Compromising Our Ideals

The actor’s got to eat. That’s the bottom line in the end, isn’t it?

How many compromises of character has this good but flawed philosophy caused? The advert for the ambulance chaser? The less-than-equity job that should have put the actor’s first? The educational show which insulted your intelligence and the kids? The show/film with just a bit of artistic nudity?

The question is not where does it stop but where does it end?

I think it ends in shoddy work, group denial of standards of excellence and professionalism. The old Pro’ has a chuckle at the actor with ideals, like the senior lawyer smiling at the neophyte lawyer’s ideals of ‘helping others’. How quickly this lawyer learns that it’s all in the billing – perhaps the same as the actor!

I have my ideals and I won’t compromise or surrender them. Students may feel they have to, to get what they want, but I honestly view this as one more test.

This business is the ultimate test of character, because it constantly tempts you to compromise yourself in order to achieve your goals. Thus only the powerful can hold ideals, by which time, they have long since been compromised.

I do not posit an easy solution to this paradox, but a challenge, you must eat, but do not compromise yourself in doing so.