Why I'm an Actor
I just finished watching Akeelah and the Bee.
Akeelah is an 11 year old girl with a talent for spelling and she gets encouragement and support along the way to reach her goal. It made me think of my own childhood and how my parents were there for me financially and spiritually but were unable to reach beyond that and give me any practical help about "what I wanted to be when I grew up."
My dad always tried to pressure me to do something without trying to find out what that was. He always talked about "passion" but didnt know how to instill it in me. He made these vibrant speeches about why you had to have it and he was deadly serious. I was scared of him.
Growing up, I was always trying to entertain people. I put on magic shows and entered talent competitions for stand up comedy. But that was it. They never asked me about why I did those things or made any attempt to lead me in a direction. My dad just wanted me to have some direction. I remember one time he put so much pressure on me to come up with something that I blurted out I wanted to be an air traffic controller just so he would be quiet about it. I didn't really. Probably I had seen air traffic controllers save people in movies and so that's what I thought of. I just wanted him to be proud of me since he was out there pushing himself his whole life so his children would have the opportunity for learning he didn't have.
He struggled as a child and his father was frequently violent, telling him he was good for nothing, and he would never make it. He fought against that and worked hard as a young man just to prove his father wrong.I never had to do that. My grades were always good enough in school even without studying. I never had to get even with anyone. I just had to stay out of his way.I wish they had been there to help me with my homework or to stop to find out what I wanted.A lot of things that other people take for granted I was never taught. I just sort of muddled my way through life in probably a continued effort to stay out of his way.
The one thing that began to be a constant for me was movies. I felt things when a movie told a good story - pain, anguish, love, hate. I understood how the characters could feel that way. My mother gave me a soft heart and I was deeply affected by the things I saw. Just after college I made a halfhearted attempt to move to New York and be an actor with a friend of mine. He passed up the chance, saying sales made him more money than acting could. So I let the dream fade away. I didn't really tell my parents about, it didn't really fall into the few amount of things we talked about. They just wanted to make sure that I was happy, and I so hated to dissapoint them that I couldn't tell them that I wasn't.I ended up working for my dad and helping to run a custom building company. He loved having me there with him every day. Sometimes we would take off work and go to the movies or eat breakfast at our favorite restaurant.His speeches had softened over the years.
By now, he realized how much pain he had caused his children and began to regret things. We started to open up more and he always wanted to make sure that I was in the right place.Then one morning in our daily meetings he told me that he was thinking about me, and wanting to move to New York and he said that he wanted to make sure that fear didn't stop me from following my dreams.
I was sobered by that message and immediately took heart and announced that I was moving to New York to be an actor, which is where I am now 2 years since that pronouncement (I've been here nearly a year). Sometimes I get down because I don't get enough encouragement. I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing but it seems so mind boggling sometimes. Where do you turn to? What do you do? Well, apparently you keep plugging away and you never never give up. I falter sometimes and lose sight of that vision and get caught up in my own despair of the situation and sometimes the ship gets righted.
I spent the whole day playing video games and eating and other mind numbing stuff. I felt the weight of the world. My parents couldn't be there for me, I couldn't feel God there for me when I read the Bible a bit, but when i was watching that movie, I felt so happy to be alive.Akeelah and the Bee was such a sweet story about wanting something so badly and never losing focus on that vision. It took her 11 months of studying. I've been here that long and I just don't know when it will get any easier, but when Akeelah won that spelling bee competition I cried, because I had done it with her. I was there with her when her mother said she couldn't go to the competition and when she told her later it was because she didn't want to see her be a loser.
Before I came here, my parents expressed their own fears about the terrible things that might happen to me when I came here and some of them have probably come true.
But I'm still here, I'm still standing.I'm an actor because that's what's in me. I feel it stronger than anything else. I'm writing my own story now, one that will continue and will flourish and will get better. People ask me how New York is treating me, and I tell them it gives you what you put into it.
I want to put in my all. My parents wouldn't expect any less.
Akeelah is an 11 year old girl with a talent for spelling and she gets encouragement and support along the way to reach her goal. It made me think of my own childhood and how my parents were there for me financially and spiritually but were unable to reach beyond that and give me any practical help about "what I wanted to be when I grew up."
My dad always tried to pressure me to do something without trying to find out what that was. He always talked about "passion" but didnt know how to instill it in me. He made these vibrant speeches about why you had to have it and he was deadly serious. I was scared of him.
Growing up, I was always trying to entertain people. I put on magic shows and entered talent competitions for stand up comedy. But that was it. They never asked me about why I did those things or made any attempt to lead me in a direction. My dad just wanted me to have some direction. I remember one time he put so much pressure on me to come up with something that I blurted out I wanted to be an air traffic controller just so he would be quiet about it. I didn't really. Probably I had seen air traffic controllers save people in movies and so that's what I thought of. I just wanted him to be proud of me since he was out there pushing himself his whole life so his children would have the opportunity for learning he didn't have.
He struggled as a child and his father was frequently violent, telling him he was good for nothing, and he would never make it. He fought against that and worked hard as a young man just to prove his father wrong.I never had to do that. My grades were always good enough in school even without studying. I never had to get even with anyone. I just had to stay out of his way.I wish they had been there to help me with my homework or to stop to find out what I wanted.A lot of things that other people take for granted I was never taught. I just sort of muddled my way through life in probably a continued effort to stay out of his way.
The one thing that began to be a constant for me was movies. I felt things when a movie told a good story - pain, anguish, love, hate. I understood how the characters could feel that way. My mother gave me a soft heart and I was deeply affected by the things I saw. Just after college I made a halfhearted attempt to move to New York and be an actor with a friend of mine. He passed up the chance, saying sales made him more money than acting could. So I let the dream fade away. I didn't really tell my parents about, it didn't really fall into the few amount of things we talked about. They just wanted to make sure that I was happy, and I so hated to dissapoint them that I couldn't tell them that I wasn't.I ended up working for my dad and helping to run a custom building company. He loved having me there with him every day. Sometimes we would take off work and go to the movies or eat breakfast at our favorite restaurant.His speeches had softened over the years.
By now, he realized how much pain he had caused his children and began to regret things. We started to open up more and he always wanted to make sure that I was in the right place.Then one morning in our daily meetings he told me that he was thinking about me, and wanting to move to New York and he said that he wanted to make sure that fear didn't stop me from following my dreams.
I was sobered by that message and immediately took heart and announced that I was moving to New York to be an actor, which is where I am now 2 years since that pronouncement (I've been here nearly a year). Sometimes I get down because I don't get enough encouragement. I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing but it seems so mind boggling sometimes. Where do you turn to? What do you do? Well, apparently you keep plugging away and you never never give up. I falter sometimes and lose sight of that vision and get caught up in my own despair of the situation and sometimes the ship gets righted.
I spent the whole day playing video games and eating and other mind numbing stuff. I felt the weight of the world. My parents couldn't be there for me, I couldn't feel God there for me when I read the Bible a bit, but when i was watching that movie, I felt so happy to be alive.Akeelah and the Bee was such a sweet story about wanting something so badly and never losing focus on that vision. It took her 11 months of studying. I've been here that long and I just don't know when it will get any easier, but when Akeelah won that spelling bee competition I cried, because I had done it with her. I was there with her when her mother said she couldn't go to the competition and when she told her later it was because she didn't want to see her be a loser.
Before I came here, my parents expressed their own fears about the terrible things that might happen to me when I came here and some of them have probably come true.
But I'm still here, I'm still standing.I'm an actor because that's what's in me. I feel it stronger than anything else. I'm writing my own story now, one that will continue and will flourish and will get better. People ask me how New York is treating me, and I tell them it gives you what you put into it.
I want to put in my all. My parents wouldn't expect any less.
Comments