Ah the entertainment business – where the line between the personal and the professional can be very blurred indeed. As a young struggling actor, I don’t think a single person ever told me that the success of my career would be dependant on my ability to form and maintain relationships. Suppose that might be the reason it never went any where to speak of. In the past month I think I’ve heard my career is dependant on my ability to form and maintain friendly relations from about a million people, oh, about 6 trillion times. Now, I don’t suck at relationships exactly. Most people, I think, find me loyal and sincere and fun at parties. However I am most comfortable having a couple dozen relationships. Dozen family, dozen friends and for arguments sake another dozen work friends. I do recognize that these million people aren’t saying that I need to be intimate with each and everyone of them. They are saying though that not only do I need to remember their names, but I need to know about their marital status, kids, pets, hobbies, taste in wine, preference for boxers or briefs – as well as memorizing their resumes, box office, market share and relevant charity interests. Fair enough. Where I’m supposed to find time to write with all this researching and cataloguing of personal facts I am a long way from figuring out. As to where to draw the lines…not sure I’ll ever be capable of doing that in any kind of way that makes sense to anyone, particularly myself. I’m sort of an all or nothing kind of girl. You are either on my bus or you are off my bus. I’ll either do anything for you, or don’t give a rat’s ass.
My first Banff is drawing to a close. I’ll never be a Rookie in the Rockies again. The experience has certainly been transformative; in ways both predictable and totally shocking. It was both what I expected and beyond my wildest imagination. I expected to meet people and network and get contacts and share ideas. What I didn’t expect was what it would be like to be isolated in one of the planet’s most extraordinary landscapes at an iconic hotel with 800 people who all care as passionately about a-good-tale-well-told as I do. The thing that happened to me beginning at Flash Forward has been picking up speed like a freight train at Banff and hurtling me into a tomorrow full of promise and terror is…is what? I’ve been staring at the cursor blinking in the middle of that sentence for 10 minutes. Maybe I should just go to sleep. It is after all 4:27 a.m. and I still have one more big pitch tomorrow. But I’m not comfortable. I have thoughts and feelings about myself and others that are making me profoundly uncomfortable. Feelings that are alien to me. I seem to give a rat’s ass about far too many of these people. Their stories fascinate me. Every time someone opens their mouth I learn something new. Yep, you read that right. Ms. Know-it-all and happy-to-tell-you about it feels sixteen again, profoundly alive and deeply terrified of what the future holds. Good thing I have a long drive to think on these things because right now I don’t recognize what is in my head nor my heart nor even my reflection in the mirror.
No comments:
Post a Comment