Answers from The Working Actor

16 The Nature of the Career

Acting can be a wonderful, awful profession, full of rollercoaster-like peaks and dips. It can be hard to navigate, hard to understand, and hard to sustain. It is by turns unfair, thrilling, depressing, healing, colorful, complicated, uplifting, and sometimes just plain weird. The best way to maintain equilibrium as a professional actor is to recognize this unpredictability as an inherent part of the life you’ve chosen. Expecting things to be fair or logical will never serve you—that way madness lies. If you can learn to embrace the chaos, you’ll be better prepared to ride out the ups and downs.

In fact, the random nature of our industry can sometimes work in your favor. Just as you can be overlooked for a part for ...