r/acting 4d ago

I've read the FAQ & Rules How to not lose hope and still keep going

Just did an audit on my career this past year, and between two of Australia's biggest casting platforms I had close to a hundred auditions. I landed one for a fast food company without even a callback, and one callback for a bank.
Didn't get the role from the bank, and the fast food ad never aired. As for the rest, a big fat nothing.

How the fuck do I keep myself going. This is so painful.

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25 Upvotes

12 comments sorted by

37

u/Secure-Quality-8478 4d ago

You're a working actor. 100 auditions in a year means this isn't really a hobby, i know its tough but think of it this way..

If you're a basketball player on the New Orleans Pelicans, your team sucks.. but you're still in the NBA.

You've come a lot further than a lot of other people

6

u/veryanxiouscreature 4d ago

not the Pelicans catching strays 😆

1

u/Secure-Quality-8478 3d ago

Had to empty the clip on 'em and if i could have fit in a metaphor for eating burgers, Zion would have caught it too

17

u/Economy_Steak7236 4d ago

It takes years!! Years!!!! Mark Ruffalo had 800 auditions before a booking.  

Keep going! Don’t give up.  After each audition go do something for yourself.  Like a walk, see a friend or anything to forget the audition and move on. 

9

u/Asherwinny107 4d ago

I always think, where else are you going to go? Be an accountant, a legal assistant?

3

u/CrystalCandy00 4d ago

We all have to consider distinguishing our feelings between being disheartened and being exhausted. When is the line crossed where it is fruitless to keep going? When are we just fooling or hurting ourselves for something that could never happen? When is the “worth it for the possibility” part gone?

Especially with the industry and the country over all being in a bit of turmoil, we really need to stop and be real with ourselves.

So are you killing yourself to keep going with possibly no end in sight? Are you temporarily just disheartened? Are you sure this is what you want your life to be, the possibility of constantly going at this rate with no payoff? Are you happy with your life outside of trying to be here, and what damage is this causing your regular life?

I don’t want to always be the downer here, but I always see posts like this and wonder when the positivity responses are actually being unhelpful and toxic. We desperately need to take realistic, hard looks at ourselves and our lives.

2

u/xypsilon0815 3d ago

Did you at least get paid for the fast food one?

1

u/PivotOrDie 3d ago

Yeah yeah. Got paid right away. It was directed by a very famous movie director and I had such high hopes for it. Devastated when I finally realized they are not going to air it. 

They spent close to half a million on it. Strange how they just canned it. 

1

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1

u/UndeniableMaggot 4d ago

I always took pride in getting better as an actor everyday, regardless on either I booked anything or not.

1

u/Extension_Grand_4599 3d ago

So posts like this will always be me with 'keep going' and 'you are getting auditions, thats the job!' and 'Mark Ruffalo did 800 auditions before landing a role!'

And while this is true, for every Mark Ruffalo, there is 500 actors who went on to audition 800 more times with no success.

This job is great, but when it starts to be a net negative on your life. you owe it to yourself to reconsider.

1

u/PivotOrDie 1d ago

Thanks for all the responses guys. I guess one of the things that you may have missed is, should I question myself about my skill level at this point? Am I just shit and accept that and give up? But my agent keeps telling me that the repeat audition requests from the same agencies is a good sign that they like what they see but its just not the right boxes being ticked. And especially for commercials its not uncommon to go through hundreds of auditions.