The Fight

We talk about being unreasonable. When you want this career to work out, you do the right things like take classes, get good headshots, prepare for auditions, network, do mailings, get representation and hope for the best. But you reach the point where hoping for the best or even doing your best aren't enough. Sometimes you can do the absolute best job of anyone who auditioned for the role but, in the end, you're taller than the leading man or your name doesn't have enough clout or ten thousand other things you have no control over. There is rarely control when it comes down to the nitty gritty of actually booking the job. So you take control of what you can: you take solace in knowing you are following your dream, you are building a community, you are doing what you love.

....And that is where unreasonable starts to happen. You're doing the "right" things but you feel stagnant. So you start taking risks. You find a project you're right for and campaign. You engineer "chance" meetings. You train as a boxer for a role not yet written. You write your own material, giving yourself your dream role instead of waiting for it. You start to demand the unreasonable so that you can attain the unreasonable. Starting down this path may be deemed an unreasonable pursuit in the beginning and is, therefore, often abandoned. But continuing on this path takes risk and determination to fight past the doubt and uncertainty. And most importantly, to fight the complacency: the notions that creep in and make you shrug your shoulders; the thoughts of, "Oh well, I gave it a shot." Fighting that can be the most difficult but, in the words of George Bernard Shaw,

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

We continue because we are fighting to progress.

....Of course GBS also said, "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."

We are also fighting to find out which one is more tragic.