The following career dispatches essay was written by David H. Holmes, starring on Hulu’s new series “High Fidelity,” premiering Feb. 14.
I remember sitting in a casting office, waiting to head in and meet the director Greg Mottola. I’d only been in NYC for about three years at that point, and it was my sixth callback for a film he was working on called “Superbad.” By this point, they’d had me audition for all three of the main characters. I was beginning to wonder, Why did people think this profession was so difficult to break into?
As I said, I’d come to the city only a few years prior—as a 17-year-old—and already I’d had my first paid acting gig: $25 for a reading (I still have a copy of that check framed). I also already had a great manager, and now this chance at a big movie.
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I obviously didn’t get the role, and soon after, without much explanation, I was dropped by my manager and it was back to square one. It took me years to learn not to take these situations personally, and instead to realize that you get the roles you’re meant to get. That is the only way to look at it. It’s easy to think of this kind of rejection in the abstract but it isn’t until you’ve experienced it hundreds of times that you start to understand how profoundly it can impact your life, and you have to develop a healthier relationship to the whole process.
I mention all this because, even though it’s fairly obvious that a career will have ups and downs, I think it’s important to remember something my mentor Austin Pendleton once told me: A career is not like a ladder. Things don’t just progress up and up. A career in show business has countless different levels, and the sooner you embrace that fact, the better off you will be.
It took me seven years after that callback to land anything of any significance—and by significance I actually mean paid. It took me another seven years of chipping away at walk-ons and guest star roles to finally land a gig that supported me fully as an actor. That comes out to a total of 17 years that it’s taken me to truly earn a living at this profession; no more side hustles, no more late night bar shifts. But that doesn’t mean that moving forward I won’t deal with rejection and not getting parts I really want.
I realized recently that even if I have the kind of career I’d love to have, and say I rack up 300 credits, I will still have been rejected more times than I’ve been offered a gig, and that’s a powerful reminder about this business. It’s how you conduct yourself in the years you spend working for free, taking classes, going on hundreds of auditions, making your own work with friends, and just doing it for no other reason than your passion for it. That’s what ultimately makes you ready for when you do start booking steady gigs, because you’ll be fortified by what really matters.
It makes me think back to one of my fondest memories from years ago, of being directed by Austin in a small production of the Arthur Miller play “The American Clock.” It was a very large cast, all unpaid, and as I sat there watching a rehearsal for a part of the play I wasn’t involved in, I found myself feeling connected to everyone in that room in a way that didn’t concern itself with rejection or auditions or representation or even money. I was connected to passionate people, all trying to tell a story they loved.
It may take you a decade, it may take you two, or it may happen tomorrow, but either way, if you find what I found in that room—and you will know it when you feel it—you won’t get hung up on the rejections, or working long hours at a side job you hate. All you’ll be concerned about is being one part of that room, and it’s in that moment when your career becomes an inevitability.
What advice would you tell YOUR younger self? Get more Career Dispatches right here!