The Artist's Catch-22

I went down to Pennsylvania today to do a photo shoot that involved new actors’ headshots and commercial modeling portfolio pics. The thing about this project is that if you want to get good acting headshots or portfolio pictures, it’s not enough to smile pretty and look nice. Everyone else will be doing that, too. There needs to be an emotion in the picture—one that grabs the person looking by the face and makes them want to see more.

There is only one way to do this. You bring up something from your life. You let it live in your face for a while. Let it inhabit your body. Make yourself a glove for the hand of these feelings. Sometimes it’s good feelings—I think of good times with friends and a giggle rises up like champagne bubbles. I think of a boy who broke my heart, of a song that reminds me of him, and show the camera something I usually hide. It’s about being open. It’s about being vulnerable. Acting is like this too—every audition, every performance. This is what the art asks of you.

But the industry also demands we be thick-skinned. It rejects and rejects and rejects you—and expects you not to take it personally. If you’re lucky enough to have your work seen, you’ll be criticized as much as you’ll be praised—no matter how brilliant you are. Agents and casting directors will treat you like you’re expendable. To people in the business, actors and performers are—in the words of Alfred Hitchcock—“cattle.”

The industry demands a skin like a rhino hide, an impenetrable shield over your heart. But it also asks you to open up, to show everything you are. For most people, this is an impossible dichotomy. How can you be open and invulnerable at the same time? For any industry-minded person reading this right now, and rolling their eyes about actors and their diva-like behavior, I challenge you: you try it. Stand in a room with everyone waiting for you and intense pressure to succeed, and project joy. Sit before a jaded, impatient auditioner who just wants her lunch break and let yourself cry. Immediately, on cue. And then walk out of the room, after baring your secret pain, and forget about it. Don’t wait for them to call you. Don’t think it matters.

The advice that I’ve heard a lot over the years is just HAVE FUN. Be you. Put joy into your art. Creativity is about freedom—but at a certain level, the world is judging you. And knowing you’re being judged can throw cold water on any creative endeavor. It's essential to forget that one fact when performing or focusing on your art.

It's not easy. Still, millions of artists in every discipline do it every day—and do it well. I struggle with it—I am constantly aware of the perverse challenge of it—but I do it, too. And the more I do, the more respect I have for creative people—and the emotional athleticism that their creativity calls for.