How many people are in hollywood trying to make it big?!
Question: any personal experiences?
are there literally millions of people who want to be famous?
especially young girls?
thanks
i think i'll give up acting....too difficult
Answers: any personal experiences?
are there literally millions of people who want to be famous?
especially young girls?
thanks
i think i'll give up acting....too difficult
My daughter is a teen actress, does that count?
Ok...be patient here -- this is going to be kind of long, but you asked a question and here's my best answer.
First of all, I am AMAZED at the amount of people who want to go into the performing arts to become rich and famous! There are litterally millions of people who think it's the fasted road to fame and riches. IT'S NOT!!!!! My daughter will be the first one to tell you how difficult this line of work can be.
If you are in performing arts SIMPLY to get rich and famous my suggestion to you would be to get out. Run away from it as fast as you can and never look back. The odds of becoming rich and famous in this profession are slim, at best. Unless you are an absolutely raving beauty or you have a voice like Barbara Streisand you are simply not going to do well without YEARS AND YEARS of struggling, heartbreak, and rejection. You have to have a personality in which you can handle rejection and professional criticism without taking it personally because you will hear it more often than not. Not too many people are that strong.
Even people who are famous like Jay Leno, Jim Carey, etc., spent many years honing their craft and making little money prior to getting their big break. The comic legend Lucille Ball was even told by one producer to pack her bags and go back to her hometown in New York because she would never amount to anything in Hollywood. Thank God she didn't listen to him and proceeded on, after many years of hard work, to become a comic icon.
There are so many other venues in which to work in the performing arts besides Hollywood. Local and regional theater productions are wonderful ways to make a living. You won't get rich or famous, but you will be able to work in your chosen profession and share your talent with the public. Television commercials are another way to work in your craft. Places like New York, Chicago, Boston and just about any other good-sized town in America have WONDERFUL local theaters that hire professional actors and actresses.
Acting is just like any other job you might have. The more experience you get (whether it's paid experience or not) will increase your chances of finally landing a good part. My daughter is even going to go to college to get a degree in Performing Arts, not only to increase her chances of making it big some day, but to also increase her chances of making the all important "connections" in the business, which will help, too.
You need to have a back-up plan, too, in case things don't work out for you the way you hope. Actresses Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields both attended college to get degrees in fields OTHER than acting so that, in case they never made it in Hollywood, they would have other things they could do. My daughter will also be getting a degree in Japanese so that she can work as a translator if she needs to.
You CANNOT be in the performing arts simply to get rich and famous. You HAVE to be in it because you love it and want to share your talent with the public. Once you have that mind frame you will be happy doing things like local theater and the such because you will find satisfaction sharing your gift with the public.
There's so much more to it that I don't have the time or the space here to go into -- things like SAG (Screen Actor's Guild) requirements, professional associations, etc. The important thing is that you do it because you love it and not because you are expecting to walk down the street, get discovered, and become a household name.
DON'T GIVE UP -- it IS a difficult field, yes. But, when you think about it, would it be as satisfying and worthwhile if it were easy? Nothing that's worth anything is just handed to you on a silver platter. You have to work for what you want. Even if you were to choose to be, say, a business executive, you wouldn't start out at the top -- you'd start at the bottom and work your way up. It's no different with the performing arts.
I thought that was the primary ambition of EVERYONE in Hollywood.