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I’ve been an entertainer all of my life. I've been in bands, acted, was a magician, and for the last 5 years I have been a stand-up comic. I have been successful locally and have many colleagues that moved to LA and some have become successful as actors and/or comedians. They have (along with other peers) encouraged me to move to LA, saying I have the look, personality, and humor to be successful (however that is defined out there).
Of course now I’m 31 and have another life though. I have a good job with a 6 figure salary (although I work from home which could be easily transferable to LA), and I have a serious girlfriend urging to be a wife, which is probably my biggest drawback. I do adore her, but my curiosity sometime gets to me. I go back and forth on the prospect of uprooting and trying my luck in LA. It never seems reasonable yet it’s been on my mind for some time. I can see regret by both not trying it out there, and by trying it and never getting back what I gave up.
If I really did have the all the right ingredients (just to humor me and this post, assume I had Brad Pitt talent/looks/etc.), would I still be an idiot to give up my relatively established life to give Hollywood a shot?
Think of Hollywood as Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
Moving to CA in hopes of making it large has worse odds than any game in a casino. There will always be a hundred other Brad Pitt look alikes you will be competing with.
It is not a talent or appearance that will make you, just shear damn luck.
My wife and I have both worked back stage in entertainment for decades. We both know many actors who are in movies and TV shows. If you ever can sit down and have a honest talk with a successful actor/actress they will all tell you it is shear luck to make it. Just last night my wife sat up and told me her friend was on TV. Her friend Ed Alonzo Ed Alonzo - The Misfit of Magic was playing a TSA officer on How I Met Your Mother. Ed Alonzo and Neil Patrick Harris are best friends. Neil made it big on TV where Ed has not. Ed does have a great show he is on world wide tours with yearly, he wanted my wife to go on tour with them.
I would say go for it if you have enough funds tucked aside. So CA will eat up your savings worse than a ex-wife. But really it is a roll of the dice to try it here. If you are earning a 6 figure income I doubt it is worth trying unless you could return to it quickly.
I guess that's why I began this discussion with the question: If I had everything it took to be very successful, are my odds any good?
If you had everything it took to be very successful, you wouldn't worry about your odds, you'd be making it.
I can't help but agree with cityKing, this sounds fake. Hey, perhaps you will fit right in!
I think people are focusing too much on making it as making it big like Robert Downey Jr. I meant making it as an actor or comedian with marginal success, as in a working actor. As in gets work not fame and worldwide recognition.
Focusing on making it big like brad Pitt is ridiculous and you get that whole casino odds talk stuff.
I was under the impression the OP could transfer his job over easily since he works from home and maintain the same salary? If do then what the hell is the problem? A girlfriend? So what? If she is true then she will accept your dreams and if they're realistic enough considering you will have a job in LA then there is no problem.
OP, you don't get it. The major obstacles in LA are not so much the competition or abundance of talent, it's the sheer number of people that clog the lines. What they all have in common though is that more than 90% are not rich and work part time jobs and cannot be at every event all the time. With your flexibility you already have a leg up. The cost of living and surviving I think is more of the reason people do not make it rather than their lack of talent or the stiff competition.
I cannot tell you the tons of people I've met here in LA that have had marginal success and are working actors, comedians and writers. A lot of them are mediocre at what they do too. Yet they keep getting gigs. Why? Because they stuck it out, were either rich enough to not work and network, audition, learn, work on their craft all day every day 24-7 OR they sacrificed good living for couch surfing, living off rammen noodles spending every penny earned at their 15 hour a week part time job doing the same thing as the rich guy I mentioned.
It's about the work ethic. It's about consistently applying every waking hour to getting a gig and networking.
You've said this a good no. of times.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I do find it odd. If the talent isn't where the talent is needed, then where is it?
Granted, I imagine LA has more than a few delusional individuals walking around thinking they're going to be the 'next big thing' - but mixed in with that crowd would have to be some talented to supremely talented people.
Moving to CA in hopes of making it large has worse odds than any game in a casino. There will always be a hundred other Brad Pitt look alikes you will be competing with.
It is not a talent or appearance that will make you, just shear damn luck.
My wife and I have both worked back stage in entertainment for decades. We both know many actors who are in movies and TV shows. If you ever can sit down and have a honest talk with a successful actor/actress they will all tell you it is shear luck to make it. Just last night my wife sat up and told me her friend was on TV. Her friend Ed Alonzo Ed Alonzo - The Misfit of Magic was playing a TSA officer on How I Met Your Mother. Ed Alonzo and Neil Patrick Harris are best friends. Neil made it big on TV where Ed has not. Ed does have a great show he is on world wide tours with yearly, he wanted my wife to go on tour with them.
I would say go for it if you have enough funds tucked aside. So CA will eat up your savings worse than a ex-wife. But really it is a roll of the dice to try it here. If you are earning a 6 figure income I doubt it is worth trying unless you could return to it quickly.
Thanks for your insight. In fact I would really like to sit down and talk with someone in the business, but the only people I know are just getting started, and they are elated and expect the world out of their career. Posts like yours from a person that is in and/or understands the business are one of the reasons I posted here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TurcoLoco
If you had everything it took to be very successful, you wouldn't worry about your odds, you'd be making it.
I can't help but agree with cityKing, this sounds fake. Hey, perhaps you will fit right in!
Nothing has been fake, but some have skewed my comments. From the start I said to humor me and assume I had Pitt's looks/talent, not that I actually resemble Brad Pitt. It's just a way for me to get a perspective on the odds. If there are 1,000 Brad Pitt's all vying for stardom in LA at the same time and only one makes it, that is a much better way to understand Hollywood than just knowing in general that there are 100k actors registered with SAG.
Your relationship with gf will not work because your goals and dreams are too different. End it now and let her find someone who shares her desire for family life.
Then make your own decision. If you decide not to move to Los Angeles, it will be completely your own choice and you won't spend the rest of your life resenting your gf/wife for ruining your dream.
I do think people need to come out to LA for more than just Hollywood. I'm going for screenwriting, but that is a far easier field to break into. But people shouldn't move to LA with the sole reason being trying to get into the movie business. It's a great city even without that.
Screenwriting is just as competitive as acting. Everyone that doesn't want to be an actor, wants to be a writer. I can't tell you how many production companies I've worked at with piles and piles of scripts sitting in a closet somewhere, or how many bad webisode series my friends have asked me to watch, or sketch comedy troupes, etc. If you're not a member of the WGA West, not even a writer's agent will glance at your script. Everyone wants to write, act, and direct in this town. Those are the three biggest fields of interest here.
Production assistants, editors, camera ops, runners, and extra work are the easier fields to break into. NOT writing.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I do find it odd. If the talent isn't where the talent is needed, then where is it?
Granted, I imagine LA has more than a few delusional individuals walking around thinking they're going to be the 'next big thing' - but mixed in with that crowd would have to be some talented to supremely talented people.
Right?
Of course. I am not saying everyone in LA wanting to be an actor is a delusional nut case. The point is that there are A LOT of mediocre to even quite good actors in LA, not just really persistent bad ones.
I think top acting talent is on stage in NYC or character actors playing supporting roles in movies.
When I think of top talent I do not think of Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, even though these actors are great.
When I think of brilliance I think of Tony Shaloub, Ted Levine, John Hawkes, Clifton Collins Jr, Gary Oldman, Cliff Curtis, Christopher Guest, and many other actors that are mostly known by their peers or people who really love movies. I would flip out if I met John Tutturro before I met Johnny Depp.
Not to say Hollywood big names aren't great, I think Sean Penn is a gifted actor and Tim Robbins is a brilliant writer/director/actor. But for the most part a lot of them are good to great, not absolutely awe inspiring.
I guess I do verge on being a film snob because I think that if a person really loves the craft and really wants to be an actor they will harness all the potential they have and study like crazy, knowing really good films, studying technique and forever growing. A lot of wannabes do not do this. You ask them what they're favorite movie is and it's usually something mainstream, faux-indie or what used to be considered obscure is now pretty well known. I know I am sounding like a 'hipster' but if you really know something and are passionate about it, go all out and dive deep.
Screenwriting is just as competitive as acting. Everyone that doesn't want to be an actor, wants to be a writer. I can't tell you how many production companies I've worked at with piles and piles of scripts sitting in a closet somewhere, or how many bad webisode series my friends have asked me to watch, or sketch comedy troupes, etc. If you're not a member of the WGA West, not even a writer's agent will glance at your script. Everyone wants to write, act, and direct in this town. Those are the three biggest fields of interest here.
Production assistants, editors, camera ops, runners, and extra work are the easier fields to break into. NOT writing.
I didn't say that writing was an easier field to break into than those, just that someone is more likely to have success selling a script than they are to make it big in acting.
All your points are spot-on, but those certainly aren't the only avenues to get your script looked at and sold. Sure it's hard, but it can be done if you have the talent and the script. And it gets into the right hands.
I didn't say that writing was an easier field to break into than those, just that someone is more likely to have success selling a script than they are to make it big in acting.
All your points are spot-on, but those certainly aren't the only avenues to get your script looked at and sold. Sure it's hard, but it can be done if you have the talent and the script. And it gets into the right hands.
Change the script references in your comment to acting references and you'll see how you really haven't said anything new. It is luck, it is who you know, etc. Screenwriting is no easier to break into than acting, and in a good number of cases is harder to do. There are less options to get experience in writing. With acting, you can gain experience and get a modicum of recognition doing background work, extra work, being a day player, a stand-in, and going on auditions.
The only real route to becoming a screenwriter is starting off as a writer's assistant. Those jobs are few and far in between as the starting jobs for acting. I have a friend who worked as a PA for a year on an NBC sitcom, and she got the opportunity to sit in the writer's room from the director. That's it, she still has to be a PA, she isn't getting paid to be in the writer's room. And she's still responsible for all of her PA duties before she gets to sit in the room. However its a start, she can gain some experience and knowledge of the process. She's been looking for a writer's assistant job for two years now.
There are enough people with the talent out here already. Talent isn't going to cut it anymore.
Not to be rude, but I honestly hope you don't think you're going to move to LA and sell scripts to studios. Because you're going to be in for the same rude awakening aspiring actors go through. Most scripts aren't sold as scripts, they are sold as specs or treatments that get purchased by studios. Studios then hire established scribes to realize and write the idea. Fully realized scripts that get sent to studios get tossed onto an unpaid intern to give a thumps up or thumbs down. By the time thumps up scripts reach anybody of any importance, they don't care and are chasing down that comic book sequel to whatever.
Check out this post from the "Common phrases you hear in LA." That sums up the rest of this post.
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