Ah Happy New Year to the zero readers of this blog. My last post came at the end of September; I was in the height of production for "American Soul", to say I worked a lot was an understatement, and I was making an income. Did I say that I worked hard during the show yet? No? So yea, I worked super hard from July-December 20th of 2018 and what did that do for me? Flash forward to today and I am unemployed or as my Dad corrected me and said, "in between projects." A more whimsical bit of truth from him that I'm not used to, usually it's just the truth. So did working hard lead me to unemployment? No, not exactly. Then what did it lead to? Well folks it took me a while to figure that out but I think I have somewhat of an answer.
Why do people work hard? That's a complex question and there are many answers to that question but I think all of them will roughly fall into two categories: you work hard to impress or you work hard out of necessity. Working hard to impress could be: working hard to impress yourself, like reaching a personal goal. Working hard to impress a person you have any type of feelings for, your crush, your parents, a close friend, your boss, and even a competitor. In all of these examples you're working hard to leave an impression, hopefully a good one. Working hard out of necessity could be: working hard because you need to keep a job. Working hard because you're not good at something and the only way to do it is to work hard at it. Working hard because that's simply what it takes (this ties into working hard to impress). In my opinion working hard to impress is the best type of way to work hard because it involves an active choice or desire to do so...it's fulfilling. Working hard because you have to sucks. Period. Whether it's coming from your boss or your circumstances, not having an option other than to work hard is unpleasant.
For the umpteenth time, working on American Soul was hard, perhaps most prominently, mentally hard. It was a tough mental game every single second of every single day I worked on that show. I think I already described how badly I wanted to be working in front of the camera instead of behind it. Overall I have a positive feeling about my time on the show, I met some great people, learned even more about what goes on behind the scenes, and I was able to save enough money to keep me going for now.
January is always the anniversary of me stepping into the film world and being serious about acting as a career. This January is 2 years "in the business"...typing that out really puts how little time I have in this industry and what I've been fortunate enough to do into perspective. (although film industry years are like dog years haha). In that time it's been a lot of hard work out of necessity and working on "American Soul" only highlighted that necessity...I needed to make some money in order to keep the dream going. So where did that job lead me? It lead me to a place/moment where I could work hard to impress.
After I wrapped production on December 21st I knew that at the beginning of the year I was going to take some time off, away from set designing, so I could work hard on acting. Towards the end of "American Soul," the Art Department Coordinator (shout out to her) sent me a list of upcoming projects that will be filming in/around Atlanta. I got excited when I saw that Barry Jenkins, yes, Oscar winning "Moonlight" director, Barry Jenkins would be directing a limited series based off of the novel, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Admittedly I had never heard of the book so I did a quick search to see if it was about what its title implies and to see if there were any characters I could play. I was hooked within the first few minutes of reading reviews and brief summaries of the novel. I ordered the book the same day and it arrived 2 days later (Thanks Amazon Prime). I read the book within 5 days. After the first read I read it again, this time focusing on the character I most identified with and who I hope to have an opportunity to audition for, Caesar. Long story short, I completely nerded out over the book and Caesar...I did all of this book analysis with the motifs and themes (stuff I haven't done since sophomore year in college) and a character analysis; I came up with this guys history before the book starts, what he sounded like...everything. I worked pretty hard on it, I have nothing else to do at the moment. Working hard on "American Soul" afforded me the time to work hard on creating this character from a book and upcoming show that I have absolutely no guarantee of auditioning for. It was my choice to work hard on that and I enjoyed every second of it; doing so was a chance to create something that was fulfilling. I typed up a summary of my character and book analysis and Tweeted it to Colson Whitehead...in a sign of good luck he actually responded and gave me a little more confidence in my interpretation of Caesar.
I have some updated headshots, best ones I've taken I think (Shoutout to my photographer). I have some time to continue to work on Caesar, and I have some time to audition. Working hard out of necessity will hopefully lead you to a place where you can work hard to impress, even more so, impress yourself.
Since I'm "in between projects" again, I'll probably start posting these a little more regularly.
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