This is all too common in our field: A friend of mine booked an awesome gig on a television show and after the beautiful high of getting to set and doing her thing, she gets cut down to a line when it airs.
It happens all the time. We spend months, even years cultivating relationships and endless hours of audition after audition to finally get booked in a show with a few scenes and you get hacked out. As a sensitive actor who takes pride even in the tiny roles that color the world of the story you are telling, you can’t help but be disappointed that all that screen time you thought you had got whittled down to a step above a featured extra.
Now you can get moody blues about this or you can take that delicious high road to avoid your road rage and make the best of the situation.
I am not a therapist and don’t have any magical formula that is going to make this easy for you. I do know what I have done that has made being told NO a thousand times easier: stomp around, cry, eat ice cream on the couch watching TheVoice-Bachelor-NCISL&OSVU-FOXNEWS…you get the idea. I get upset and I give it a time limit to when I am done with feeling sorry for myself, then I do something positive.
First off, you got paid a lot of money for that 10 second air time. If you do the math, you are making $500 (or more) a second for your beautiful mug. Call it your Cindy Crawford Supermodel moment. Brag on social media after it airs that even though they cut you out of most of the show, you paid your rent several times over with that one line.
Second, industry people know it happens all the time. Look, there was a reason they needed to cut you out and it probably wasn’t you. Because the show is not even about you, it’s about those characters and you are there to flesh out their world. The network, studio, executive producers, writers and stars are all fueling this tank and you get to get on the train for a moment. Look, if Donnie Wahlberg has a better line he wants to improvise during a take and you had the end of the scene, they are going to end the scene on him.
As we build our careers credit by credit, we have to also keep in mind that it’s how we conduct ourselves in every step of this process that assists in longevity. That also means the mental stamina we have will need tuning up each time someone else decides our brilliant performance might not make the cut.
Guess what, they liked you for the job enough to hire you and spend that day(s) with you. If you did your job and no one fired you on the spot, well that is a job well done. You can do that again and again and again and continue doing good work when you grab that guest star and recurring and series regular or lead in a groundbreaking film…see how awesome a positive run on thought can make you feel!
True story: My first TV booking was for The Sopranos. I was terrified sitting in the tiny waiting room listening to the casting director get frustrated with all the girls going in for this part. Instead of tuning it out, I leaned into the door to hear what they were saying. Not my usual style but I was curious to what was being missed on the page. On my turn, I walked in and when the casting director asked me if there were any questions, I simply asked about the line everyone else was saying “wrong”. She lifted up her head and said “Thank you for asking!” and proceeded to not only answer my question, but sat back and watched me audition. At the end of it, she told me to not leave town and loved my shoes. ME: BEST AUDITION EVER!!!
I went to producers and bump into her in the bathroom, where she gave me thumbs up before I dazzled the 15 people in the room. Yeah, I wore those killer shoes.
Guess what! I booked it! I was dancing in the street when my manager gave me the call. I cried on the phone to my mom. I was so happy I fell to my knees and thanked the heavens for my good fortune. I was on my way and nothing was going to stop me!
If you have stalker searched me on the IMDB, you might notice I DO NOT have a credit for The Sopranos. Here is why: on the day I was going to the table read, l got a call from my manger saying “Don’t go. They cut the role”. I was standing in the street right next to the train about to go in. One can imagine what I did next: cried like a little girl who just lost her favorite Rainbow Brite doll. Ocean of tears. Big buckets of water streaming…you get the idea. What did I do: after that Titanic of a cry, I went home and called up friends, made plans to have dinner and called it a day. The next morning I was fine! However, I held onto those sides with my name on it as a reminder how awesome it was to book my first TV gig.
You are going to see this a trillion times in every self-help list-icle: feeling bad about yourself is a useless emotion. I say, let it fuel you to be proactive instead of reactive. You could write out what you are feeling and maybe turn that into a scene to shoot. Perhaps getting physical is your self help drug of recovery! I personally love going to one of those hour and 45 minute yoga classes to work out those negative emotions. Or call a friend you have been meaning to call, someone not in entertainment, and you can just find out what they are up to. Just by changing what you are doing will send all kinds of goodness to your system, so you are not attaching a negative feeling with this industry you so love working in.