Don’t Count Yourself Out

I know an actress

For privacy’s sake

Let’s call her Grace

Grace works hard

She’s kind to people

And she keeps going

Last week

Grace was cast in one of the biggest shows to be made in recent history

Writing, budget, cast, role, producers, director, etc

Grace just caught a very big fish

A fish that most other actors dream about catching

This was a personal triumph for Grace

She is elated about the upcoming process

But there’s a bit more to this story

Because on the face of it

It would seem that committing to the audition (self tape) several weeks ago

Grace was facing an daunting task

One that others might have deem as delusional

You see

Over the last few years

Grace has given about 60 self tapes

And she hasn’t gotten a single one

So, on the surface

It would seem the industry has it in for Grace

60 auditions

No results to show

This leads us to an important lesson

The results alone never tell the whole story

Roughly speaking

Other artists, the industry, the public

They only remember the results

Who got the role ?

Who do we see on the screen, billboard, gram etc ?

By that logic

Grace didn’t stand a chance

She was 0-60

However

Let’s look a bit closer

Out of those 60 self tapes, Grace had 7 call backs

Out of those 7 call backs, Grace had been put “on hold” for 3

Out of those 3 jobs, Grace adored two of the roles and really hoped to get them

One of those roles was for a job which turned out to be one of the biggest grossing films of 2019

The other was a role opposite one of Grace’s acting heroes

So

Grace had been close to landing great work before

But that’s not all

Two out of the big six casting directors in Australia adored Grace

They believed she consistently gave generous, authentic work

They found her to be passionate, respectable, on time and kind

On top of this

Despite the lack of results

Her agent kept putting her up for auditions

Her agent, who has been in the industry for over 30 years

Believed that if Grace just kept going and kept giving

Something would transpire

Adding to this

Grace caught the attention of two producers who championed her and got her in for multiple auditions

In those cases

There simply wasn’t a great match with the writing and other actresses landed those jobs

Furthermore

Grace heads to class once a week with a teacher who takes care of two other professional actresses whom Grace admires

The teacher and Grace would sit and debrief her tapes privately to find out what she was doing really well

And where (specifically and tangibly) she could make one percent improvement each week

Grace also had a few student short films under her belt which she used to make a little showreel

And when showing it to trusted colleagues in the biz

They replied “this is beautiful work, you must keep giving your work to this world”

Again

The results don’t always tell the whole story

The work ethic, the colleagues, the mentors, the practice, the progression of craft

This tells a very different story as opposed to the 0-60

Curious

Which story are you choosing to give your attention to?

What’s my point...

Don’t count yourself out based on past results alone

Often the truth is more nuanced than a simple “I didn’t get the role”

Try (as hard as it can sometimes feel) to zoom out

And make your assessment on the whole picture

Because

Often times

Despite what others (who are not in the arena) are gobbling on about

You’ll see you’ve got a better chance than many believe

Hope this helps

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