I am 18 and an aspiring actress with no experience. I want to do acting because I am a shy person and want to get out of my shell more. I want to test my limits, I’m tired of living it “safe”. I wanna get involved in a community or an activity where I can do something creative and share that with others. I am someone who likes to be creative, but haven’t really found my niche. I love writing and have written poems and stories since I was 5 years old. I have done acting once in my acting college class and really loved the experience! I did this in class play of Antigone and was a chorus member and even though i had a small role I still enjoyed the fact that I was apart of that experience. I wanna do something new and creative with my life. I love the idea of becoming different people in order to tell a story for the audience to enjoy, and one day i hope to be able to write a play too and hope the audience will enjoy it.
However, my family has side agendas of me wanting to explore acting. They want me to do it for the money and get discovered so we can all live comfortably (I come from a poor background), but I’ve seen on TV what hollywood can do to people and don’t really like the idea of it. But I still wanna try acting, because I have never been really good at anything and wanna try to be good at something for once in myself. In life we all have one life to live and I feel if I don’t do this now then I will regret it for the rest of my life. I remember the first play that made me fall in love with theatre. It was the broadway play “Aida” and I just remembered saying to myself when i was 13 years old. “Wow! I wanna do that too!”. To me acting is an art I feel doesn’t get alot of respect for the people who put their time and effort into it. So what should I do? Should I still pursue acting even though my family has hidden agenda’s or am I wasting my time? It’s just I am afraid if acting leads me into bigger opportunities my family will ruin it for me. My family doesn’t even know that I am studying acting as a theatre major, and am trying to get involved in theatre. However, they keep bringing it up like they already know. If u get what i mean?
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Am I Pursing Acting For The Wrong Reasons? Please Help!?
Posted on February 1, 2012.
So, try writing a stage play. This will allow you to become all your characters (while writing). Stage plays will give you a creative outlet as well as allow you to tell compelling stories. Downside: there’s no money in writing dramatically. One does it because of the fulfillment the activity provides. Actually is there any better reason for doing anything? Fulfillment is pretty d__n satisfying. Give it a go. You’re the right age to start contemplating the human condition (which happens to be the subject of most important dramas and comedies). BTW, stage plays can be anything from one minute to two hours, and everything in between. 10 minute plays are the going thing right now. Good luck, and enjoy the experience.
I’d say that you have exactly the right reasons and attitudes.
Most actors are quite shy – when they’re on stage they just come alive and lose their self-consciousness.
Try joining a community theatre or similar to get some practical experience – see how you get along!
The chances of you ever making even enough money to survive on through acting is so minimal it’s not worth worrying about. Very few actors get more than 2 or 3 weeks’ paid acting work a year, and they all have second ‘normal’ jobs so that they can pay the rent and bills.
Don’t worry about your family – tell them what you’re doing when the moment is right, but make sure they understand that you’re planning or working on the stage – not in the movies or on TV.
(that may not be true, but stage actors rarely become well-known and hardly ever earn much money – they just have a wonderful time performing, making lifelong friends and earning just about enough to live on)
If they think that you’re not interested in the whole ‘Hollywood’ thing, they might back off and leave you alone!
All the actors I know only do camera-work when they have to – it’s quite boring really. They just love the buzz they get from live theatre and take every role they can in stage plays.
You have a great attitude – it’s just a pity that more of the ‘wannabees’ who post on this site aren’t like you – every time I log in there’s another “I wanna be famous!” question! If only they knew how awful it is to be famous!
Good luck!
I really hope you succeed – it sounds like you deserve to!
xx