I recently attended a "business of acting" seminar at the SAG building and the speaker had a lot of great things to say, but I found myself struggling with one of his points. Its the idea that says "Sometimes you've done all you can and you are just not right for the part because they are looking for a blond and you're a brunette. Or they are looking for someone 6 feet tall and you are 5'9. In that case you just have to let it go because its not you, its the industry."
I understand this. I even agree with it. But I struggle with it. I think I feel at the pit of my stomach that if I try hard enough I can get the role. You hear stories all the time about casting directors who had their mind changed about how a role should be cast by someone who came in the room, looked nothing like the picture they had in their minds, but gave a stellar audition. If this happened once, doesn't it stand to reason that it could happen all the time? I mean, I know the answer is "probably not," and I get that. But I struggle to reconcile those two statements: on the hand, "if you don't match what they want it doesn't matter how much work you do you're not getting cast," and on the other hand, "you can change the subconscious bias in the mind of a casting director by doing amazing work."
Does anyone else struggle with this? Anyone have a different opinion that I've somehow missed? In any case, thanks for reading. Best of luck out there.
