Fat-ish, funny, and sure… handsome
Posted January 25th, 2005 by Sean WilliamsI have been going through a horrible bit of soul searching lately, wondering if I even want to be an actor, which for my level of achievement is *hilarious*. There would be a little bit of outcry, certainly increased if I made an announcement and had a party. But most people in my situation slip out of being an actor like they remove a jacket on a long spring walk, everyone can see your discomfort and losing the jacket just makes sense.
I have stopped acting on several other occassions, so I don’t even take myself seriously when I talk like this. But in my recording work and my music writing, I actually feel like I’m building something. If I spend six hours writing a song, there is some hope that the song will go out and build something for me. It might get recorded, it might be performed in the context of something larger, it could earn me royalties.
And the recording work is just something that isn’t terribly precious to me. If I record something that I hate, it gets the same attention as something I love, and I do it almost as well. In the last session I did, my mom was producing and she wanted a change to a song. As I was trying to make it happen, she got on the talkback and said, “Do you think that’s a bad idea?” and I bellowed, “I think it’s a *TERRIBLE* idea, but I don’t know anything, let me just do it for you.” I don’t know which of us is right, I haven’t listened to it since I recorded it.
But acting for me has always been something that I take way too seriously. There is a level of fulfillment that is indescribable. What comes to mind are some of the musicals I did as a kid, and some of the straight plays I’ve done in the last ten years. And, to tell the truth, Lady & the Ladle. Extraordinary that this children’s show should end up meaning so much to me, but it’s like a tuning fork in my heart. It could be my Mormon upbringing, but there is something about the work I do that involves teaching and inspiring kids that goes straight to the pit of my heart.
The theater is just too precious. It’s too important, and I don’t have enough control as an actor to say what I want to say. The frustrations I sometimes have are withering to me, body and soul.
I roll my eyes more at myself than you possibly could, believe me. But, I also have to admit that the apparent pretention isn’t pretend at all. My working associates know my dedication, they know I live and die on stuff, and maybe I am a drama queen, maybe I go off and rant and bitch, maybe I am a hell of a lot more frail than I pretend, and maybe if I was tougher all of this wouldn’t matter. I think about my friends sometimes when I’m writing this blog, and I know they roll their eyes at half of it (the half where I say “My friends roll their eyes at me” – written exclusively so they will call me and say, “we take you seriously, Sean…”) but I also know that they probably see me wading through my life with a sense of crippling lack of accomplishment that is quite serious.
Paul Giamati did not get an Oscar Nomination today, and it pushes me ever closer to wanting to walk away. I am nowhere near the actor he is, Jesus Christ “American Splendor” is amazing and “Sideways” is pitch perfect, but he’s got to be thinking that it’s a really tough road for a guy who doesn’t have the genetic gifts of the rest of the nominees. Sure, he’s handsome in a way, and he’s funny and he’s a little fat-ish, but that shouldn’t stop him from getting the credit he deserves.
Not even a nomination.
And I am light years and eons behind him in building any kind of a career. I said I would quit when I was thirty, but I gave myself some space because of the divorce. I just never said how much space. It’s possible that I may be unable to do much else, I have no marketable skills, but even a lower rung ladder job that I hate is better than frustrations with a career in something I love. It’s gotta be.
uh, wow. we are cut from the same crumply brown paper kiddo. i tend to use knock-about, toughie, crusty, almost-senile slang when in an empathy hole. i am about two baby steps ahead of you, which by-the-by in no way implies that i am somehow, closer to finding a soul, just a bit more…ummmm…well, anyway i too was feeling uncomfortable with my “path” as an actor, which wasn’t a path at all but like my own personal Fear Factor, without the adreneline. it came down to “as an actor, everything i buy is tax right off yeah?!, but everything i do is a character judgement.” i think i realized that i was acting because i didnt think there was anything else i could do, and i wanted to be discovered, handed into financial stability just by showing up on set. the illusion of acting is the pampering. i found none because i have never learned to give it to myself, blah blah blah and all that sh*te. so…dundahdun i have “decided” (this period of my “life” is just one giant set of “quoatation marks”…everything seems kind of “virtual” and “ironic”) to go back to schol for a graphic design certificate. i am hungry for structure and for someone to tell me things i probably already know, maybe some new things, hopefully some interesting things, and gosh dern it some terribly impractical fascinating things. so little about acting here has been fascinating, just crippling. and i won’t go into detail because you have covered the muddy bases far more eloquently than i. and since i had to create a blog just to reply to yours, looks like i am now obligated to spread my squiblings with the rest of the online world. suffice it to say, choosing to put aside acting has certainly not given me any more confidence ggggnnnew sir-ree, but its put me back into this place of being open to things, willing and so eager to learn. me want to draw and walls with crayon and get paid lots of money for p&j; sandwiches, whaa!. as a bit of an aside, i recently reconnected with an old high-school friend. (someone we actually know in common; i won’t name names here, but it may be clear as day) she is the qintisential passion-actor; it is in her very being and she says things like you read in hepburn/olivier/hagen biographies: “there is nothing else i could be doing” or “i wake up each day excited to be alive in the world” or “this last character just enveloped and invigorated me!” i used to hate her, and hate myself for hating her, and then hate her even more for making me hate myself. she is in new york about to start graduate school for theater, and you know, more power to her. there is no room in that world for someone like me without that passion. i can continue to hate her but there will not be this cloying fog of jealous incompetence, this heavy soul-pit of comparative failure. just high-school-worthy-hurt-feelings. but of course, all of this is just how i feel at 12:12 on wednesday morning. at 8:13pm i will be jam jar of whipped nerves, a frozen meat patty of doubt. at 10:46pm i will be drawing in an effort to make use of any scrapings of the depressive creativity i hear so much about. and at 1:23am i will ooze into bed happy and surprised with my doodles, finally hopeful. small things. whatever gives you the least amount of pain.
in closing, i “hear” ya man.