Aaron Marcus, a modeling coach, was cast as Dr. Steven Leopold on NBC's Do No Harm, which cancelled after two episodes. He lost the recurring role and residuals but reframes it: he booked the job, worked with great actors, and got national exposure. His advice: live in the moment and appreciate what you did get.
Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, America's premier acting and commercial modeling career coach, the founder of HowToModel.com. I'm the author of How to Become a Successful Commercial Model, now in its 5th edition, and I've been making my living as an actor and a commercial model for over 27 years. As I'm sure many of you know, there are lots, lots of ups and downs in this industry, and what I want to share with you today is Really, how to deal with a cancellation. And some of you might or might not know that I was cast as Dr. Steven Leopold on the NBC show Do No Harm. And basically the entire series is based around this doctor in this hospital. And so I certainly was hoping this was going to be a recurring role. I worked on it a couple days, did some ADR work, doing some looping work on it as well. And after the And then in the second episode, they showed clips of the upcoming scene, or one of the scenes that I have, that takes place in episode 4. So things were pretty exciting. I was very happy about it. And then I find out that after episode 2, the show gets canceled. And so there were a lot of people who were expressing, you know, their sorrow. They're saying, I'm really sorry that, you know, this happened, and it must be horrible. And so I just I just wanted to tell you guys that, yeah, I mean, look, I certainly wish it wasn't canceled. And it certainly does cut out, you know, the possibility of a recurring role, cuts the possibility out of residuals when they re-air the show, which is always wonderful. And I guess the way that I view it is, yeah, I mean, I certainly, I wish it didn't happen, but Ultimately, what I really felt was, you know what, I got a chance to audition for an NBC series. I booked the job, worked on it for a couple of days, worked with some great actors, and to me, I did everything I wanted to do. And so, yeah, I mean, it's disappointing. I wish it were still going on, but honestly, it doesn't feel like that big of a deal to me. And so, you know, there are lots of ways that, you know, people do deal with this stuff. And I guess what I try to do is, you know, live in the moment of really loving having done the job, you know, getting a chance to act on a, you know, on a national television show. So anyhow, I just wanted to share that with you. Maybe that would be helpful because, look, we all run into very high moments, very low moments, and there are many different avenues. Many different ways of dealing with them, and some can be very destructive and some can actually be pretty positive. And so anyhow, I just wanted to let you know about that. And look, if you have any questions at all, you can always go to my Facebook page, which is facebook.com/howtomodel, H-O-W-T-O-M-O-D-E-L, and feel free to ask me any questions there at all. And also, I'll give you my personal email address. It's Aaron, A-A-R-O-N, AaronMarcus@gmail.com. At howtomodel.com. So, uh, I look forward to talking with you again real soon, and I'm Aaron Marcus.
