Actor's Schedule

I don't like being out late. So many actors I know love the schedule of an acting life. I do not. I like to be up early, I like a 9-5 schedule, and I like to be home to make dinner and go to bed by 11pm. I still love acting so much that I'm willing to sacrifice my preferred schedule. Instead, I am usually required to be out late at night attending rehearsals, or shows, or working crew on a show whose company I'm a member of, or shooting a film on a set until 4am!

It's also hard to juggle it all. That's not to say I'm super busy. I luckily don't have to have a day job anymore. My husband and I are living like nuns off of his salary, but we are both happier when I'm not doing slave work for a survival job. So it's not like I'm running around with no time to myself. But, it still gets complicated. If I want to take a class, you can bet I'll get an audition for the same day as that class, and my best friend will have her baby shower that day. Or, I'll schedule my puppy's vet appointment, and my agent will call with a conflicting audition, and my aunt will decide to come into town. Or, my friend will be mad that I can't come to her daughter's birthday party because I'm performing in a show that night.

Being an actor means our schedules are always up in the air. It's hard to commit to a wedding because I never know if I'll book work that will conflict. And since it takes months of auditioning my ass off to finally book work, I certainly can't turn a month of work down for one day. Even when my husband and I got married, we knew that the honeymoon could get postponed if I booked a role.

This career takes years of sacrifice, but people don't always understand that if I turn down a role to attend your party/milestone, I am throwing away years of hard work that it took to finally book that role. It isn't about your one day, it's about years of sacrifice.

I guess the worse thing about an Actor's schedule, is that a lot of people don't understand. They will have the nerve to be mad at me that I won't turn down a role for their special day. But what they don't get is that my whole life is made up of these sacrifices, and trust me when I say, it hurts me more than it hurts you.

No, this doesn't mean I should give up acting. Obviously I would have given it up years ago and attended all these social affairs if I didn't love it to the core of my being.