Even though I wasn’t working a lot of acting jobs before quarantine, there is no question that things feel different for me right now. I feel a lack of opportunity to be creative or to advance my career. In reality, I’m not living that different than before as far as my acting career goes. But it’s just not the same. I don’t know if I can explain it. It’s just how I feel and it’s not fun for me.
I know there are things I can do at home alone to work on my acting career. I haven’t felt that motivated to do online readings or record myself doing random audition sides for practice. I might start doing it, but I don’t want to force myself to do them just to get a sense of being able to act.
But recently, I’ve had a few chances to be creative, even if it’s not necessarily acting. A friend of mine is somewhat new into the dating world after a divorce and she’s already seen how crazy things are. Plus, she has heard a lot of my stories about my adventures in dating. So she asked me if I’d be interested in doing a show with her on Twitch where we are just being ourselves and talking about dating. We would be sharing stories, playing games while swiping, and maybe doing profile critiques.
We had a quick test of our show because the systems we were using were new to us. Plus, neither of us were that familiar with Twitch. So we wanted to have time to try things out before we publicize doing this show and having a real audience. The test was only about 10 minutes, but we had fun and I think we both feel comfortable with how to make things work. I’m not sure when we will officially start or how often we will do the show, but I’m excited about it. It’s not exactly acting, but it’s fun and I get to be creative with what we do on the show.
And then this week, I had another non-actor creative moment. I was a guest on Brianne Davis’s upcoming podcast Secret Life. This podcast is all about the secrets people keep and what it has meant for their life. I had an opportunity to be anonymous on it, but I decided not to. Being open and honest about secrets I’ve kept in my life is one of the better things I have done. I don’t want to hide or keep them a secret anymore. I’m not sure if I should say what I talked about because I actually am going to be a guest on the podcast again to discuss another secret!
I’m excited to go back because I had so much fun in the first interview! Brianne and I hadn’t met before the interview (I know her husband through a few different groups I’m in), but she instantly made me feel comfortable and supported. Even though I wasn’t scared to share what I had to say, it was still nice to feel like I was talking to someone who wasn’t going to judge me or make me feel ashamed. I can’t wait until her podcast premieres next month because I know all the guests she will have will feel the same way I did and it should lead to some incredible interviews! I promise to share the information when I know more about when it premieres and when my episode (or episodes) will be going live.
There is no way to know when the entertainment industry will be back to full production. I know my union along with many others are working on procedures and policies to be able to work and keep everyone safe. We will come back, it’s just an unknown timeline for now. I do hope it’s soon, but I also hope that we can feel comfortable that if we are on set that we are safe. But in the meantime, I’m glad I have had a few chances to be a bit more creative than I normally get to be. It’s not a replacement for being able to act, but it’s been a big help to make me feel like myself again.
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