Backstage Magazine asked, “What would you tell your younger self about acting?” Well, in reality, as the great Maya Angelou said, “Wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.” That is to say, as messy and backward and sometimes heartbreaking as my road has been, it feels really good to know I made things happen for myself through sheer force of will and guts and faith. I don’t think I’d trade that for anything.
But for the purposes of this piece, let’s say there are a few things I wish I had known. A biggie is how much time I wasted preparing all the wrong things for auditions. I can’t tell you how many times I would audition for a detective role and proceed to spend a good chunk of my prep looking at pictures of cops and scouring the local Macy’s trying to find that perfect button-up shirt that would scream “Detective!” Then another half-day working on the toughest, most law enforcement-esque hairstyle I could wrestle my ’fro into. Rugged but still a bit sexy, because this was network TV, after all! Then perhaps I’d watch some YouTube videos of cops and how they walk. Only then would I get down to memorizing lines, watching myself in the mirror to judge how detective-y I was looking and sounding.
You can laugh at me. This makes me laugh now.
What I didn’t realize was how much of the point I was missing. After I took an acting course with the famed Diana Castle, everything just began to click. I’m not writing this as a publicity piece for Diana—and trust me, she doesn’t need any help recruiting students—but I can’t possibly share the essence of what made all the difference to me without giving credit where it is due.
Basically, the idea is: Don’t waste your time with pointless conceits. If your role is of a grieving mother who just lost her son and you have that story fleshed out and living and breathing in your imagination and you deliver this story with the pulsating reality of that pain—trust me, you could walk into that audition room wearing a tutu and you’ll win the role.
Another thing I would now whisper urgently to my younger self is that someone else’s performance is none of your business. I remember my very first job as a professional, on Aaron Spelling’s “Sunset Beach.” I didn’t like the way another actor was saying his line so I told him, “Hey, you should say it more like...” In other words, I stood there giving him a line reading. That is how naive and green I was when I first started. Luckily he was just as new as I was and he gamely said, “OK! I’ll try that!” Oh my. There’s probably no bigger taboo in the craft than telling another actor how to express something!
I hope this gives you a little food for thought, or at least a hearty chuckle at my expense. We all have to find our own way in this industry, and my wish is that however you navigate it, never forget the point of the whole bleeding thing: to tell a truthful story.
Emmy nominee Sherri Saum can currently be seen on Freeform’s “The Fosters.”
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