[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s The State of Show Business: “Anatomy of a Wandering Artist, Where to Now?”
The early part of my acting career came to me almost accidentally. I say accidental, but what I mean is that it happened to me while I was looking the other way. I was teaching tennis in Connecticut making ridiculous amounts of money. I had a young family and after splurging and buying shiny things, paying bills, and having security for the first time in my life, something was missing. What it was I did not know. What I knew was that I was never home, because I was chasing the ever loving dollar. I had neglected something inside me that seemed to have gone to sleep.
Enter an opportunity and me falling in loving with my first ever acting job. Suffice it to say, from now on I had a new career, a new purpose, a new understanding of myself. By seeking jobs, auditioning, and working, I had realised that I had found myself. Being an actor explained all the intangibles in my life. It was the answer to why I felt not quite connected to my fellow man. How my sometimes infantile behaviour would somehow put food on the table. And most importantly of all, I was feeding my soul. My family went along with this less than secure way of life and we were all off to the races. This support would prove vital to the ups and downs of this industry.
As with all adventures, there were times where I was more than challenged and the prospect of eminent failure was very probably. The first two years of my new found career were abundant and deceiving. Then the move to California from the East Coast was met with a golden opportunity to be on a network show that would run for three years. then we got cancelled and I had to essentially start over. Followed by some ups and downs (more downs than I realised) and the grim reality of having a day job was now a necessity. I went back to teaching tennis. It was, and sometimes still is, a terrific day job. I make my own hours and I can make decent money as I run around a court chasing little green balls wearing shorts.
My issue with teaching tennis was simply the idea that I wasn’t involved with my craft. So, I started teaching acting classes, writing classes, workshops on low budget filmmaking, and being hired out as a camera operator. Having a day job was necessary, but I did not, and do not, want it to become THE job. The industry was not responding to my needs as an actor. So, what was there for me to do? It was time to do something amazing and insane and reinvent myself again, as a filmmaker.