Sometimes it is hard to figure out what you want. But as a kid there is something I always knew I want – that is to become an actor and perform on the stage one day.
That ‘dream’ of mine came through in some form. I eventually managed to attend Theatre School using my own money and eventually managed to get into a few productions. However, that ‘taste’ is not enough, it will never be enough. At the same time I have to admit that a lot of times circumstances were not with me – I did not grow up in Australia, do not have an established circle of theatre or media friends, and I am never in an ‘inner’ circle. Despite being told time and time again when I got into productions to show what I can do that I should be getting work all the time with the quality of work I delivered, a full time acting career never eventuate, at least at this point of my life.
So some people started asking – why bother? Why persist?
The answer is – that’s the only thing that gives me the motivation to continue to work in a full time job because I am doing this to stay afloat so I can wait for the next opportunity, and God knows when and how long I have to wait.
I still remember how I was first mesmerised by actors on the screen when I was a kid. At that young age, I did not know they were real people and just thought that ‘wow these imaginary people and pictures can make me laugh and cry’. When I saw news of those actors in the papers I thought ‘wow the papers wrote stories about these people, how cool is that’. Until one day in the streets I saw an actor in her flesh. I was shocked and my parents told me she is an actor. That was the moment I told myself – how cool is it to be in a job that you can tell story and drive other people’s emotion?
Many years went by and I was slowly working my way to what I want in my life. Being constantly in a position of trying to see ‘half glass empty’ as a ‘half glass full’ situation sometimes is exhausting. I am not a naturally optimistic person but being pessimistically optimistic sometimes take a toll on your resilience. However, every time when I felt exhausted about not going anywhere in my acting career I told myself if I gave up this dream, there would be nothing left.
My parents once thought that I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to have live that fake dream of being rich and famous. That was never the case. I just wanted to be a person who wants to do a job I love and have passion for and earn a decent living out of it. Being famous is not my thing, if people really know me. Throughout the years, my parents have come to realise that I am serious about the acting business because that is what I wanted. If anything, this is one of the most rewarding part of my struggle to become a full time actor.
I recently read an article about not letting a full time job to get in your way to a successful acting career. While I agreed to a lot of what that article said, for me it is simply not a choice I can make. The choice is there but it is not the one I will make. Having a mortgage and everything, especially when you are living in one of the most expensive cities in the world (I moved from the most expensive to the second most expensive, which is an improvement I guess), I need basic financial security to allow me to pursue what I want. Yes, sometimes I am exhausted from politics and other things at work, but I personally believe I will be even more exhausted if I need to worry about money all the time. Compared to a lot of my peers I am quite lucky as I have a more decent and constant stream of income most of the time. And to be honest sometimes I am glad that I have other works to distract me away from my occasional disappointment of an almost non-existing acting career.
Does that mean I am going to give up? No.
In all the years since I graduated from the Theatre School, I came to understand that you can only work for people who can see and appreciate what you can bring to the table. I may not be in any core circles or industry networks that can keep me employed from one job to another. But I do believe if you continue to do your best, one day hopefully someone will see it and offer you the next opportunity. I might need to trigger changes to my current circumstances but as a forever pessimistically optimistic person, I will need to evaluate all the pros and cons so I can make informed changes. One thing I am sure though is that I do not believe in moaning over my acting career as that is an exhausting and unproductive exercise. I rather spent that time trying to figure out how to manoeuvre the maze of this industry and hopefully without compromising the integrity and standard I set for myself. I might need to pay or have had paid the price for my stubbornness on standards and integrity, but I believe a baseline is always required if you want to keep your feet on the ground to become a better actor. I just need to own up my choice, as I do for all the characters I portrayed so far.
At the end of the day, if you found a job or career that can make you feel alive when you are doing it, it can’t be wrong right?
