How I Stay Sane in the Crazy World of Acting – 1 Simple Thing

In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you the one most important thing that has helped keep me sane in this absolutely crazy acting world, especially during this time period. It's really important to learn this. Also, watch this until the end, and I'm going to share with you a great video. It's the top 7 ways of making sure that an agent is Legit. Okay, let's get started. Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Actor and Model Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center, where I share information, uh, from my 38+ years of working as a full-time, uh, actor. If you haven't done this yet, click the subscribe button, the notification bell, so you always know when a new video has been uploaded. And if you like it, Give it a thumbs up. That helps spread the word. And what I want to share with you today is so important. It took me years to figure out, and I'll tell you, I struggled with this for quite some time. And it's really— it's helped me stay in the industry. It's helped me live a better life. And Here's the deal. As actors, auditioning is the job. To me, when you get booked and you're on a set, that's vacation. And one of the things that took me a long time to figure out and really fully understand and work through is the fact that in a sense we're salespeople. Very creative, but we are salespeople. And what we're doing is we are selling ourselves. And what I learned is that if you are a salesperson, and let's say you are selling a Mac computer, and you are at somebody's store, and you talk to them, and you say, I've got this, this great— it's a MacBook Pro, you're going to really enjoy it. And they look at you and say, It sounds great, and I'm sure it's really good, but I'm just a PC kind of person. Those are the kinds of computers I like. Then the salesperson will say, okay, well, thank you very much. Maybe push a little bit harder depending on the kind of salesperson you are. And then you go off to another customer. Not a big deal. Nothing personal. Person prefers PCs. That's all. I wasn't saying anything bad about the Mac. That's just not what they wanted. So here's the deal. I've learned that when, when we go to auditions, it's the exact same thing. And, and I'll, I'll be very honest with you, the very beginning of my career, I would go to an audition and I wouldn't get the part. And sometimes I, I would, I would be thinking, what happened? I mean, it was a really good audition. I know it was a good audition, Why, why did— why didn't they hire me? You know, why didn't they consider me? They didn't even put me on hold for this thing, you know. And then after, you know, not getting a bunch of auditions, I started questioning myself. I started questioning my capabilities. I started questioning my acting skills. And then it got to a point where sometimes I was just questioning myself. You know, I'm just wasting my time. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't really have that many other skills. I start feeling bad about myself. And just, you know, I would just go into some dark places, and it was really hard. And then one day it just kind of hit me, and I just thought, wait a second. The audition was good. It really was. These auditions were good, but I wasn't the perfect person for the role. That's all. And I'm not saying that sometimes I don't blow an audition. Sometimes the read just isn't very good. Maybe I just don't quite get it. It's not right for me. I don't have the skills for it. I don't have the history for it, the life experiences for this character. Who knows? But there are a million and one reasons why people book and don't book the job. And quite often, and I would have to actually say most of the time, it's not your audition. You know, look, yes, your audition has to be good. You know, you have to give a really good read. Yeah. But, you know, a lot of times is, in a sense, who fits the wardrobe the best. And I'm not— I'm being a little bit silly in there, but that's really it. Who is the perfect person for this role? And it's not like the Olympics where whoever does the best routine gets a 10 and wins the gold medal. Everybody auditioning for this is probably giving a really good read, and then it comes down to other factors. And those are factors that we as actors We have absolutely no control over. We have no control over whether we're too attractive or not attractive enough, or too tall or not tall enough, or our bodies are in too good a shape or not in good enough shape. Or maybe we remind the director of her ex-husband, who she doesn't want to be reminded of. Who knows? And so what I came away with And something that has really stuck with me, and I hope, I hope you really take this in as well. When you do the audition, it's, it's not the person who does the best read who gets the part. It's who fits it best. So don't take it personally. These are not personal decisions. These are all business decisions, and that's it. So when you don't get it, I'm not saying don't feel bad if it's something that you wanted. And just on a little bit of a side note, every time I go to an audition, I truly, truly believe I'm not booking the job. I don't even think about booking the job. I'm not trying to get the booking. To me, I feel like that puts way too much pressure On myself. Sometimes I know that we can look somewhat desperate and needy when we're thinking, oh, I really want to work with this actor. This is going to be a great job. We're going to be traveling to another country. This is going to be incredible. It's too much. And the fact is, I have no control over it. And my goal is, it's a Tuesday afternoon. I get a chance to act. You know, maybe for 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 2 minutes. It's going to be fun. That's my goal, to enjoy myself during the audition. And I'm not even thinking about booking it because I know I truly don't believe I am. And so that's why it's crucial you don't take rejection personally, because they're not rejecting you. You just weren't perfect for the role. And the same thing holds true with trying to find an agent. You don't get that agent that you submitted to. You could be phenomenal, and there are 10 million reasons why that agent might not choose to want to represent you. Maybe they already have too many people in their category. Maybe they don't work with people with the types of skills that you have. Maybe there just isn't that much work for your type in this community. Who knows? And so please don't take things personally. And the other thing too is when you do talk with industry professionals, make sure you filter everything that you hear and don't take those things personally either. Even when somebody says how phenomenal you were, you know, in this project, Hey, it's nice to hear. I'd rather have somebody say, hey, I really liked what you did, than, hey, you know, you were horrible. I'd rather hear that, but I try not to take any of that stuff in. I listen and I filter and then I move on. And I do that with everything, with everything that people say to me in this industry. And it's not that people necessarily are bad people. People say things to you for a whole variety of reasons. And the very last thing before I wind up here, When I was talking about maybe you're just not the right person. So there was a TV show many years ago called House of Cards. It was the very first streaming show. It was on Netflix. It really, it changed the industry in many ways. I auditioned for that show 14 times in 2 years, never booked a role. Got called back. I was put on hold, things like that. Never booked it. My 15th audition, I booked a recurring role on the show. So, you know, just because you don't get it, it's not any kind of statement about your talents, and it certainly isn't a statement about who you are as a person. And please don't ever base your self-worth on how many bookings you get. You're a good person. You're still a good person. And I know I'm kind of rambling a little bit here, a little, just a little, but I think it's really important to hear just to help keep your mental health at a very high level because we are going through some tough times here. We really are. And we have to stay as cool as we possibly can, centered, and just mentally very healthy. So I wanted to share those things with you and please, If you have any thoughts at all about, you know, getting rejected, not booking the job, how you dealt with things, please share it in the comments section so we can learn from you as well. That's the whole point here. And if you haven't done this yet, please subscribe and click the notification bell. And if you liked the video, give it a thumbs up, and that's helped— that helps spread the word. I'm Aaron Marcus. Oh, oh, I almost forgot. Geez, I almost forgot there. So yeah, and right up here you're going to see the little icon so you can watch this bonus video. And the bonus video is the top 7 ways of making sure an agent is legit. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.