I got my first job as an assistant when I was 28. The agent I had to cover was 32. She almost didn’t hire me because she thought I would resent working for someone who was barely older than me, so I had to convince her. And when all was said and done, I was hired as the oldest assistant in the company.
The whole experience was a massive ego check. I had made the move west from Chicago, where I had a cushy job working in postproduction. But that career had become stale, and it was time for a change and better weather. After doing a ton of research by watching every episode of “Entourage,” I decided yours truly would make an excellent agent. So that became the plan: storm the gates of Hollywood, become an agent, and get rich. I had a timetable and everything.
Well, if you want to make God laugh, tell him all about your plans.
It took me a year to get that first assistant gig and another two before I became an actual agent. Based on my timetable, that whole process should’ve taken a year, tops. And once I was an agent, it took me another three years to get to the point where I was making a decent living. Don’t even ask how long I expected that to take.
Timetables suck.
They are arbitrary creations designed to give you a sense of momentum, but all they do is make us feel bad about ourselves. Why? Because they’re impossible to keep. Based on the one I created back in Chicago, I turned into a total loser when I moved to L.A. But that’s not true! I just needed more time. And, hey, it all worked out in the end. I may not be the wealthiest guy in this rich town, but I’ve been an agent for over a decade now and I’ve got a nice chunk of change in the bank.
Time breeds perspective.
What about you? Have you set a rigid deadline for yourself? Are you constantly beating yourself up because you missed a self-imposed target? Did you plan to win your first Oscar by 30, and now you’re older than that and you haven’t even been in a single film?
Well, stop it! Cut yourself some slack. Yes, it’s a good idea to have goals, but they cannot control your life to the point that you lose track of the big picture. Some actors move up the food chain faster than the Millennium Falcon at light speed. Others crawl slower than an Ingmar Bergman film. An acting career doesn’t have an expiration date.
The thing to remember here is that there are no rules to this thing. Every actor follows a singular path, and you just never know when the next milestone is going to pop up. Based on that timetable you taped to your refrigerator door, it should be tomorrow, but it could be years later. Does it really matter? Isn’t the trick to get there in the end? Will the victory be any less sweet?
It’s like sports legend Phil Jackson said: “It wasn’t the last hit that broke the rock, but the thousands of hits that came before it.”
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