Resilience – Surviving the Business of Acting
By Simon Chadwick, Dramatic Resources trainer
Photography credit: Andrea Lungay
“Courage, mon brave!” - the actor Simon Callow wrote me these words in the jacket of his book, Shooting the Actor. I never met him, but my mother went to a book signing in Waterstones and she told him that her son was at drama school. I took the sentiment to be a warm, flamboyant gesture, tossed back my hair and tripped into the next voice class. But when I reflect on his words, the message was thoughtful. After all,
2% of actors actually make a living as an actor.
90% of actors are out of work at any one time, and
70% of actors entering the profession leave after 1 year.
After many years in the business, I can attest that this is not a path worth taking if you want to eat, clothe yourself, or even feel like you belong in society. However, anyone who is still turning up to auditions after the first year probably has JCB-loads of resilience – in this way, the actor's career might help us to understand what it means to be resilient in life and business.
My name is Simon Chadwick, and I am an actor and trainer. In this two-part article, we’ll explore four areas that I feel are significant in cultivating resilience: Ambition, Rehearsal, Creativity and Health.
How does an actor face constant rejection and not lose hope? This is where the four points of resilience come into play.
AMBITION
Actors are compelled and consumed by their craft. They’re unable to escape the need to act. It is this belief in the fact that being an actor is what you are, not just what you do, which helps sustain them in the face of challenges.
When I was starting out as an actor, all the naysayers simply galvanised my ambition. Nonetheless, it is hard to remain optimistic when things aren’t going your way for so long. Inevitably, we will struggle with self-doubt. But when you bring yourself back to the core belief that this is what you were put on earth to do, you can keep going.
Ambition makes you strong, tenacious and determined. It fuels the grit. Ambition also encourages a vision for the way you are cast in the future, and helps you see long-term goals and dreams. Consider asking yourself: Why do you do what you do? Where are your long-term goals and dreams? As professionals, we can harness our sense of ambition to help keep us on the straight and narrow when nothing seems to be going our way.
REHEARSAL
"Permission to fail” is a cornerstone of resilience. This is why the rehearsal room is a sacred ground for actors – it's a place where we can try, fail, experiment, re-think and try again. There is an egalitarian nature to a rehearsal room that creates the space for the best ideas to surface. Too often, we give up at the first hurdle. Our speech fell flat; our idea wasn’t picked up; our input wasn’t valued. But when we take the time to rehearse in private or around trusted friends and colleagues, we allow space for experimentation.
Rehearsal allows us to seek the opinions of others and fine-tune our process. We can walk into the spotlight with self-belief, and if we still “flop” - the rehearsal space is there to help us try again. To quote Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Next time, we will explore two more tools for resilience in life and business: Creativity and Health. What other choices do actors make to help them remain resilient in their role? And how this might apply “off stage”? You’ll have to come back to find out!