Courtesy of A. Spieth
I’m knee-deep in production for Season 3 of the series formerly known as [Blank] My Life, renamed Spooksville. The new title is meant to be sexier, so please email me afterwords on if it’s working? We need your feedback and we need it….now.
With a budget of $10,000 for everything (sounds like a lot….but it’s not!) there’s a lot of calling, a lot of call-waiting, a lot of waiting for calls, a lot of waiting to be texted back, a lotta not getting calls back, a lotta missed calls, a lotta longing, and a lot of lost sleep. It’s a lot of bargaining for hours and free space, a lot of compromises, and a lot of script re-writes to fit the new situations. It’s a lotta work that for the past 3 years hasn’t given me much in return. If I were smart, I think I’d leave the person I was fucking and find someone new.
With a budget of $10,000 for everything (sounds like a lot….but it’s not!) there’s a lot of calling, a lot of call-waiting, a lot of waiting for calls, a lot of waiting to be texted back, a lotta not getting calls back, a lotta missed calls, a lotta longing, and a lot of lost sleep. It’s a lot of bargaining for hours and free space, a lot of compromises, and a lot of script re-writes to fit the new situations. It’s a lotta work that for the past 3 years hasn’t given me much in return. If I were smart, I think I’d leave the person I was fucking and find someone new.
When does this end? I wonder. When do you stop having to make all important calls and source the work to others? When does it get to be less difficult to produce this bullshit? Is this the year that I burn….out? How do you keep trying and trying and not give up? When do I say—fuck the mania—I can’t call any more restaurants!—I can’t negotiate with any more theatres! Fuck it! When is that?
But for better or for worse, this is true of my relationship with my acting career. I’ve been 15 years an actor, and, my god, I’m starting to thing my career will never put out. It’s gotten sexier in the past year—I’ve been felt up above the waist and, on our anniversary, my career paid for dinner (weird! That never happens!) My career is a total tease. I can’t figure out if it loves me too or if it’s just using me for my loyalty (my career is totally insecure, and can often be so boring, 'cause it’s like, shut up about your weight already!)
Nevertheless, do I have time for two worthless lovers who don’t pay the rent? I can’t quit acting--we’re practically married by this point; we have a union; we grew up together. And the series makes me feel so good, so young, the way that acting used to before a bunch of people told me I wasn’t GOING TO HACK IT IN THIS BIZ KID, 'CAUSE U ARE TALENTED BUT U DON’T KNOW THE BIZ. Too bad the series is a total free-loader who likes to crawl in bed with me and not get a day job, cause the series knows I’ll take care of it. I love you, babe, you are so hot, and I’ll pick you up when you feel down by buying 40,000 views on Youtube.
Tragically enough: this column isn’t going to become an advice column. If I knew what to do I would tell you. All I can tell you is that you have to survive long enough to start trying different things.
Recently, I did a play in Pittsburgh, and on the last night the artistic director of 20 plus years was striking the chairs that had only an hour ago held patrons. Maybe it doesn’t get better, your arm muscles just get stronger. I stayed with my former teacher during the run of the show, and I thought, nothing changes in a person—you just continue to get better and better at expressing yourself. Last Tuesday, I went to an audition with a little girl who had recently recorded a Nick Jr. song (read: FARRR MORE FAMOUS than I), and I told her that in those exact terms. The littler girl's mother nudged her and said, "Ask her about what it’s like to be a real actress!" And I said, "You know sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t and you try to not care when you don’t get it."
The little girl and her mother looked bored. A dude across the hall about my age looked at me, and I’m sure he knew what I was talking about ('cause if you don’t you literally are either blessed or a dickwad). I wondered if either of us would get these roles or, obviously, if we were going to get married. The little girl and I went in to audition and, tragically, the little girl was really amazing and likely far better than I. She was entirely fearless and clearly knew what to do. Maybe my advice only applies to some of us. I went back outside and my potential future husband was gone. Luckily, I still have two careers to come back home to.
I wish I knew how to do it. Time to try to do things differently and if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, we can climb back into bed together and tell each other it isn’t working out. Maybe we’ll have sex a few more times, before the series gets on a train to New Haven, and I get back on Tinder to find a new self-produced project. Maybe this one will treat me better, maybe I’ll get smarter about my limits, maybe this one will be make me feel beautiful. I’m never done; I’m just learning to be smarter. I’ve noticed, people always date the same folks, it’s just that they look slightly different every time.
A PLEA:
This year we want to be distributed on R29, Elite Daily, Super Deluxe, or any larger internet video platform.
Can anyone help us? We’re just a girl and her two career paths who desperately need some bread. We’ll look better once you feed us, and, as I mentioned, at least 2 of us have insecurity issues so we’ll stick around til Doomsday. (Longer if you whisper the word “health insurance” 'cause that’s the thing we all want.)
But for better or for worse, this is true of my relationship with my acting career. I’ve been 15 years an actor, and, my god, I’m starting to thing my career will never put out. It’s gotten sexier in the past year—I’ve been felt up above the waist and, on our anniversary, my career paid for dinner (weird! That never happens!) My career is a total tease. I can’t figure out if it loves me too or if it’s just using me for my loyalty (my career is totally insecure, and can often be so boring, 'cause it’s like, shut up about your weight already!)
Nevertheless, do I have time for two worthless lovers who don’t pay the rent? I can’t quit acting--we’re practically married by this point; we have a union; we grew up together. And the series makes me feel so good, so young, the way that acting used to before a bunch of people told me I wasn’t GOING TO HACK IT IN THIS BIZ KID, 'CAUSE U ARE TALENTED BUT U DON’T KNOW THE BIZ. Too bad the series is a total free-loader who likes to crawl in bed with me and not get a day job, cause the series knows I’ll take care of it. I love you, babe, you are so hot, and I’ll pick you up when you feel down by buying 40,000 views on Youtube.
Tragically enough: this column isn’t going to become an advice column. If I knew what to do I would tell you. All I can tell you is that you have to survive long enough to start trying different things.
Recently, I did a play in Pittsburgh, and on the last night the artistic director of 20 plus years was striking the chairs that had only an hour ago held patrons. Maybe it doesn’t get better, your arm muscles just get stronger. I stayed with my former teacher during the run of the show, and I thought, nothing changes in a person—you just continue to get better and better at expressing yourself. Last Tuesday, I went to an audition with a little girl who had recently recorded a Nick Jr. song (read: FARRR MORE FAMOUS than I), and I told her that in those exact terms. The littler girl's mother nudged her and said, "Ask her about what it’s like to be a real actress!" And I said, "You know sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t and you try to not care when you don’t get it."
The little girl and her mother looked bored. A dude across the hall about my age looked at me, and I’m sure he knew what I was talking about ('cause if you don’t you literally are either blessed or a dickwad). I wondered if either of us would get these roles or, obviously, if we were going to get married. The little girl and I went in to audition and, tragically, the little girl was really amazing and likely far better than I. She was entirely fearless and clearly knew what to do. Maybe my advice only applies to some of us. I went back outside and my potential future husband was gone. Luckily, I still have two careers to come back home to.
I wish I knew how to do it. Time to try to do things differently and if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, we can climb back into bed together and tell each other it isn’t working out. Maybe we’ll have sex a few more times, before the series gets on a train to New Haven, and I get back on Tinder to find a new self-produced project. Maybe this one will treat me better, maybe I’ll get smarter about my limits, maybe this one will be make me feel beautiful. I’m never done; I’m just learning to be smarter. I’ve noticed, people always date the same folks, it’s just that they look slightly different every time.
A PLEA:
This year we want to be distributed on R29, Elite Daily, Super Deluxe, or any larger internet video platform.
Can anyone help us? We’re just a girl and her two career paths who desperately need some bread. We’ll look better once you feed us, and, as I mentioned, at least 2 of us have insecurity issues so we’ll stick around til Doomsday. (Longer if you whisper the word “health insurance” 'cause that’s the thing we all want.)
Alex Spieth is creator and star of the web series [Blank] My Life which is beginning its third season. [Blank] My Life is a media partner of Her Film Project. You can read her previous articles here, here, and here.
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