Aaron Marcus addresses imposter syndrome in acting, citing Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and others who've felt like frauds on set. He offers three strategies: talk to trusted peers, don't take casting rejections personally, and openly call yourself an imposter while committing to keep working anyway.
Hey, have you ever suffered from genuine imposter syndrome while acting? I can tell you I have. And if you watch this video till the end, you're going to learn more about what that means. You're going to hear about some famous actors who also have this issue. And I'm also going to share with you a great solution. Might be a little controversial, but it's a great solution to help you with this. I also have a great bonus video at the very end that you can click on. It's the 4 words you absolutely need to say when turning down a job. Okay, let's get started. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. Let me tell you what imposter syndrome is all about. It's pretty common, and like I was mentioning before, there are Quite a few famous people who also have imposter syndrome. I'll give you the names in just a minute. But essentially, it's when you feel like an imposter. You feel like at any moment somebody's going to walk over to you and say, hey, caught you. I know that you were pretending to be an actor. Hey, you know what? Now I know. You can't act. You're not an actor. You're fired. It's a pretty common thing for people to feel, and I know a lot of actors don't really talk about it very much, but it happens to so many of us, and that's why I wanted to share it with you today. Hey, before I officially get going here, hey, don't forget, if you haven't done this yet, click the subscribe button, click the notification bell so you always know when I upload a new video. I try to do it every Tuesday depending on my schedule. And if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. That's helpful. And share, share the link with all of your actor friends so that way we can continue to build a great community of actors helping each other. And by the way, if you've ever experienced Imposter syndrome while acting? Please share your thoughts, your experiences in the comments section. Yeah, this thing happens to a lot of people. I'll read you a list of names of people who I've either heard during interviews or read quotes from them where they talk about having imposter syndrome. Jodie Foster is one of them. Penélope Cruz, Tom Hanks, Viola Davis, Meryl Streep, Tina Fey, Emma Watson. I know I'm missing a few. Let me grab a few here. Kate Winslet is somebody else who's talked about it. And look, here's the reality. For people like us who are not stars, It can hit us much harder because we don't have the track record to go on. But even for those people, people with Academy Awards and Emmy Awards and things like that, they're talking about having the same issues. Now, normally what happens is they start working and You know, after a few hours, after a day of work, they calm down and things are going well. You know, for us, if you have, you know, a day player, you've got a week contract, something like that, you know, especially that first day, it can really be tough because— and I know it doesn't make sense because, look, we audition. It's not like somebody just saw us walking down the street and said, hey, I want to put you in a movie, or I want to give you a role on a television show. We auditioned for it. It's not a coincidence that we booked the job. Sometimes we have callbacks and we've gone through that process too. Still, when you first walk onto the set, it's easy to have that feeling that somebody is going to walk over after you've done your first scene and say, yeah, no, we figured it out. You're not really an actor. So It's easy to get to that place. I get it. And one of the— there are a couple of things that I found to be helpful. One is just kind of sharing the information with other people who you trust. And it's not like they're going to have some magical words to say to you that will allow you to just calm down and do the work. It's hard. This is something that's within us. But here's something that I do. Well, number one, and on a little bit of a side note, I have learned— and this took me a long time to learn— I don't take anything personally in this industry. You know, these are all just business decisions. And, and I'm not saying that you might not get fired from being on a set. But it's not because necessarily because of your acting skills. Look, there are people who get cast in a pilot and by the time the pilot gets picked up and they're starting to shoot the episodes, some actors get replaced. That happens all the time. And it's not because the person's a horrible actor. Look, you're not going to get the audition, book the audition, or book the callback, work on the entire pilot if they didn't think that you could act. But we're not being logical here. It's just this feeling, and it is possible you might get replaced. Look, there was a great documentary that I saw. It was about Mary Tyler Moore. It's really good. It's interesting. It's sad. You learn a lot from it. And she was on stage with a fellow actor named Danny Thomas, somebody might not have ever heard of. He had his own television show many, many, many, many years ago. And he said, you know, the reason why you never got the role when you auditioned to play my daughter— and they both looked at each other nose to nose, and Danny Thomas had a really large nose. Mary Tyler Moore had a very small nose. There just— there was no way that she looked like his daughter. And so it was nothing personal. It was just a business decision. It wasn't based on her acting skills, and those things happen all the time. So the thing that I've learned, number one, you just can't take things personally. And if for any reason you're released, it's not a statement that you can't act. Look, you got there for a reason. Trust yourself. But here's something that I have done That I find really helpful, and feel free, you know, to use it. I hope this is helpful to you. If I start getting that feeling of I'm an imposter, I know I'm going to get fired any second, somebody's going to see through me, they can see I'm just masquerading here as an actor, I'm not really an actor, here's what I do. I think, you know what, I am an imposter. I can't act. I'm not an actor. I don't, I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know why these people keep hiring me over and over and over again. I don't know why I've been doing this full-time for, you know, 38 years. I don't know why I've booked almost 1,300 jobs, but I know I'm not an actor. I am an imposter. But you know what? I'm going to continue to fool people. I'm going to continue to let people think that I'm an actor even though I'm not an actor. Maybe that will be helpful to you. It's something that's helpful to me. So when I start getting that feeling, I go, yeah, you're right, I'm not an actor, but I'm here and I'm just going to continue doing what I've done on a lot of other jobs. So anyhow, I hope that was helpful to you. And please, I would love to hear your thoughts so you can share it with other people. If you've ever been in a situation where you felt like an imposter and you thought that they were going to figure things out You know, at any second and you're going to get, you know, tossed off the set. Hey, just as a quick reminder, if you haven't done this yet, please click the subscribe button, notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up, share the link. And the very last thing, if you look up here, you will see the link. You can click on it and watch this really helpful video, The 4 Words You Absolutely Need to Say when turning down a job. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
