Screw Talent

I have been reading Uta Hagen’s second book A Challenge for the Actor. I didn’t make it off the first page before I started getting angry. She believes that talent is supremely important.

I utterly disagree.

In my experience, talent is a lie, a myth, a bullshit line we feed ourselves to make ourselves as actors feel good about our ability, when we have little clue about its origins.

The myth of talent says that some of us have been touched by the great deity, or mother nature or luck with the natural gift to do something and it simply isn’t true.

The talent myth is a way of keeping people out. And it is successful, when someone finds they do not appear to have a natural ability, they presume they are not suited to that activity.

It isn’t true.

All ability is a growable skill. That isn’t my opinion, it’s science.

The people proposing the talent model are protecting their own genius and perpetuating a myth.

Let me tell you this. Skill is learnable. That means ability can be attained regardless of your starting point.

What makes the difference is attitude, commitment, finding the right teacher and the amount of graft you are willing to invest in growing that skill.

In martial arts, acting, piloting light aircraft, knitting, guitar playing, language acquisition or any other skill, the difference between the successful and the unsuccessful has nothing to do with talent.

If you want to become an actor, and you are willing to work, if you are already a successful actor and you want to be better, if you are jobbing but not achieving your goal, the difference is how you practise and your mindset.

Screw talent, it’s useless to you, and if you hear lots of famous actors talking about you needing to have a talent for acting, that’s cos they are shit scared of losing their ‘talent’, since they are clueless about how they acquired it.

Screw talent, if you want it, do it.