Many, many people dream of making a living from the craft of acting. Some of them just leave it right there, as a dream, others quit their day job and choose the life of poverty and constant stress for exchange of the hope to someday make enough money as a working actor that’s able to pay his/her rent.
I’m sure the question of whether you’re ready to pursue a career in acting or not, as well as how to get into acting, has popped in your head more than once, and if it did — you just might be on the right track here; every person with some common sense will ask themselves this question. Now, let’s see: answer these questions to see if you’re truly ready for this magnificent journey.
17 Are You Ready to Pursue Career in Acting Questions
1. Are you comfortable not knowing of whether you’re going to be able to pay rent next month, where your next paycheck is coming, and even if you will be able to afford food to survive?
2. Are you comfortable that this shallow industry is very superficial and is completely obsessed with young age and good looks, which means you might not get the job because you don’t look good enough or young enough?
3. Are you self-confident enough to be comfortable with the way you look, the way you dress, the way you talk and be open for someone to make fun of these personality traits of yours?
4. Are you going to be able to accept rejection after rejection every single day on most of your auditions, attend thousands of them for months on end and even after you do get the job, cope with the feeling that you might get fired at any point during the play or shoot?
5. Are you emotionally stable, and will you be able to face all those hardships that arise without falling into the world of drugs and alcohol abuse, as well as staying away from comfort foods because you will need to maintain your body type throughout most of your career?
6. Are you going to be committed to work hard every day, which means your survival job and then acting classes to improve your craft, and also auditions, and shoots, and rehearsals which you’ll have to balance out?
7. Are you a person with a positive attitude towards life and able to adapt to most things, willing to work harder than anybody on the team and go that extra mile without knowing if it will ever pay off?
8. Are you going to be comfortable and not envious when seeing all your friends getting promotions at their day jobs, earning steady income, buying homes, raising families and living the safe life of a regular person?
9. Are you prepared to work long hours every single day, sometimes for weeks on end without a single break from your survival job and everything else acting related, which is mostly going to be for no pay whatsoever?
10. Are you going to be able to work evenings, weekends, nights, early mornings and sometimes all of them combined on completely different jobs in totally different places?
11. Are you comfortable with being criticized all the time for the work that you have done, without being given a chance to defend your own point of view and not break down?
12. Are you going to delve into many fields of interests which will in turn make you a better and more versatile actor, but will also require additional effort on your apart as well as additional hours of hard work alongside the ones you already have to put in?
13. Are you prepared to face discouragement from your friends and sometimes even family and loved ones throughout a big part of your “career” of pursuing acting, mostly during hardships and fall backs?
14. Are you going to be able to organize yourself well enough to keep track of all your auditions, call-backs, acting classes ending and starting, homework for acting classes, your shooting dates, your rehearsal dates, and many more other acting or job related things?
15. Are you willing to hang out with people a lot, sometimes even those you cannot stand being with, staying late, finding time for meetings during the day, all for the sake of networking and possible new connections, new leads for auditions?
16. Are you going to be able to invest into your career constantly, even when the funds are tight or you are completely broke?
And finally…
17. Are you sure that acting is the only career that will make you a happy person with a fulfilled life and you would be miserable for the rest of your life if you would choose any other career?
Now as you went through all these questions, and I’m sure answered all of them in your head, I’m going to leave you with that without asking you how many “yeses” or “noes” were there.
YOU decide whether it is enough for you to drop the idea of a steady career outside of the entertainment field and enroll into an acting program to become another starving artist in this big pool of great creative minds.
I hope you make the right decision.
