Last night I received a cryptic email asking me, through three different forwards, if I "would consider doing this?" attached were sides with no project name or hint. Just a scene in a bar which was nice enough. So, I called the agent this morning and after a brief dialog with him ended up on the phone with the Casting Director who opened the whole conversation with, "It's been a long time since we met on that independent Sean Young movie I was casting…." Folks, that was 10 years ago.
She offered me on her current project. Gosh it was flattering. An offer being made from work I did on her movie (which I got but couldn't do) 10 years ago. In cases like this what the job actually is means nothing in the face of news that the work you put out IN AUDITIONS can actually serve you for jobs beyond the one at hand.
Interesting huh?
Now, I know the normal thing here is to use the details of the job to reinforce that last statement but I'm not going to include them. Not because I'm embarrassed about what the job is, but because I want the lesson to stand on it's own. There is a media driven illness to always qualify our work and the value of our careers with what I call "the People Magazine parenthesis" i.e. Markus Flanagan (author-One Less Bitter Actor) it seems to have us playing up the projects that have the most exposure and being embarrassed about the ones no one's heard of. Why is that? I will tell you the job won't change my life, but I bet it will be fun.
I received an offer for work. Two big wins come out of this if you ask me; It came from the work I did on a previous audition, and, I didn't have to drive anywhere to get a job. In LA not driving to get a job is a huge win. The profile/quality/ scale of the job isn't as important the news that my work stayed with her for 10 years.
10 years? Why then hasn't she hired me earlier? Again, a logical question, but isn't that also seeking to qualify the news at hand? Who cares? Take the win and the faith affirming illustration that we actors rarely get to see in such a blatant fashion.
Always do your best work and let the pieces fall where they may. They may fall on you years later, and if you're still mentally available for them, you'll be really damn proud of yourself. And how do you stay sane? Read my book, be good to your significant other and believe in the power of art.