Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Praying for Bookings

It's been a number of years since I've done this, and definitely things have changed, people have changed, casting has changed, audition notices have changed.

So when I see actors who I haven't seen in years tell me "You haven't changed a bit!" I get a little suspicious. I mean, sure, thanks for the compliment, but you can't tell me age has actually been so kind as to not have had any effect on me!

But there is a difference, and I'll be frank about it. When I started this blog, I had little clue about how long I'd last in this business. In fact, this was just a little experiment of mine to see how "the other side" did it, meaning the actors versus the writers. I still consider myself a writer first and foremost, and an actor not second but probably tenth in the grand scheme of things.

About three years ago, I met the right woman, well, Mrs. Right, and she got me thinking about what I believe in. And so I got baptized, in my 40s, in front of a great big congregation at a great big Christian church.

And so, now, I pray in Jesus' name for just about everything I do and hope to do, and that includes auditions, bookings, headshots, you name it, I pray for it, and then I thank the Lord for it afterward in gratitude. It's a crazy thing, well, for me anyway, knowing how big a selfish wretch I was before all of this.

In the 2 months since I've been back in the game, I've had at least 2 auditions each week, 3 callbacks and 1 booking for a print job that I can't really disclose. NDA sort of stuff, ya know?

What do I pray for? I don't often pray to get the job. I just pray for a really great audition, and I pray for God's beautiful light to shine down on me during it, so that I can look my best. But when I get close to the booking stage, that's when I get to being specific.

I just saw a couple of films as part of my Film & Theology course after church on Sundays. One was Stranger Than Fiction and the other was Book of Eli. I highly recommend them, no matter what you believe.

And if you should be curious about how I came to this crossroad, you can find me one place every Sunday, and I'll probably have some time to tell you all about it.