In this 13‑minute YouTube presentation, veteran actor Aaron Marcus uses his own 38‑year career as a framing device to show that significant acting breakthroughs can happen well after the typical “young‑star” age. He profiles six well‑known performers—Alan Rickman, Daniel Day‑Lewis, Samuel L. Jackson, Katherine Heuston, Dennis Farina, and John Mahoney—stating the approximate age each achieved mainstream recognition (Rickman 46, Day‑Lewis late‑30s, Jackson 43, Heuston late‑40s, Farina 37, Mahoney 37). Marcus intersperses these case studies with personal anecdotes about his own transition to full‑time acting at 32 after a second stint in college, the skepticism he faced from peers, and the importance of life experience in handling rejection and industry uncertainty. He repeatedly addresses the common fear that “you’re too old” to start, urging viewers to give it a shot, seek proper training, consider part‑time work, and stay informed. The video ends with a call‑to‑action (subscribe, like, share, comment) and a teaser for a bonus video where Marcus details how he began acting with no background. The overall message is encouraging, practical, and aimed at aspiring actors of any age.
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In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you 6 incredible actors who didn't either get started or didn't have success until late in life. And hey, I'd like for you to take a guess as to how old each one of them was, and I'll share that with you. If you watch this to the end, I've got a great bonus video for you as well. It's about how I got started, and I'll tell you how old I was when I first started in the industry. And how I began with absolutely no background and no experience. Okay, let's get going. Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Actor and Model Quick Tips channel and also the Actor Career Center, where I share information with you from my 38-plus years of working as a full-time actor. Hey, don't forget, 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 the video, give it a thumbs up. That's always really helpful. And share, share the link with other people so we can all learn from each other. And if you have an interesting story about when you got started and at what age and what that was like for you, please share it in the comment section below. Love to learn and hear from you as well. Very first thing, before I share some of the names of the actors with you and some information about them, I wanted to let you know I've had a lot of people ask me, am I too old to get started? Does it really make any sense for me at this point? I'm not 16. I'm not 18. I'm not 20. Can I really have success in the industry? Well, first of all, nobody can tell you if you can have success in the industry. It's impossible. It's kind of like a songwriter. Can anybody say, Yeah, I think you're going to have success, or no, I don't think you're going to have— there's no way of knowing. And my philosophy has always been give it a shot, do it properly, get the right information, get the right training, and then go after it. And I know I'm kind of jumping here a little bit, but it really goes in line with what I'm talking about. Even for me, look, I started off in a very small market, still live in a small market, and I've done almost $1,300, Jobs so far. And I knew that at one point I felt ready to move to a larger market in New York. I wasn't going to actually live there, but I just mean acting-wise, move into a larger market. Yeah, I just didn't want to live in, in the city. And so I had a lot of people tell me, you're crazy, they already have 10 million actors, you live in Baltimore, Maryland. Do you really think there is— you're going to find an agent there? Do you really think you're going to get work? They have a lot of famous people. And here's what I learned. There are a lot of people who kind of make it seem like they have your best interest at heart, but what it really came down to for a number of the people, they just didn't want to see me succeed. For whatever reason, they didn't have the courage To give it a shot. Maybe they were too scared. Who knows? Whatever the reason was, they didn't do it. They didn't try it, and they didn't want to see other people have success. So they would give me all kinds of reasons why I was wasting my time, wasting a lot of money. I was going to have my heart broken. And I thanked them for their concern, and I did it. And, and I did and still have success in larger markets. And the, the thing for me was I could live with not having success. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I could live with that. What I couldn't live with was not giving it a try, not giving it a shot and seeing if I could do it, because I knew it would haunt me every time I watched a feature film or a television show. I'd be wondering, I wonder if I could have done that. So I just wanted to share that with you. I didn't get started in acting, at least full-time, until I was about 32. I was a college student prior to that. I was a college student for the second time in my life, and as a way to support myself in school, I started acting and doing commercial modeling on a part-time basis. And I found that it wasn't just a part-time job for me, it was something I loved doing. And When I decided at one point, I just want to give this a shot. I want to try acting full-time and see what it's like, see if I can still get work, to see if I can sustain myself, if I can, you know, bring in an income, and if I still enjoyed it and could live with the uncertainty of not having work, which is a serious consideration. And it was One of the greatest decisions I ever made in my life. So I just wanted to share that with you. Let's get started, and I want to share with you names of 6 well-known actors. Actually, some of these people maybe you haven't heard of. Look them up because they've all done tremendous work. Okay, number 1, let's talk about Alan Rickman. Here was a guy who was Unfortunately, he passed away. Very, very successful actor. And once again, for any of these people, if the name doesn't sound familiar, or even if it does, easily— you can easily look them up. You can go to imdb.com, you'll find all these people. And Alan Rickman did a lot of theater, but he didn't really get any kind of notoriety until he was 46 years old. Actually, I'm sorry, I was going to ask you to guess. Okay, well, I'll give you this one. The others you're going to guess first. When he did Die Hard, the Bruce Willis movie, and then he just went on. Actually, you might know of him from Harry Potter, but yeah, the guy was 46 years old when things really popped for him outside of the theater world. Okay, number 2. Daniel Day-Lewis. So you take a guess as to when he got started in the industry. You might— and once again, if the name doesn't sound familiar, you can look him up. No, you're wrong. You're wrong. No, he was in his late 30s when he got started. He got cast in Do the Right Thing. He did Moonstruck, which is a very well-known movie. Cher was in it. Lots of great actors were in that. He was a bouncer for a lot of years, and then I think he did some work with a union. I'm not sure exactly what he did, but yeah, late 30s. Number 3, Samuel L. Jackson. Now, he did— he was a working actor. I mean, he did have some success, small things, in the '70s and '80s. At age 43, that's when things really started to pop for him, and Now he's just one of the more— one of the most famous actors in the world. But yeah, he got started, or he got started. Things really didn't kick off for him until age 43. Number 4, Katherine Heuston. She was in her— you want to take a guess? Okay, I'll tell you. Late 40s when she started. She won 2 Emmy Awards. She was— I mean, she did a lot of things. Most well-known, probably West Wing, The West Wing and Desperate Housewives. But yeah, she was a character actor. And look, you know, a lot of people are not necessarily stars. You can make a really good living as a character actor, which to me feels like the ultimate. You know, you can, you can live a normal life. You can walk into places. You're not getting hounded by paparazzi. Your family is safe. I don't know. To me, that's, that's the way to go. Number 5, Dennis Farina. Once again, I mean, I know of Dennis Farina. I've seen— he also passed away. I've seen him in lots of different things. He started acting at age 37. 37. Prior to that, he was a police officer in Chicago for 18 years. I think he was in the military before that, and he just had tremendous success and film and television shows. Once again, character actor who just— he was phenomenal. Number 6, I want to tell you about John Mahoney, and he has a special place in my heart, and I'm going to share with you a little story about him. He didn't start his professional debut He was on stage in Chicago until he was 37 years old. He was an editor, I think, for medical brochures or something in the medical world. He was working as an editor. Yeah, 37, he started working in theater in Chicago. You might know of him mostly from his work as the dad on Frasier, the TV show. Where he just— he was just phenomenal. He was in lots of movies. Here's my experience, and I'm sharing this with you, and it really has nothing to do with age, but maybe it does. Maybe in some ways it does. So this is a million years ago. I was doing extra work on a film in Washington, D.C., and it was called Suspect. Starring Cher. I know there were some other well-known actors. I haven't seen it for, for many, many, many years. But here's my story. I was sitting in a courtroom, once again working as an extra. For whatever reason, they, they brought a lot of extras into a scene. I wasn't asked to join them, and they said, just sit here in the courtroom. So it was great. I was comfortable sitting in a courtroom, and some guy walks in. And I'm looking at him and I said— he sat down next to me, he said, you know, you look really familiar to me. I said, by any chance did you work on the movie Tin Men? Because I did extra work on the movie Tin Men, and this was a little while before this, and it was a Barry Levinson project. And he said, yeah. I said, yeah, that's where I saw you, because there we had some big scenes, you know, in bars. I saw a lot of A lot of extras there. And I said, hey, by any chance, did you work in, in, in the scene in, in the bar? And there was one other scene. I said, well, what scenes did you work on? And he, and he looked at me and he said, well, actually, I was in quite a, quite a few scenes. He was one of the principal actors in this movie, and I thought he was one of the extras. And We just had the, the loveliest conversation. He was telling me just about his, his history, about his start, getting started later in life, just how fortunate he felt. You know, he's got these movies. He also worked on the movie Moonstruck, if I'm not mistaken. It might have been the same year as Suspect, and things were really starting to happen for him. And I was thinking about it later and I thought, that could have turned into a very different kind of conversation. It could have gone, hey man, I was a prince. Who are you? Hey, stop talking. It could have gone in a very different direction. He was lovely. He was kind. He was humble. He was generous. And maybe there is something to be said for people who get started later in life. Where people appreciate things more, people know how to handle things better. I can tell you that, and I truly believe this, that there is no best time to get started in the industry. It's when it's right for you, and that's true. And for some people who said, oh, I wish I had done this 20 years— well, you know what? Maybe you weren't ready 20 years ago. I can tell you, had I started at a much younger age, I wouldn't have had the life skills to know how to deal with things as well as I did. Dealing with rejection, dealing with not being able to find an agent, dealing with maybe somebody saying something to me that I didn't like. And because I was older and maybe a little wiser and had more life experiences, I was able to do things in a smarter way. Not to say I didn't make mistakes. Of course I did. But look, if you are thinking, well, maybe I'm too old— look, if you want to do it, do it. And sometimes people say, well, I've got a full-time job, I can't just give that up, I need guaranteed income. Okay, I get that. Well, you can always try acting on a part-time basis. There are lots of independent or student films that you can be doing. No, you're not going to get paid for a lot of those things, but it will give you an opportunity to act. And maybe You do have a job where you can take off days periodically and do some acting, or maybe you are much older and you're thinking about retiring. And sure, why not start looking into acting? But, but please make sure you get the right information, you know what you're doing, so that way you're giving yourself your best chance to have success. Hey, once again, if, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget to subscribe, click the notification bell, So that way you always know when a new video is going to be uploaded. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up. Please share the link with your friends. And I did promise I was going to share a great video with you, how I got started with absolutely no experience. I don't have to point. I know everybody does that. I'm going to stop doing that. It seems silly. You see the little I thing, the little exclamation point up above. Um, Just take a look at it, click on it, and that will give you an opportunity to watch this other video. I'm Aaron Marcus. Oh, hey, you know what? If there's anything that you can say about when you got started, please share that information below. Love to learn from you and hear from you and see what your experience has been as far as at what age did you get started in the industry. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. Bye.
