#41 Do Whatever It Takes To Stay In Love With Acting

20 April 2021 - 08:49 BY Louw

Do Whatever It Takes To Stay In Love With Acting

Young actors just starting might wonder how anyone can fall out of love with acting. “This will NEVER happen to me!” Like any other love relationship, it starts with infatuation. It’s as if you’re completely unable to see any danger signs or faults. It’s all beautiful, meant-to-be and emotional. Then a few years in… “I can’t handle his lame dirty jokes” OR “She is so judgmental towards other girls when we’re out in public.” Then, slowly but surely, we might fall out of love except…

Except what? Well, I don’t know if this might sound sexy to any young up & coming actress but, it takes effort. It takes work. It takes biting your tongue sometimes. It takes CHOOSING to see the good rather than the bad. It becomes a mental battlefield as long as you find ways to put on your armour and walk into that battlefield to stay in love, no exceptions!

Tool (armour) to try:

This might be a few ideas or pieces of advice but it will clothe you with next-level armour for battle. Your mission: DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO STAY IN LOVE WITH ACTING.

- Do other jobs to financially feed your acting career until it becomes your full-time career. Waiter (choose accents to or characters to play while on the job), au pair, do stock photography, wine tasting assistant, social media marketer, work on events (help set up music events etc.) Generate money to Uber to auditions or still pay rent in Town close to casting studios etc.

- Take Action: Feed your creativity and passion. You have to DO things. You have to go out and truly experience things. Go to the cinema once a week. Read books on acting. Visit art galleries. See a play. Go to a music festival. Watch an Opera on Youtube. Flood your inner-actress with inspiration and creativity. This is how you CHOOSE to keep on seeing the beauty.

- Student for life. Be curious about your craft consistently. If you think you’ve mastered a challenge in acting, identify a new one and combat that part of the craft. The best actors are constantly growing, choosing to think deeply about how the craft works. Be passionate about becoming better.

- Interests. The things that fuel you with more energy to learn and grow are the things that excite you. The things that interest you it’s probably the things you most read about when you have free time or the things you YouTube over the weekend. Be mindful about the things in your daily life that spikes your interest – follow those things to fuel you with energy and inspiration. For me: reading about nutrition and how the human body functions excite me. I love reading about nutrition, biohacks, fitness challenges, psychological practices and mindfulness.

- Friends: spend time with friends that creatively inspire you. Watch a friend paint or draw or take photos. Just be with other creative beings.

- Hobbies. Find hobbies or activities that interest you outside of acting. This is important. It just helps you have a beautiful balance and helps free your mind. Contradicting enough, the impulses and experiences you have doing these hobbies or activities will 100% be used or positively impacting your acting.

This might sound like a lot but if you only remember one thing, remember this: Do whatever it takes, I mean whatever it takes, to stay in love with acting. Be brave and keep on consistently executing these “things.”

Your relationship with acting, like any other, will have its challenges and ups and downs but it all depends on the way you choose to look at it. Either you keep seeing the negatives and the roadblocks of why this won’t work OR you do whatever it takes to see that beautiful creative adventure that you know you were born to go on an acting adventure.

I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.

How did you find the technique/tool/advice? Did it work for you? What was different this time? Share with the tribe and let’s keep on creating beautiful, honest and memorable performances. Let’s execute our best selves!

Kind regards

Edwin van der Walt

#41 Do Whatever It Takes To Stay In Love With Acting

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