Welcome back!
And thanks for reading! Here we are in the second week of my renewed writing, and finding topics is no easier than when I started my very long break. I will NOT let that deter me though! This week I’d like to talk about what a typical week looks like for me. Sort of a “peak behind the curtain” if you will. I often wonder how other actors use their time, so hopefully this will help someone else who may be wondering.
REMEMBER:
Just a reminder here that when I use the term “actor” I mean it to encompass all forms of acting including voice, stage, and screen. Yeah, I know I say this every week , but it falls under the heading of “The things that go without saying are the things that most need to be said”. What follows applies relatively equally to all of these forms of acting.
A typical week…
What does a typical week look like for you? Many, if not most, of you have full time “survival” jobs. What’s a survival job, you ask? Well, if you don’t already know this; Acting is a tough career to survive on. Typically for anyone who is not an A-list (or even B-list) actor you are not earning enough with your acting to make ends meet. It’s a tough profession, for sure. So, your survival job is what you do to pay the bills until you either give up (Please, don’t give up!) or start earning enough as an actor to pay the bills. It can be anything from the stereotypical waiter/waitress (do we still use that non-gender-neutral term?) to an engineer, or factory worker, mechanic…you name it. For most, that means a full time 9-5 job somewhere.
For me…
Well, I’m fortunate enough to have begun my acting career at a late stage in life and am retired. Twice actually. Frankly, I don’t recommend this…but we “bloom where we are planted” so no regrets (or as some tattoo artists without a dictionary say it-no regerts). I tell you this not to brag that I don’t need to act to pay my bills, but to say it is never too late to start. Well, and to say that my week will likely look a lot different than yours. You’ll probably have to inject a “Work 40+ hours” in there somewhere. I don’t envy you, but don’t envy me either because there are not nearly as many roles for a 60+ year-old slightly overweight man with greying hair.
One thing I do…
One thing I get to do each day that most of you won’t is I take some time each (well, most) afternoons to relax, watch a movie and maybe take a nap. Hey, don’t hate me, I wake up at the butt-crack-of-dawn every day. And I worked more than 40 years for the privilege. Presently I am making my way through all the Marvel movies. I also spend at least 15 minutes (that is starting to turn into 30+ minutes) each afternoon practicing guitar. At this stage, it’s not pretty and I definitely don’t want anyone hearing me elicit some really bad sounds on my guitar.
OK, let’s start with Monday.
In my short three year (Wow, has it really been three years!?) acting career one thing I have found is that Mondays are slow days. Especially when you wake up at an ungodly hour like I do. It’s not just Monday either, I wake up between 4 and 5:30 every day. Without an alarm. This is not for the faint of heart and I admonish you not to try this at home. It works for me, though. At any rate, there is very little (read NO) industry stuff happening Monday morning. So, for me Monday looks like coffee and writing my blog. After Wordle of course. I’d love to tell you I write for you, but I’d be lying. I write for me. Hey it’s an outlet. Anyway, the remainder of Monday is dedicated to doing things around the house and now guitar lessons. Yeah, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
Tuesday…
Tuesday starts a lot like Monday with coffee. Honestly every day starts with coffee so I’ll stop mentioning it. I spend the early part of the day reviewing how many people opened this blog and read it, as well as responding to any comments I may get. NEWS FLASH: I love it when people comment on these. It lets me know someone is reading it and also lets me interact with some of you. If you ever think “I should comment…”, please do…I love it. Then I head out to my weekly acting class (9AM-2PM) and when I get home, I have some time to check casting sites for jobs that were posted between Monday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon. If I’m lucky, there is an audition request in my email, and I prep for that.
Wednesday…
Everyone else calls this hump day, I just call it Wednesday. When I can remember it’s Wednesday. Not having a full-time job means I use my pill case (yeah, getting old aint fun sometimes) to remind me what day it is. After I get done with Wordle and clear out emails I’m back on all the casting sites looking for roles that fit me. If I’ve gotten an audition, I’ll set up and tape it and then do some work on the podcast I am co-producing. By Wednesday, there are usually a lot of jobs posted, so it can be a busy day.
Thursday…
Much like Wednesday Thursday is filled with checking casting sites, working on the podcast and by this time of the week I usually have anywhere from 2 to 5 auditions to complete. Thankfully I have two “built-in” readers, my GF and son, so auditions are pretty easy to get done. It takes a fair amount of time to film and edit them for submission though. One other thing I typically do on Thursdays is head to the grocery store to shop for the week. Not my favorite thing, but I mind it less than my GF does, so I do it. A bonus of being retired is shopping mid-week and mid-day when everyone else is at work. It’s amazing how many parking spaces are available close to the entrance at 1PM on Thursday, and there are almost no lines at the checkout. PRO TIP: I have found Thursday afternoon to be the least busy day at the grocery store. If you can manage it, I highly recommend it.
Friday…
Much like Mondays, Fridays are pretty slow days. By this time of the week casting directors have all their roles posted (mostly) and are just waiting on auditions to arrive. So, Friday is spent finishing any auditions that have come in, finishing any hangers-on from work I need to do for the podcast and clearing my inbox from the week. Friday is kind of a closeout day for me.
THE WEEKEND!
You might think that every day is the weekend for a retired guy, and in some ways that’s true. I surely don’t have anyone else directing my time like I did when I worked full time, but honestly, I stay pretty busy all week, so it still feels like a weekend. Sometimes I feel like I am busier without a job than I ever was with a job. If you haven’t noticed, there is very little industry work going on over the weekend, so I get to spend my weekends relaxing, taking care of stuff around the house, catching up on anything that I didn’t get done on Friday and getting together with family and friends who DO work full time jobs.
Other stuff I didn’t mention…
Of course, this is not a completely comprehensive list of everything I do each week. There are meetings that happen periodically (this week I have a BIG meeting for some very exciting stuff I can’t talk about yet…more on that if it happens), sometimes I actually get to be on set and working, which throws the whole thing off, the inevitable “honey-do” stuff and occasionally being available for tradesmen to come fix stuff around here (our AC is out downstairs and the guy is coming today – yeah I know it’s winter but we are getting ready to sell and move so things have to work). You know, all the normal stuff that happens in a person’s life.
So, there you have it…
A pretty normal week in the life of me. I know you probably have a full time job that puts a major crimp in your acting life, but I encourage you to make time for the things you are passionate about (for me, that’s acting…hopefully for you as well) and keep putting one foot in front of the other so that one day you can do like I do (no, not wake up at some ridiculous time of day); have a nap in the afternoon!