The business versus the art

When someone says "acting" in a business sense, words that might come to mind include 'cut-throat', 'hyper competitive', 'brutal' (or, if you're a traditional South Asian American parent, 'stupid'). When someone says "acting" in an artistic sense, words that might come to mind include 'touching', 'inspiring', 'brilliant' (or, if you're a traditional South Asian American parent, 'stupid'). Just so, I think these two angles are the two ways to approach the profession of acting--business and artistic. I believe the best commercially successful actors (note the qualifiers) have mastered both.

My approach here in LA is to balance both, whereby I'm developing the art and the business of being an actor. For the art, I've enrolled in an acting class (more later), and for the business, I'm spending time writing a blog no one reads.

I saw a play Saturday night in which a friend of mine played a leading role. He's been in LA two years, and this is his second play. He hasn't had any speaking roles in TV or film. He has no agent, no manager. He has no business cards. In the last two years, this friend has solely focused on developing his craft: acting classes; voice classes; movies; books; smoking; more movies. All of it.

For awhile I used to wonder why he was wasting his time. But after seeing his incredible performance Saturday night, I realized that he has been as passionate about his profession these past two years as I can only hope to be.

On a side but very personal note, I also realized that I'm not a true artist. I would go friggin nutz if I was here for two whole years and only had one lead stage role to show for it.