Andrew Levitas

I think that's the problem, especially with the film industry, is that so many people are like, well, I want to be a movie star or I want to be a TV star.

And it's like, actually, the process of being an actor is something very different.

The process of being an actor is probably going to be doing small theater, auditioning a million times a day.

And if you can enjoy that, then you're probably –

cut out to be an actor because though and also the the bigger parts come because of the smaller things you've done do you know what I mean like the the idea of like being so end focused is actually detrimental to your artistic development and detrimental to your career whether you realize it or not like the amount of actors or people who want to be actors who spend their time at the gym and an acting class and don't take smaller roles or just make their own projects or whatever you know it's like that's

that's a trap like you want to do that too i never called myself an actor when i especially when i was a kid i always wanted to be on tv right that was it i want to be on tv and so the you wonder what the the career path would have been had it been like no i want to learn the craft of acting i just want to act wherever that takes me yes is where it's going to take me but it wasn't that i just i wanted to be on a sitcom which is great and i got my goal but at the end of the day sitcom is now essentially dead and so i i'm i trained you know the the theremin

which nobody plays anymore.

So it's like, hey, you specialized in this one instrument that nobody wants.

And so it's like, you wonder where it would have been if it had been like, no, I just want to be an actor and wherever that takes me, that's going to take me.

I love also the thing he was saying that he says to his NYU students about like, if you were going to go and do a job that wasn't in the arts, you'd be spending a minimum of nine hours a day at your job.

And so if as creatives who maybe our work isn't behind a desk, it isn't to set the routine for yourself, right?

that every day even if I don't have a job right now my job is doing something that's inspiring me yep I make the same the comparison I always make is like to athletes you know like because I feel like especially with screenwriters there's a sense of like well I could bust out a script over the summer or like and it's like no no you should always be writing right just like

People who climb Mount Everest or who are in the Olympics are always training for that big event.

And eventually you're going to write the thing that will be the script or the novel that like changes your life.

But you should always be working because, you know, nine hours a day is a minimum you should be putting into your, you know, but we don't think of it that way.

We tend to think of like, oh, wait till somebody pays me and then I'll write it.

Even just a little bit.

I mean, I've been working on this book now forever, and it's because I take months and months off.

And Robin Hobb, who's an incredible fantasy writer, has been helping me.

And she always just writes me, and she's like, just write a sentence a day.