That hasn't really been the case this time around. Well, it has and it hasn't. The decision was really hard, but I reasoned it through and decided that taking the job was the best thing for me right now. What's surprised me, though, is that now that the decision's been made and I've officially accepted the job, it hasn't gotten any easier. It's not easy to just "give up" six years of your life, and the lifestyle you've come to accept as normal... giving up, in essense, what was a life-long dream that had finally been acted upon. There's a tiny part of me that feels like a failure for doing it.
That having been said, two things happened yesterday that made me feel infinitely better about taking a more restrictive day job.
I saw a film yesterday (actually, I saw three films yesterday - an amazing movie marathon day with Ken Bolden) called Lovely & Amazing, which blew me away. It's a film about this mother played by Brenda Blethyn (who is, I think, amazing), and her three daughters. One of the daughters is a working actress; she's in a film that's about to come out, so it seems like she's on the verge of actually achieving some success. The life of this character, who's played by Emily Mortimer, just reminded me so much of my own - only, of course, magnified tenfold on the big screen, with her neurosis less well-hidden. But the movie's writer/director, Nicole Holofcener was eeriely accurate in capturing these people with all of their foibles and neurosis, and the millions of little ways that being a performer in our culture can harm. And watching her struggle through all that on the screen made me really sad - even beyond the fact that it's a well-crafted movie and does a really effective (and affective) job of moving the viewer.
So it didn't help that the other thing that happened as I was waiting for Ken outside the theater is that I got to watch some young, struggling actor dressed up as Austin Powers promoting the new Goldmember movie. This guy was totally miscast and really awful at doing the whole Mike Myers as Austin Powers thing. In fact, it was pretty obvious that under the bad Austin Powers wig and the lame Austin Powers glasses, this was a pretty good looking kid. Something about watching this not-particulary talented kid struggling with Life in the Chicken Suit™ was profoundly depressing to me. And, of course, I got to go inside directly afterward and see Emily Mortimer get kicked around in Lovely & Amazing.
Depressing is, I guess, the wrong word for the cumulative effect these things had on me. I was really moved by the movie, to be sure, and kinda sad to see that kid doing his thing as all these New Yorkers swarmed around him making fun of him and verbally kicking his ass. But the larger effect was to make me think really seriously about the degree to which I'm feeling damaged myself by that life - and how necessary it is to take a break from it.
The other two movies we saw were Sunshine State, John Sayles latest, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Earnest was a sort of last-minute spur-of-the-moment decision and we should have quit while we were ahead, frankly. While I didn't hate it, I didn't find myself terribly caught up in it, either. I did enjoy Reese Witherspoon's Cecily, and Tom Wilkinson and Anna Massey as Dr. Chasuble and Ms. Prism were delightful, but knowing the play as I do, I was really disappointed in the direction, and Rupert Everett. I'd probably pay good money to see either Colin Firth or Judy Dench read a phone book, but they were not used to greatest effect.
But hey! Two out of three aren't bad, right? I really liked Sunshine State, and it turned out to be a bit of a theme day: Actors getting kicked around. Angela Bassett plays this actress who returns to her home town thinking of herself as - if not a failure - not the great success she'd hoped to be. She does industrials, training films, and infomercials.
Hmmm... sound like anyone we know?
Course, typically for a Sayles film, that's only one of the many stories being told, and you end up really involved in all of them. Even the bad guys, like Miguel Ferrer, are pretty involving.
Anyway, the whole day was pretty cool. It was nice to hang out with Ken, who I don't get to spend much time with, and hope to rectify that in the future. And the whole cinematic experience left me feeling an odd mix of sadness and hopefulness that this new chapter in my life is going to help me recharge for my eventual return to a full-time attack on my profession.
Who knows what the universe has in store, huh?
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