Quote of the Week: An Amateur

Every artist was first an amateur.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The deeper I get into my work the more I feel like an amateur. I guess that’s why I keep doing it. It scares me. I have this fear that I will fail and sometimes I do. But the strength to get back up and do it again is the mental challenge I have with myself.

I had an audition last week and it felt amazing. I loved the depth of the character, I loved the layers of who she was and mostly I saw parts of myself in her. I walked into the room and just let it all out, slowly. I left the audition thinking that if there was anything I left in that room, it would’ve been who I was and what I was about.

The next day, my agent sent me a quick email. He told me that he spoke to the Casting Director and she said I totally misread the character and wasn’t even close to the other contenders. DAMN. How could I be so wrong? I ended up dwelling on this for a whole week. Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing after all. My agent is extremely positive and he said it wasn’t the end of the world (it’s a week later and no one has died yet) but my instincts were completely off. Such a sucky feeling.

But we gotta hang in there and use these “failures” as the next steps to our success. I’m sure this is only just the beginning.

(photo by Loh @ImageROM)