I have been telling actors for over twenty years not to quit. I believe in hard work, discipline, grit, and the ability to stay in the struggle when things become difficult. If you tell me that acting matters deeply to you, then I believe the way you live should support that claim. 

You cannot spend your life waiting for inspiration, validation, or the perfect set of circumstances. Serious artists learn how to keep going. They develop a way to navigate the struggle of professional creativity.

I still believe all of that. But as I have gotten older, I have become less comfortable with the simplicity of never quit. 

Over the years, I have had a number of former students tell me that they are no longer pursuing acting professionally. Some have become therapists. Others have gone into psychology, social work, education, writing, business, or entirely different professions. 

The conversations are often complicated because underneath the decision to move on from acting, there can be a profound sense of loss. After years of training and sacrifice, there is often an unspoken question: Was all of that time wasted?

I don't believe it was. Not if the training was serious.

Actors spend an enormous amount of time waiting for permission. Permission to work, permission to be seen, permission to call themselves professional. Permission from an agent, casting director, director, producer, or somebody else sitting on the other side of the table. Over time, this can create a terrible relationship with auditioning. Instead of walking into the room as an artist with something to offer, the actor walks in hoping to be chosen.

Talent is not enough. It is actually low on the importance scale. 

Actors don't always like hearing that because talent feels important. It is the thing we associate most closely with artistic potential, and of course, talent matters. But this profession is filled with talented people who never work. It’s also filled with untalented people who work all the time because they bust their ass and are excellent collaborators. This trumps talent all of the time.

Over the course of a career, what separates the actor who continues to work from the actor who doesn't often has very little to do with talent. It’s hard work and professionalism.

There is an assumption actors can make once they begin working professionally: if I am working, I must be growing. But a career and an artistic life are not the same thing, and one of the things I found most interesting in my recent conversation with Candace Maxwell on my podcast, Creating Behavior, was hearing a successful working actor talk about how hungry she still is artistically.

Great acting looks effortless. That is one of the great deceptions of the art form. 

We watch a first-rate actor and see someone completely alive. They listen, respond spontaneously, and seem incapable of anticipating what will happen next. 

There is simplicity in the work. Stillness. Ease. Nothing appears pushed or manufactured. And because it looks effortless, it is easy to misunderstand what produced it.

What we don't see are the years of work underneath it. We don't see the thousands of hours spent developing a physical, vocal, and emotional instrument. We don't see the repetition, the failed attempts, the rehearsals, the script analysis, or the attention to detail. 

What do you say matters most to you, and does the way you live support that claim?

That's a question I've been thinking about lately, not only as an acting teacher but in my own life. 

We all have a story about ourselves. We say we're artists. We say our work matters. We say we want meaningful careers, meaningful lives, and meaningful relationships with the things we love. But what happens if we stop listening to what we say and simply look at how we live?