Consider Your Source

I've been thinking a lot about my acting business, and how so many actors who think they know about the business don't really know the first thing about it in reality. Everyone just listens to everyone else repeat the same myths and treat them like that is really the way the business works. And then it occurs to me that it's not just actors. It seems to me that on the lowest rungs of the show business career ladder there are also agents, managers, casting directors, directors and producers who also listen to these myths as truth, and hand out advice to new actors based on these myths. Or worse, make business choices based on these myths. Which is really bad for us as actors starting out, because we assume they know more than we do, when they don't. 

An example of business choices based in myth: I read an article published in the Now Casting newsletter a few years ago (I tried to find the article again to link to it, but there are so many archives I don't even know where to begin to look, my apologies) regarding the myth that once you become known as a background actor, you don't stand a chance of being cast for speaking lines. In the article she said she knew agents that would stop sending their actors out to audition once they knew the actor was working background. That scared me when I read it, because Now Casting is a credible source of information in my book. But now I know that it just shows that there are a lot of people on all sides of the table that don't have a clue, and that wrong advice can come mixed with the credible advice, from credible sources.

So it's important to consider the source of the advice you get. Are you getting advice from someone who is in the same boat as you, struggling to make it? (If the advice they had to give you was good and based in reality, they'd be well on the road ahead of you, not stuck in the same boat as you.) Or are you getting advice from someone who has already succeeded, who has already gotten to where you want to go, someone who has at least some experience if not many years of experience, about how to be successful in the business? 

Consider your source of information. This, btw, is the reason I choose to listen to Bob Fraser's advice. He has forty years of success in the business. (Success being defined as making a lot of money in the business, making a very good living by doing what you love -- not fame.)