I recently heard a gossipy person wonder aloud why I was so reserved, so genuine, and not into doublespeak at a party…if I had once been a model. I thought it provided interesting insight into how they perceive the world.
My creative life started with writing. I wrote my first poem at age eight without any prompting. I also grew up in a city where the public buses featured poems from local youngsters, and that program came to my school later on and renewed my inspiration by combining poetry with abstract art.
In high school, when I wanted to study theater at a private school for youth that my upper-middle classmates attended (a place where Denzel Washington and Annette Bening had studied), I won one of only two scholarships awarded each year. The prompt asked us to perform a one-minute monologue. I took a risk and performed a one-minute poem I’d written, and won on my own merit.
The summer before college, I got into an acting program at the Old Globe Theater. The city newspaper interviewed a couple of us, myself included. While my cohorts considered me lucky, I remember feeling otherwise because I didn’t feel accurately represented. The reporter wanted to feed on the inspiration of my story of being in foster care without really hearing my own perspective. But I felt connected to the play.
I remember being told that industry bigwigs were going to be in the audience when we performed. That didn’t phase me. I knew I could do a great job, and it wasn’t even the most important thing to me. What I was most nervous about was that I’d invited my then-boyfriend. The opinion of someone I experienced mutual care with mattered most to me. Of course, he loved it. And I also got serious praise from our audience of professionals for my stately onstage presence.
I received guileless praise from many directors in my time, telling me that they thought I could really go far with acting, that they expected to see me in a future project, etc. I appreciated the sincerity but something felt missing for me. For one thing, I preferred theater to film, and the only way to make a living with that would be to travel wherever tours go indefinitely. For another, I couldn’t shake the fact that the reward for non-stop auditions would be to perform someone else’s words in someone else’s vision. For me, that wasn’t enough of a reward.
I am genuinely very happy for the multiple friends I have in the industry who make a living at it full-time, and who deeply appreciate every part they get. I love seeing others grow and succeed, some now with several thousand and even hundreds of thousands of followers. I even genuinely wished well for those entertainers who were honestly not the best people, wishing they would enjoy their future, be able to afford a nice home in California, start a family, etc.
My confidence has always come from following my own north star with the utmost integrity, not from fitting into someone else’s narrative.
That said, I do recall being on a set with just a handful of other actors for a big tech company’s internal video. Gary Busey was hired. The content was very comical, he said the most unexpected things, and the costumes added to the effect. At one point, the other actors let loose a little too much and got off track but I stayed on point. He looked me straight in the eye and said aloud “now she’s a professional.” People who can recognize and speak the truth directly tend to leave an impact.
I also recall being on a similar set at a different time with Terry Crews as the hired celebrity. He was truly one of the kindest, most warm, open, and down-to-earth successful people I’ve ever met. That also left an impression. Who people choose to be when they don’t have to be is a big deal.
But of course, things aren’t always sunshine and rainbows. That’s where integrity comes in. There’s nothing quite like being a model to help you hone your instincts for who people really are. I remember feeling immediately creeped out by someone everyone was nice to, and keeping my distance…he was later arrested by the FBI. Then there was a high-level executive who’d won multiple awards, had a wife and teenage daughters. I told him frankly that it felt like he was trying to arrange some kind of quid-pro-quo and I wasn’t interested. That made him mad, but he still tried to talk me into it. He told me I was getting in my own way by having ideals, that I had to wait until I became successful and then shit on my experiences in retrospect, not beforehand. I was like wow…this is who people really are huh. Then I said “maybe so” and hung up on him. I don’t even remember his name. And I have zero regrets.
More people like him came out of the woodwork when the subprime mortgage crisis dried up a lot of marketing budgets and the modeling gigs they funded. As a single woman without parents, I still resisted them all, and my first job related to finance fell into my lap right on time. That’s confidence. That’s resilience. And that’s good faith. And it’s not something one can acquire with a simple facade, in any industry.
Some characters are black and white. Others have color. Given how hard I’ve worked, I don’t take others’ professions lightly. And as a fair and balanced judge of character should be, I take multiple facets into consideration. I remember a difficult situation in which I was trying to decide what to do. I came across some good works the person did when they were younger—when they didn’t have to—when there wasn’t a public eye. I also recalled a time a customer came into the workplace, angry at every white-skinned worker there, complaining that they were not represented onstage. The lead that night was Spanish, and I guess the guest expected that to be a gateway to representation of darker-skinned minorities in the numerous supporting roles.
The guest ruminated after they left, leaving messages that understandably felt threatening to those who’d experienced him. Given the mass violence in public places that was occurring left and right in the country at that time, we were all scared for our safety. The head of the company took the call with the irate customer himself and had a sincere conversation with him. Not many people have the courage to take that level of responsibility when it’s not required of them. And I knew that that was a skill the world needed more of. It was one of the most selfless considerations I had.
In an industry that can unfortunately be riddled with pettiness, non-show drama, and all kinds of things, you really have to tap into your humanity and your instincts with every decision you make. You never know what other people will do with second chances. Some don’t appreciate them, and some even repeat the same mistakes again. Others, without need for prompting, will take that generosity and mirror it back beyond expectation, to the best of their ability to interpret what makes it meaningful.
To the people who can’t appreciate the enormous gifts and sacrifices they’ve received, I say, good night and good luck.
To the rest, thank you, and rock on.