Acting is a Job or a Passion???

if we didnt need money to survive i'd act for nothing. if (and hopefully i will one day) i become filthy rich to the point were i could easily retire, i'd act for free. i'd tell my employer to spread my wages among the cast!

• 15 years ago
• 21

Neill - you're a love! Can I work for you?

• 15 years ago
• 22

Its my heart and soul, and i would never be able to do any other job with such passion purley for the reason i am a actor that loves her job.

• 15 years ago
• 23

I'd say acting wast the opposite to most jobs Leila. Most jobs I think people do becaue they need the money, like bus drivers, train drivers, traffic wardens etc. I doubt they have a genuine passion for it. Most office workers kind of feel the same way too (some may be passionate about the work they do but I doubt it was their dream since childhood). Acting is different, we don't do it because we need the money, as the majority of us simply don't earn a regular income through acting, but instead do it because we are following a dream. In that sense, I simply don't consider the whole thing to just be a "job". Although the likes of Adam Woodyatt (Twenty-three years in Eastenders) or Bill Roach (FORTY-EIGHT years in Coronation St.) probably feel differently now, which brings a whole new discussion to mind ... would you rather play the same part in a soap for the rest of your life or never act again? And if you did play the same part in a soap for the rest of your life do you think you would retain your passion for acting or just simply start to think of it as a "job"?

• 15 years ago
• 24

samantha, by all means you can work with me. but i warn you, while i'm poor i'll be taking my wages and running!

lol

:-)

• 15 years ago
• 25

I get paid for the waiting around, I do the acting for free!

• 15 years ago
• 26

For me, Acting is a job! I used to have a huge passion for it - now I just turn up-give the best show I can and go home with a nice wage. I sometimes feel a little guilty that I dont LOVE it anymore and still get work. Dont get me wrong, I enjoy my job but to say Im passionate about it would be a fib!

I do go through phazes though so maybe my raging passion will return one day :)

Besides, there is nothing else I am trained to do and would never give up...hang on..im feeling a little passion lol

• 15 years ago
• 27

I hope that you get your passion back, after all, without passion it becomes a chour. Passion invites your best work to take place, passion is what makes your heart race, passion is what makes the world go around. Without passion in anything that you do, life would be one big chour and a large boar!

• 15 years ago
• 28

It may be a 'chore' but I don't know about an Native Indian Cooking pot (chour).
May be it's something 'spiritual'.

• 15 years ago
• 29

Yah, passion is, "breaking up marriages and relationships" because of time and money commitments
Passion is coming between your landlord and you through lack of finances.
Passion is loosing friends through you not listening to reason and being blinded by "passion".
Passion is being constantly frustrated because nobody sees things like you do.
Passion is not being able to fit into normal society when you aren't acting
Passion is watching all around you enjoy Christmas when you cant afford to
Passion is listening to people tell you that they have never seen you in anything and therefore you cant be any good
Passion is realising at around 50 plus you've been robbed of your life and left with nowhere else to go.
Passion is paying out train fares with the money you had set aside for food that week.
Passion is putting your heart and soul on the line day in day out, only to have it dismissed.
Passion is, the wrong name for this, there is another more appropriate one. Can you guess what it is?

• 15 years ago
• 30

lol...yes i ment chore! As if you didn't already guess!

• 15 years ago
• 31

Blimey Kevin - are you still acting? I'm going to go and make a cup of coffee now - you've quite depressed me :-))

• 15 years ago
• 32

Hi Toni, yes, well I have to, it's my Passion! lol

• 15 years ago
• 33

Wow, Kevin, that was from the heart.
Yes, it's depressing but it's also heartening that you're not alone. I've been feeling a little like that recently. I don't tell most people I meet outside the industry what I do for a living (sorry, a passion)because I can't stand the look they give you when you tell them what you've been in. (Fringe Theatre, basically). I don't need the general public judging me too!
But give it up? It's just not an option. What would I have to whinge about then?
x

• 15 years ago
• 34

I can't remember which magazine I read it in but there was an article about Natalie Cassidy and how she's finding it difficult to get work and has to rely now on getting theatre jobs! I was going to write in but then thought what the heck!

• 15 years ago
• 35

ha yeah. i hate it when i am introduced to someone who isn't in the industry and they ask "what have you been in?"
when i mention the odd unknown short film or fringe play (even if it got great reviews) they usually give one of the three responses...


"oh, so nothing I'd know then"
"I have a friend who did extra work"
"have you done Corrie?"



ho hum.... but as everyone else here has been saying= I LOVE IT TO BITS! I WOULD NEVER CHANGE MY PROFESSION EVER!

:-D there

• 15 years ago
• 36

or the line, " I'd better get your autograph now then"!

• 15 years ago
• 37

As time has gone by, I tend not so often to run into people who say silly things, or regard it a trivial. My family all think I am mad but have settled for it, and the day-jobs find it quite fun and are really interested in what it's like. When I tell them what the working conditions are really like for most of us, some of them look at me sorrowfully, and say they would never put up with it, but understand why I need them to make allowances for my sporadic unavailability.

The acid tests to my mind:
I put several times more work and thought into a couple of hours of this than I ever did into a day of anything else.

Going to work scares me but I get off on it. The dayjob used to scare me, and make me throw up.

Couple of years ago, when a cheque bounced,I offered to find a full time job again. The wife's reaction: 'Under no f@@@ing circumstances. You'd be unbearable. I'd leave.'

Passion, most people have, about something or someone, some time. I am beginning to wonder if this actually works out to be more like an addiction. Certainly, it can make one very selfish if one lets it; but the wonderful thing is that you can get control of it and repay the people that matter for all their often silent and suffering support, and the pain of watching us suddenly open up as soon as we are working with other people we may never even have met before: (btw, just look at the language that came out there- very addictive psychology).

Like one earlier poster I had a career break, and though I went a bit silly when I came back,I did find it a good bit easier to get a sense of proportion, and already I am beginning to choose a bit more what to go for, to ensure that the results are good nough to justify what everyone has had to go through.

Call it a passion if you like. You're being polite. It's involuntary, unpredictable, and instinctual, and it has to be 'handled', but it can be given the right tools/attitude. That sound very like an addiction to me.

• 15 years ago
• 38

For me it's more of a case of: I've never seriously considered anything else! Ever since school it's something I've been working on and striving towards with mixed levels of success at different stages.
It can be a bit annoying when people ask you what you do but I gnerally find that they are really intersted and impressed that you're willing to work so hard in such a competative market and humble yourself with a temp job (usually quite a 'low' position in the company). Most common reaction is "I could never put myself through that!" I've found friends and family to be incredibly supportive, maybe I'm lucky.
Also it's difficult when you're living like a student while your peers are getting promotions and mortgages but I always tell myself that I know the deal and I've chosen this path.
It has to be a job that you're passionate about if you're going to make it work long term. No point in 'passionately' working for nothing all your life, otherwise it's a hobby.

• 15 years ago
• 39

I think in most cases, it is the people who act as a hobby that give the "biz" the bad rep.

I know that every time i have not been taken seriously, i find out it normally roots back to the person i was talking to knowing someone who am-drams as a pastime twice a month. i don't mean anything bad against am-dram, i just think its this "stereotype" that has been put in people's minds.

• 15 years ago
• 40