So You Wanna Be A Star?

January 21, 2007 by  

Here is an article that I had saved in my inbox:

Q&A with Anna Deavere Smith: So you wanna be a star?
By Marc Silver
Posted 1/21/06

In our celebrity-besotted culture, the arts have an irresistible attraction for young people. But jobs in the arts are not as plentiful as stars in the sky (or even as stars in Hollywood). Actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith offers guidance in her new book, Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts. Smith, a Tony Award nominee and Pulitzer finalist, writes and performs one-woman shows that capture diverse voices from a place of crisis: Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, about the riots, for example. She also portrays the national security adviser on West Wing.

Shouldn’t you really be doing a book called Advice on Not Making a Life in the ArtsWell, you know, artists just have always been on the fringe of society. Plato kicked us right straight out of the republic.

So it’s never easy to be an artist.

You make that decision to be an artist cautiously. You won’t have the same options for survival that your friends who are as educated as you have. You have to educate artists to be cagey, smart, mobile, flexible. Don’t get in a situation where, if you’re an actor, all you can do is audition.

You talk about œrenting yourself out but not selling out.

I am talking about understanding that your identity belongs to you. It’s seductive to have somebody tell you what you should be doing. But in the end, an artist has to take responsibility for his or her own voice and destiny.

What kind of choices will lie ahead for young artists?

You may have to decide not to go forward with a project. You may have to decide to do something commercial at a moment when you might want to do something not commercial but that isn’t going to make you a shred of money. You may have to end a romantic relationship because that relationship is requiring more of you than you can give. On the other hand, you may decide to have a romantic relationship or get married or have a child because those things are going to make you a more whole person.

Does a thick skin help? In the book you tell of being turned down for a role in a sitcom because you aren’t three-camera funny.

You have to move on to the next thing. But yeah, yeah, it hurts. You have to get used to the fact that hurt is a part of it.

You say a great deal about the power of presence.

Some people are just not aware of what they’re doing physically. When I teach a class and people are sitting as if bored to tears on the first day I expect you to look like you want to be there. Everything’s [about being] so cool and hanging back now. I do think presence is a kind of energy level that can be cultivated.

I have a 17-year-old daughter who wants to act. What advice do you have for her?

I think the most important thing and this sounds kind of churchy she should practice every day finding the joy in what she’s doing. Because it’s that joy and that real desire to communicate that is going to keep the whole thing alive for her no matter what happens. We think of the clown as the figure who, no matter how tough authority is, keeps coming back. The clown is irrepressible. What she should cultivate is that irrepressibility.

And how should she pick a college drama program?

She should go to a school where she sees that irrepressibility in her potential classmates. And where there’s a lot expected of her, and where she can practice failing as well as succeeding. And someplace where questions are valued as much as answers. She should use her education to discover her questions as in a quest not the answers.

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    Related posts:

    1. Artistic Diversification
    2. Freelance Artist: Debunking the Myth of the Starving Artist

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