It's a career that's enticing because you go on stage, for example, and people clap. You get that affirmation, but you can't go into acting for that because it's really your own self-belief that's going to get you through.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
What I learned is that acting is to a large extent about trying to stave off self-doubt long enough to be natural and real onstage.
In most professions, you build up confidence and a sense of achievement as you go along, but that's really not true for acting.
When you're acting, it's all about you and the person in front of you, and I think in life we forget to apply the same technique, and we get caught up in the panic of what we're trying to do - how overwhelmingly daunting the task of trying to become an actor is.
Being on stage is a seductive lifestyle. My advice to aspiring actors is think twice. People sometimes go into acting for the wrong reasons - as a shortcut to fame and fortune. If these goals are not attained, they feel a bitter disappointment.
A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can.
For the actors, the talent is to serve the demands that I ask of them, to do it with naturality and truth, and to be honest when we were terrified.
The whole business of being an actor is to explore, from research to shooting to why you do it. You're trying to see why people do what they do and how it feels to do what they do.
As an actor, when you are called upon to do a job, you are oftentimes convinced you can't do it. You say to yourself 'I don't have the talent for this; they are going to figure out I'm a fraud.' And then you watch how the others do it, and fake your confidence.
All I have to do is be me on stage. But acting, I have to be someone else, and walk how they would walk and blink how they would blink. I used to talk about it bad like, 'Aw man, that person made $10 million a movie?' But now I understand why they do. I get it now.
Acting is a growing tick muscle. I really believe that it's similar to being a musician in that the more you practice it in any capacity, as much as you practice doing it every day, the better you get.