Waaaaay back, when I had my first inklings of wanting to be an actor, I took Drama 8. One of the first things I remember learning there is trust. You have to trust your scene partner, the ensemble, and yourself. Especially yourself. You don’t trust yourself, you can’t be honest with yourself. If you’re not honest in your work, then you’re not honouring it or yourself. That’s not good. Every relationship you have, you need trust! Whether that be a relationship with a person or a relationship with your work, it’s got to be there.
Yet even though a gigantic part of being in this industry is trust in yourself and your work, you do need other people alongside you. This is more trust! Trust in your friends and family – their support is incredibly important, and I’m very lucky to have people who believe in me! Trust in the industry, that the perfect role – or the fun stepping stone roles on the way to the perfect one! – is out there. Trust that things will work out the way they’re supposed to. And trust in your agent. This is important.
Maybe I read too many books where a character was a performer and had an agent. And every time, I’d read about this fantastic relationship the two of them had. They weren’t only in an agent-performer relationship, but they had bonded! They were comfortable with each other, and liked talking. It wasn’t a forced relationship. They could call each other to talk about things other than “The Industry,” even though that was, after all, their main focus. They worked for each other. The agent trusted that the performer would stay sharp and in practice and do the best job possible to get the gig, and the performer trusted the agent to do all s/he could to submit them and get them gigs. Two way street.
So where am I now? I’m trusting myself. I’m trusting that I know what I’m doing and what I have to work on to grow as a performance artist. I’m trusting that I will do the best I can to find myself work, and to promote myself to the best of my ability. But I’m not sure about that last one…
So now I’m trusting that I’ll find out what to do that’s the best thing for me, and that everything will work out – preferably in my favour! And I’m trusting my instinct – and right now, I feel that this is going to be a fantastic year – and that this year is only the beginning!
