best congratulations I received today was a crispy high-five from one of my target producers. We met while I was on my networking warpath and stayed in touch. As the sound of a satisfactory high-five echoed in the coffee shop I thought to myself “See you on set next season.”
I titled this entry “Jaywalking Towards My Goals” because I’ve found the best results by coloring outside the lines / taking the road less traveled / asking for forgiveness not permission. (Pick your favorite proverb.) If the entertainment industry is all about being exactly what they need in a creative and original way, I will continue to find unique ways of getting to the industry.