What It Takes
I’ve heard it said a few times. Filmmakers of all stripes from writers to actors, when asked in interviews what they would advise a young person interested in pursuing their vocation:
Don’t do it.
Find something else, they’ll caution. The industry is so tough, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
I’d hear this and I’d think to myself, what a terrible thing to say to someone just starting out. I mean… It’s completely true, but still, so cruel.
And yet we try. Whether young and doomed or not so young and meandering around hoping to get asked to dance, we try. We stick it out. Not in spite of the cautionary words from those that much farther along, but because we know no other way. See, we’ve heard the advice. We’ve always heard it. We’ve taken it to heart. But we’ve also considered the alternative. The something else. The anything else. And those that are able, they do follow another path. If not, they at least rack their brains trying to figure out: If not this, what?
But for some of us there is nothing else. And so we work. Whether it all amounts to something in the end or not, we work. Because what all those cautionary advisers should really be saying is, if you can do something else then do but if you can’t then get ready to work your ass off.
I sent an email to a friend of mine. A woman who’s been in the business more years of her life now than she hasn’t. She was soon expecting a baby but showed no signs of slowing down her hectic schedule. Her reply to my email came back within minutes. “I’m at the hospital, my water broke early.” She then went on to outline, in the next ten lines, her work schedule for the rest of the week.
You have to work your ass off. Because if you’re not, someone else is.
