Aaron Marcus, a commercial modeling coach, explains how to handle canceled bookings in acting and modeling. He advises managing expectations, not taking cancellations personally, and continuing to audition and hustle through disappointments.
Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus. I'm America's premier acting and commercial modeling career coach, 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 26 years. I wanted to talk with you today about the disappointments of the industry, and let me just tell you, there are some things that are unbelievably exciting that happen to you in the acting and modeling world, and there's some things that can be Really very difficult to deal with. So I just wanted to talk with you a little bit today about how to best deal with a loss of a booking. Now, sometimes it doesn't even have to be a booking that you actually lost, although that did happen to me fairly recently where the project just got canceled. And, you know, certainly, you know, depending on the importance of the job, how big of a job it was, how much you really wanted to do the job, that's going to You know, change the way that you're feeling about it and dealing with it. But I can tell you, basically what I try to do is not to get too excited, not to get too down, whether I get the job, don't get the job. And there is always a slight reserve in the back of my mind. Like, for instance, today I just found out that I got a 3-day contract on a new television series. So, you know, look, I'm very excited about it, But I also know in the back of my mind there's a possibility they could cancel the scene, they could cancel my character, they might not ever shoot it, they might cancel production. Who knows? There are a million and one things that could happen where I might not get a chance to do the job. So I guess what's really important is, you know, when you hear things, if it is something that's very exciting, okay, well, enjoy it. But wait until it actually happens. Wait till it takes place. Wait till the check clears and then start letting people know about it if that's something that you like to do. But the other thing too is, you know, you could feel bad about it if something gets canceled, but understand it's nothing personal and you've got a couple options. Either you can sit around and mope for days Or you can say, you know what, I feel horrible about it. I feel really bad. I'm really disappointed. Now let's go on to the next project. Let's keep hustling. Let's keep auditioning. And that's really what I recommend that you do. So anyhow, I hope this was helpful information for you, and I look forward to talking with you soon. If you have any questions at all, you can always feel free to email me at Aaron, A-A-R-O-N, at howtomodel.com, or if you would like, you can go to my Facebook page. It's facebook.com/howtomodel, and you could write a comment there, a critique there. Certainly like the page. That's helpful to me. And then you can join this acting and modeling community I have on that page. And you can also follow me on Twitter, and it's just twitter.com/aaron, A-A-R-O-N, R. Marcus. Looking forward to talking with you soon.
