Making the Cut

If you are serious about a career in acting, or theatre, or film and television, there will come a time when you need to make a decision.

Early choices are easy, choosing to spend time practising for acting class rather than going to the pub is easy. However, sooner or later, a large choice looms and the kind of choice that shapes your future.

Choices are hard because we are being made to choose between two things that have importance to us. In every choice, something has to be lost. The word ‘decide’ comes from the Latin words ‘de cadre’ to cut off. It feels like we are cutting something away. It’s painful.

Choosing to travel to Bulgaria to shoot a film directed by an Oscar-tipped director, over attending your parents’ 30th wedding anniversary party – is a choice.

It isn’t like choosing between Coke vs. Pepsi, Movie vs. Anniversary isn’t a choice based on equal values. There is no way to measure your absence from your parents’ anniversary party against potential success in a movie role. Adding up the pros and cons just uses up ink.

Between two difficult choices, there is no best decision. In every difficult choice, something has to be lost. The word decide comes from the Latin words ‘de cadre’ to cut off.  At some point in your career, one way or another, you are going to make a cut, and that cut will determine the person you are. You are the author of your own life experience when you make that decision.

If missing your parents’ anniversary tells you something you don’t like about yourself – skip the film, live with the consequences for your acting career and BE that person wholeheartedly.

But if missing that film opportunity tells you something you don’t like about yourself – apologise to your parents, make it up to them later, live with the consequences and BE that person wholeheartedly.

Do not fret over the ‘right’ decision. There is no right decision. Neither choice makes you a good or bad person.

When forced to make the cut, you are actively involved in fully living your life, and every decision writes a new chapter.