We've been doing this thing together for about a year and a half now. This thing where I write and you read. I started on a whim back in 2011 and now some 200 posts later, we're still here together. We sure have come a long way since then, haven't we? We've been through stretches when I couldn't get a decent agent. When I couldn't get a decent audition and others when I could get both, but then I couldn't book a goddamn thing. When I had callback after callback and came up short every time. We've also been through the last few months of crazy, exhilarating, wonderfully consistent work. This time when most of my humble living has come from being a working actor. We have a long way to go still, you and I, but things are moving along. Slowly, but they're definitely moving.
So I thank you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here through it all and listening to me when I cry about how hard it is. For waiting for me to come back when I've disappeared into the void and not written for weeks. For sharing in the great moments when I jump up and down and scream into the phone at my agent with the excitement of booking big credits. For politely listening when I vent about something totally unrelated to the business. Thank you for being here through all of that.
Now we are moving into the next era of our relationship and the telling of my story. I am no longer working in total obscurity. I am working on projects that you will know and see. Someday, you will even know the real me. You will see me out there on your TV screens. (In fact, undoubtedly some of you already have.) But here you know me as Anony, and it has to stay that way. I always want to be 100% honest with you about everything on this crazy train ride, and to do that, I have to preserve my anonymity. Without it, I would have to be politically correct and gracious and act as if everything were always perfect. But it's not. Sometimes it's unbelievably amazing, but sometimes it's tough and bewildering and frustrating and fucking ridiculous.
And you deserve to know about that too. Not just the bullshit PR fabricated sound-bite about how "I'm so blessed to be here and how it was a lot of work, but I always knew the work would paid off." Sometimes I don't! Sometimes I'm royally freaked-out that all this will be for nothing. That I will eventually either (1) throw my hands up in the air, move back home and hate myself for the rest of my life for being a quitter and always wonder what would have happened if I had just hung on for another year... or (2) just fade into obscurity and wake up sixty years old in a shitty little apartment in Hollywood still without health insurance and praying to god that my next restaurant paycheck will cover rent and maybe a bottle of wine to crawl into.
Now deep in my bones I don't truly believe either of those unhappy endings will come to pass, but I want to keep writing to you through the entire process so you know what the journey is really like, because there are days when that actually does cross my mind. I want to share the juicy nuggets about creepy producers and lame auditions and glorious moments inside the frame. Perhaps even after I'm long gone, this will still be here for future generations of dreamers like us to read and learn from. But now that we are no longer talking about me portraying Hot Chick in Bar #5 in Joe Schmoe's undergrad thesis film, I have to make a confession to you:
Naturally, you know I have to omit real names, places, project titles, details that you could use to figure out exactly who I am. It's no longer the random, never-going-to-see-the-light-of-day student film shot in the back of some kid's apartment. It's big time stuff that you will know about. Going forward, when I say something happened last week... it may actually be a month ago, or yesterday. I can't exactly say I guest-starred as a detective on a network procedural last night. Don't lie, you'd go straight to IMDB and look that shit up and my invisibility cloak would be lifted forever. So just know that I may smidge dates here and there, perhaps a couple insignificant details will be adjusted if it's too obvious. Like... "I auditioned for a show with dinosaurs," but it was actually robots. I don't know. I haven't done that yet, but perhaps it could happen. There will likely not be too many shows with dinosaurs airing at one time and whatever I'm trying to tell you will not be about the big beasts, probably just at the absurdity of pretending they're in the casting office with me. Robots would be absurd too.
Anyway, I just wanted to be honest with you about it. Know that it's all true, every last bit of it, but just with minor adjustments to names/locations/irrelevant details to keep giving me the ability to write it all down for you... my real fans. The fans who were fans before the world knew my name.
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