Sometimes you read a random article on the internet that makes you think about your own life. This plot twist (below) in the Big Bang Theory season 8 narrative (where Penny’s character puts aside her dreams of being an actor to get a full time sales job) is one such article. It resonated with me, not only because of my own previous career as a professional actor, but also because it’s a good metaphor for how 99% of acting careers die.

• The Major Way The Big Bang Theory Is Changing Penny’s Role Next Season

As anyone who studied acting full time for three years will tell you, the stats drummed into you by your acting teachers on the first day of college make pretty sober reading. 95% of actors are unemployed at any one time. 4% are employed with a degree of frequency (but not all the time). And 1% are in constant employment and make a ridiculously good living at it.

I was in the 4%. And while I spent more time not working than working (Australia’s film and TV industry in the 90s being a fraction of the size it is now), I had enough times standing in the sun to make the winters bearable. But  – ultimately – that was not enough.

Musings on the Life of an Actor

Actors work a ‘day job’ or ‘night job’ to help pay the bills. Jobs such as telemarketing, bar tending, waiting tables, etc. Jobs that can be pushed around, time wise, if an audition or a gig comes up. This is fine in your 20s, when you’re tilting at the windmill and full of hubris. But when actors hit their 30s (or for some, their 40s), and all their friends are driving nice cars, having babies, buying houses, etc, and the actor is still stuck in Groundhog Day working some crappy part time job and dreaming about a red carpet filled tomorrow that never comes. That’s when the scar tissue on the soul becomes fatal. Because it’s at this point that an actor knows, deep in the very fibers of their being, that it’s time to ‘grow up’ and face the music by committing to a full time job that cannot be pushed around, time wise, for auditions or for gigs. Oh sure, they’re still an ‘actor’ at this stage (in their head), and the full time job is just a short, stop gap measure, to pay off some debt, or save some money. Except when their agent calls with an audition, they have to say they can’t make it (as they’re at work). And in no time at all their agent stops calling. He / She GETS IT. They’ve seen this fundamental sea change in the lives of the middle age actors on their books a thousand times. 

Then, after a while, the ‘actor’ gets used to the security of the day job. Of earning regular money. And it’s at this point that they realise their acting career is officially over. It didn’t go out with a bang. There were no fireworks. No red carpet. No paparazzi light bulbs flashing. It just faded quietly into memory, as if it never existed at all.

My story is similar enough to this Big Bang plot development, I guess. With the added push for me being that, after nearly a decade as a professional actor – which included doing 6 feature films and co-starring in 3 of them – my mother retired and got sick, and I asked her to move to Sydney to live with me and my then girlfriend. And suddenly I had to provide for the household, not just for me. And so a decision long in the coming arrived, and I bit the bullet and took a full time job (managing a Blockbuster video store). Which lead to other, better paying full time work, which lead to me producing technology trade shows and events, which led to me producing Australia’s first ever streaming film and music website (4 years before YouTube), which led to me getting interested in producing websites, which led to me getting interested in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Which led to me running my own SEO company today. And SEO is something I’m good at, and enjoying doing. And it’s something which in turn allows me free time to indulge my other creative passion, writing novels, screenplays, etc. Sure, it’s late in the game, I realise that. And as usual I’m the last to the party (what’s new?). But I’m here now, and I feel good about that, because what I do (getting companies on the first page of Google) seems to make people pretty darn happy. Plus, the pay is regular. And okay, it’s not the party I was originally invited to. I know that. But it’s a party I’m happy enough to attend. Especially now.
We all of us walk a meandering path in our working lives. At 16 I wanted to be a novelist. For a decade in my 20s and 30s, that creative itch was scratched by my being a professional actor. And now, firmly ensconced in middle age, I run a growing SEO company. Is this where I saw myself being when I was 20? ‘The Doyen of All Things Digital’? Of course not. But sometimes life is about the journey not the destination. And as my late, sainted mother used to say, ‘So long as you’ve got a roof over your head and food in your belly, everything else is sugar (on top)’. 

So here’s to being happy where we are. In the present. To not dwelling on the past. To not worrying about the future. We are now, where we are meant to be. There’s a blessing in that.