13118: Art? Or Money?

Raw transcript:

I was having a conversation with an
actor the other day I tend to take
actors out to lunch every so often tried
before the pandemic to do it once a week
because actors are notoriously poor and
struggling and poor for information
hungry for food and so it gives me an
opportunity to sort of work with them
and one of them said
and it’s not the first time I’d heard
this but one of them said
I don’t want to make decisions about my
acting career that involve money
and it opened up a whole conversation
about money and art and I want to kind
of get your take on these things and
share with you what we talked about in
this episode of the vo Heroes podcast
[Music]
so I often joke that I I sometimes worry
about actors who are so concerned about
not being involved on the business side
of our business I’m an artist
I don’t want to touch the filthy looker
um and I had this conversation with an
actor about this who said yeah I just
want to let my agent handle all that
stuff I don’t want to I don’t want to
Sully my art by saying oh yeah I’ll do
that for the money
and
I I wondered at the at the time and I
posed this question to him I said
um wouldn’t it be nicer to not have to
struggle I mean we sometimes get off on
this tangent about an actor is only a
really good actor if they have pain in
their life if they have struggle in
their life if they’re really working
hard to overcome that helps them be a
more effective actor I I don’t know that
that’s necessarily true
and I know several older actors
who have the luxury
of ease the luxury of having lived a
life where they’ve made enough money
that they can now pursue what they want
to pursue uh or they spent years at a
corporate job that was uh you know well
paid they were remunerated very well or
they had their own business and they
made enough money that they could then
make a decision yeah you know what I’m
gonna retire but I’m going to try this
acting thing I’ve always thought about
and without the pressure of having to
pay rent or pay a car payment or eat
something a little bit more expensive
and lovely than Ramen you know I I
wonder if sometimes we kind of box
ourselves in with the notion that if
we’re not really
uh against it all if we’re not really up
against the the struggle if we’re not
really yearning for something better in
life we’re not going to be very good at
feeling the art of acting
you know I got to tell you it’s a lot
easier to rehearse and audition and head
to set in a car that’s safe from a home
that’s secure if you’re not worried
about money
and we tend to look at historical
figures and fairy tales and legends of
people who really struggled and then
overcame and think oh that’s how we have
to live our artistic lives and my
question for you is is that really true
can you take a litmus test and and do it
on that particular uh concept and come
up with yeah no we should all be
struggling at all all times
I wonder if when we set ourselves up for
success
and we do so with certain assumptions if
those assumptions around money are
things that can hold us back
and I think just to to summarize this in
a simple way
do you avoid the notion of taking a job
in a commercial or an audio book or who
knows some job that doesn’t really uh
trip your trigger the way working in a
very very important independent film
would trip your trigger that doesn’t pay
very much money or a very important play
in a small theater where you’re not
getting paid at all or maybe getting gas
money you know because it’s your art
and it’s making you a better actor or
voice Talent you know if you’re not
volunteering your your time for a local
cause and doing a PSA for no money at
all like those are all wonderful things
but it’s nice to be surprised a couple
weeks after you’ve gone on set and done
a show or gone on set and done a
commercial to get that direct deposit or
to get that check in the mail and go oh
oh wait right several thousand dollars
for the work that I did that day
it just makes it a lot easier when we
start to move into that ease of things
to be able to comfortably work with our
scripts and our schedules and our
business and our office hours and our
technology and all the demands that the
business places on us
or do we hamstring ourselves by saying I
don’t want to get too comfortable
I don’t want to have that luxury of ease
let me know tell me what you think and
maybe like me your thoughts on this have
changed over the years I used to think I
had to struggle to be an actor
and I realized that you know maybe I
didn’t at least for me so I want to know
what you think tell me what you think
about your relationship with um how you
choose projects uh how you manage your
money how you manage your income will
you do things specifically for money as
well as for the joy of it or for both
what are your thoughts tell me tell me
what you think and if you want to just
like be a little cagey about things
that’s fine I know that people have a
little discomfort sometimes around
talking about the money that they earn
or that they don’t earn and I understand
that so just do what may do what’s
comfortable for you but let me know in
the comments below uh if you like these
episodes and think they would be helpful
for other actors go ahead and forward
the link that you have above in the
browser that you’re watching this uh
send it to an actor you think might
benefit from these uh hit the like
button if you want to subscribe to the
channel there’s a notification Bell you
can ding if you want to be notified when
new episodes come out I’m David H
Lawrence the 17th I thank you so much
for watching and for listening and I’ll
see you in the next episode of the vo
Heroes podcast
[Music]

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