[Written in 2012–still think it’s accurate.]
I was a failure as an actor. There, I said it.
I’ve wanted to admit it for years, to shout it from the rooftops, but I haven’t. Everyone is so quick to tell me I’m wrong (everyone but Ed Ulloa), or that it’s the wrong attitude to take, or that I’m just being self-deprecating.
Seriously, I’m not. I just know that what I set out to accomplish did not happen; by definition, that is failure. There’s no shame in that, mind you. I gave it my best shot, and had some success along the way. But there is no getting away from the simple fact that, as an actor, I was a failure.
(Some would suggest that I was a failure as an actor in more ways than one, but I’m not here to talk about that today. Those types of value-judgments have no place in this essay. Once I’ve finished this, people are welcome to take up that discussion point, but not here. So there. Phhhhhhhhhhppppttttttt.)
Purely from the viewpoint of whether I was a success as an actor or not, it’s clear that I was not; however, that being the case, it is also true that I was not a complete failure, either. Only from the standpoint of not having achieved what I meant to when I took up the profession could that be considered true. The bottom line here is that I had moderate levels of success as an actor–professionally, financially, and personally–but I was not in any of the “Star Wars” movies. As any actor will tell you, that is the basis for determining whether you were a success or not. (I kid.)
In all seriousness, though, I wasn’t in any major movies; the closest I came was “Unbreakable,” for which I joined SAG, and was rewarded with my one “wound up on the cutting-room floor” story. Not what I would call my most rewarding experience in the theatrical world. Since I’m baring my soul, however, I would really like to say that the director of that film is overrated: his one good movie was “The Sixth Sense” (for which I auditioned badly, it must be said), he’s not a very good writer, and I knew from my first reading of the script that it was going to suck. (Subsequent rewrites did nothing to dispel that certainty.) I was one of the first things they shot, but I sort of knew I wasn’t going to make the final cut. I hoped otherwise, but when asked if I had a problem with my character going from being a businessman later seen breaking a car window in a parking lot to the same businessman later being seen urinating on a car (thank you, Bruce Willis, you dumb POS), and I responded with the needy actor’s “Of course not,” I knew it would take a miracle for that to make it to the final cut of the film. (Bruce was kind of a dick, too, to be perfectly honest. But I digress.)
My dad thought I would be a failure if I even was an actor, though he never came right out and said it. And he didn’t mean a failure as an actor, either; he indicated that I would be a failure as a man if I chose to pursue that as my career. From his first “Be an engineer, Bill, that’s where the money is,” I knew that he thought I should be above that profession. (As a matter of fact, I’m quite certain that he didn’t think it qualified as a ‘profession.’) This is somewhat ironic to me, because it was from watching him play his own cast of characters that I really think I caught the bug to begin with, and wanted to develop my own gallery of characterizations with which to entertain my friends, and be the life of the party.
Did I become an actor to spite him? That’s a good question, though it’s one to which I don’t think I will ever know the answer. Perhaps it is better not to know. I just know I have been drawn to the stage like a moth to a flame, and the clearest joy I’ve ever known was playing ‘Scooter’ in a play called “Tracers,” a role which might have been my best performance. It’s kind of funny, too, because I think that’s the one role, the one play, that my dad would have really appreciated and enjoyed, at least on some level. He never saw my work after I finished high school, except for one ridiculous TV movie in which I was cast as an extra. (He marked the videocassette as the “Film Debut of Bill Robertson,” which is both touching and a little embarrassing, since you’d need a magnifying glass and a frame-by-frame playback speed in order to see me. At any rate, that sounds like he was proud of me…right?)
I was an awful film actor. On a stage, I was better, though still nothing to write home about. The best thing I brought to a role was either my vulnerability or at least my commitment to it, though I’m sure I was often chewing up the scenery as a result. (“Chewing up scenery” is a pejorative, by the way, for you non-theatre-folk; it implies that someone playing a role on stage is so “into it” that they are “chewing up the scenery with their intensity.” It usually signifies an actor who is so self-indulgent that their performance becomes more important than the performance of the play as a whole, and they are so wrapped up in what they are doing that it takes the audience “out of the moment”; they become aware of how hard the actor is working, and risk not fully getting the message of the play. The audience should never see how hard an actor is working, in my opinion. Actors who are over-analytical–like me–end up intellectualizing the role, instead of just feeling it, and being it, and making the experience more real for the audience and their fellow actors.) I would suggest that my two best performances were ‘Scooter’ from “Tracers,” and ‘Tommy Boatwright’ from “The Normal Heart.” I had other moments, but those two in particular were–to me–the roles to which I thought I brought the most, and more importantly, had the deepest effect on fellow cast-members and audiences alike.
I quit acting in 2001, which is kind of an arbitrary date in some ways, because I hadn’t done any real acting in years. Toward the end, when I was foolishly focused on film and TV–media which did not serve me well, and which I did not serve well, either–the only “acting” I was doing was 30-second auditions for roles I didn’t even want (and didn’t get) mostly for commercials. I would have liked to land one of the “Homicide” roles for which I read, or even the one time I read for “E.R.,” mostly because everyone would have seen it, but I really should have taken more training in auditioning, because frankly I sucked at it. Once I had landed a role, and started working on it, I was much better, as I could do the work, and let the character kind of take over through the rehearsal process.
But I was fucking neurotic as hell. (Some of you will instantly nod your head and say “Yes, you were!” I apologize, especially to Erin Toth, who was simply doing as she was directed, and I chose that moment to allow my insecurities as a person and a performer to indulge in one of the few instances where I mistreated a backstage person. I think about it a lot, and am still sorry for it.) Generally, I just loved the opportunity to do the work, and miss the part of rehearsing a role very, very much. There is nothing quite as freeing as completely immersing yourself in the performance of an acting role, and I regret not having that outlet to save me from my psyche.
The funny moments are the ones that stick with me, though. For instance, Charlie Hewes was notorious in college during the production of “The Enemy of the People,” and he would get so worked up in the crowd scene! I think he was the newspaper editor now that I think about it, and therefore should have been the one refraining from any kind of rabidly anti-doctor behavior. Nevertheless, Stan Kahan, our director, felt he needed to single me out and have a conversation about my being “out of control” in the scene. Every time I think about it, I’m still kind of blown away at the ludicrous quality of that statement. I was completely in control; I swear to God I was. Was that a rare moment when I was actually good on stage, and therefore the director himself thought I really was rabidly angry at the good doctor who was causing such an outrage? It’s funny to me, because Charlie was so bored with the stupid play that he would go nuts just to perform for the other actors in the scene, in my opinion. Yet I was the one who was singled out. Crazy-town.
Truthfully, I still wonder about that, some twenty years later. Perhaps this will be an opportunity for someone I knew then to step forward and say, “Bill, I hate to tell you, but you were so far over the line that it was embarrassing to be on the same stage with you.” I don’t know. I can tell you that I clearly remember being totally in control of myself in that scene. Maybe I’m just insane. Maybe my commitment level to the scene in that play that most of the actors hated being involved with was just higher than everyone else beside the lead actors? We may never know. If I was over the line, I’m sorry; I just don’t recall it that way.
Who knows?
I do know that being an actor was the best job I ever had, and that I often think about how much I miss it.
And then I realize that acting like an adult, and being a responsible member of society, is the greatest acting performance of my life. Because I am still that scared little kid, that young and oh-so-unsure adolescent, who had no more idea of what to say to a girl you liked than I do of the stock market—which is to say, none at all.
Like I said–a work in progress…just like me.
