A look inside
I just got this email:
You’re funny, you’re smart, you have experiences that are go from ordinary to out-of and back and again, and yet…
…most of what you talk about is your friggin’ website!
Talk about your day, what you ate for breakfast, rant and rave. But pretty please, make a separate section for the site updates,/*.phpl and greymatter coups, and the linking excitement. All of that is certainly worth keeping track of, but it doesn’t communicate much about you.
So, I think that’s a point well taken…here’s some insight into my mind, because you asked for it:
I am fighting tears today, with each passing second. Why? Because the defining characteristic of my work as an actor the past few years has been, “It came down to you and another guy, and they went the other way.” Translated, that means, “You didn’t get the job.” If I had a dollar for every time that’s happened in the past 2 years, I could retire. It always seems to come down to me and one other guy, who usually is some flavor of the month, and they always hire the other guy. And you know what I hate? I always hear, “You are the best actor we’ve seen” or something similar…yet I always seem to lose to the guy with the perfect hair and the Kirk Douglas jaw. Let this be a lesson to you aspiring actors out there: being the best actor is NEVER enough.
Well, I took some classes a long time ago, and the teacher always admonished us to not let our jobs become our life, because when we don’t work, and there are times when we won’t, we’ll freak out, because we don’t know what to do with ourselves. It’s advice I was unable to heed.
Here’s something you may not know about me: I love acting. I love working, and creating, more than anything. I love it so much, I’m willing to suffer the extended periods of unemployment, and the constant rejection, as well as the constant attacks from people who really should either try this themsleves, or shut the fuck up.
Sorry, I digress. Back to point: Since yesterday, when I got the “It’s you or another guy” phone call, I’ve been sliding deeper and deeper into depression, because if I can’t get hired by MY FUCKING FRIEND, who practically promised me the part, I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry, but I am getting so sick and tired of having a project dangled in front of me for weeks, and then having it yanked out from under me at the last second. It hurts. It hurts a LOT, and I don’t know if you can understand the depth of the hurt, unless you’re an artist or some sort. Because I think that type of rejection is really a personal one, regardless of what they say.
Put in typical, irreverent “Wilspeak” it’s like this: you get hooked up with the hottest girl (or guy, if that’s your thing), EVER. You’re all naked, and ready to go. She’s dancing around, telling you all the crazy shit she’s gonna do to you, and how she’s calling her sorority sisters over later, so you’d better stay ready. She’s just about to jump you, and she tells you to close your eyes, and get ready. The next thing you hear is the slamming of the door, and the squealing of the tires as she drives away.
(You know what I’m thinking right now? Those morons who have some primal need to hate me are going to have a field day with this one, and I almost deleted it. Well, fuck them. You wanted to know what goes on in my head, and I want to share…I think I’ll feel better when I’m done with this. I hope.)
So I felt like I was punched in the stomach. I feel hurt. This movie is going to be AMAZING. It is going to do AMAZING THINGS for the people who are in it, because Roger is an AMAZING writer and director. And I am this close to having a complete rebirth in my carreer, and it will only take one part to do that. This movie would do that for me. Roger asked me to play a junkie in this movie…if that doesn’t shatter the image people seem to have of me, and get people to stop seeing me as 12 years old or in outer space, I don’t know what will.
And this comes on the heels of some producers, for whom I suffered with the biggest asshole “director” (I put that in quotes because this guy couldn’t direct traffic on a one was street) for NO MONEY on a movie that should have been great, because the script was brilliant. But it will suck now because the asshole will ruin it in post, these producers have jerked me around for 4 months with the promise of a project which will most likely never happen now. Thak Bob I have sketch comedy shows, and late night comedy talk shows to perform in, or I’d go crazy.
There’s a chance that Roger will still cast me, and this whole entry and the awful way I’ve been feeling will be for nothing, and I’ll look back at this and laugh, and I can get back to the normal me, who is too busy making jokes to feel sad.
But you wanted to know how I was feeling, and was was going on in my mind…well, there it is.
(And I will talk about my website, because I worked hard on it, and I knew nothing about/*.phpL or CSS or ANYTHING 6 weeks ago when I started it, so I’m proud of it, such as it is. )