AKTA INSIGHTS: 3 KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACTORS WHO WORK AND ACTORS WHO WAIT

Writer: Takunda Muzondiwa

Working Actors Do Not Wait 

I have always hated waiting rooms. It is both the stillness of them and the strange performance of calm they seem to stage. The soft lighting. The neutral walls. The potted plants that no one waters yet never quite die. And yet everyone sitting there knows something else is happening beneath the surface. Knees bounce. Hands twist together. Eyes glaze over as people pretend to scroll, pretend to read, pretend not to be afraid. 

I sometimes think actors live in a professional waiting room for years at a time. We sit with our training, our hope, our rent to pay, our ageing headshots, and we try to look normal about it. 

The most frightening part is how easy it is to get used to sit in the waiting. At first you sit on the edge, alert, ready to leap up when your name is called. Over time, your body sinks back. You cross your legs. You stop imagining the door opening at any second. Waiting stretches. It settles into your muscles. It begins to feel like a phase of the career rather than a threat to it. 

I do not have nightmares about forgetting lines on stage or missing a cue. I have nightmares about waiting so long that I forget what it felt like to need this. About becoming someone who says she loves acting but no longer aches to practice it. About turning into a person who waits to be chosen before she gives herself permission to create. I do not wish for a life where my craft exists only in potential. A love that never gets expressed because it is forever being “saved” for the right opportunity. And the truth is, no career setback scares me as much as the idea of waking up one day and realising I have become comfortable in the waiting room.

LESSON ONE: Create Your Own Opportunities 

There are real and deeply entrenched barriers in this industry that cannot be overcome with mindset alone. Access is unequal. Bias, both visible and invisible, shapes who is seen, who is funded, who is given the benefit of the doubt. For many actors, the waiting room is not just uncomfortable, it is structurally enforced. Naming personal agency should never be used to dismiss systemic injustice. Both truths can exist at once. The industry must change, and actors must still find ways to stay creatively alive inside it. 

When people first told me to “create my own work”, I resisted. I did not attend acting classes to become a producer. I did not move countries and work side jobs so I could learn about funding applications or camera lenses. I want to be cast, to be directed, to be given a script and told “action”. It is heavy to feel you must build the stage you can step on to it. And yet, over time, I began to understand that creating your own opportunities does not mean abandoning acting. It means refusing to let other people be the sole gatekeepers of when you are allowed to practice your craft. It means shifting from “I will act when I am chosen” to “I am an actor, so I act”. 

One of the simplest and most overlooked ways to do this is to completely reframe what counts as work. We tend to only validate performances that come with external approval. A paid job. A recognised theatre. A project that gets reviewed, streamed, or applauded by strangers. But think about the level of care you bring to a self tape. The lighting adjustments. The takes. The emotional preparation. The hours spent shaping a few minutes of truth. That is work. So why is it only worthy when attached to an audition? Start treating self generated material with the same seriousness. Film monologues that show the kind of roles you rarely get called in for but know you could carry. Record scenes with friends not to “go viral” but to stretch muscles you want ready. Build a private library of performances that document your growth. This is not pretending to have a career. This is actively having practice.

If writing, directing, or producing feels intimidating, approach them not as career changes but as extensions of your acting toolkit. 

Writing a short scene teaches you how structure supports performance. Directing a small project reveals how storytelling lives in framing, pacing, and collaboration. Producing even something tiny forces you to understand logistics, time, and the many pressures that shape a set or rehearsal room. All of this makes you a more generous and employable actor because you understand the ecosystem you are stepping into. You become someone who solves problems rather than adding to them. You see the whole picture, not just your close up. The irony is that the more you learn about these surrounding roles, the freer you often feel when you finally do step back into purely acting, because your confidence is no longer built on mystery but on understanding.

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

LESSON TWO: Self trust is the engine of a sustainable career

So many of us design our creative lives like obstacle courses built to defeat us. We write to do lists that read like punishment. Tape three scenes. Email twenty agents. Update Spotlight. Film a reel. Rewrite that script. Start a podcast. Learn an accent. All by Sunday. We load our days with impossible expectations and then act surprised when we fall short. What we call ambition is often just self sabotage dressed in motivational language. 

It is not just that the tasks remain unfinished. It is that your word to yourself starts to mean less. You begin to live with a low grade disappointment in your own company. That erosion of self trust is far more dangerous than a slow month in the industry. Because when you do not trust yourself, even opportunities that arrive feel heavier. You meet them already doubting your own follow through.

Discipline, the kind that sustains artists over decades, is not built on heroic bursts of effort. It is built on kept promises so small they almost look unimpressive from the outside. One hour of focused script work that actually happens. One email sent when you said you would send it. One scene rehearsed properly instead of vaguely thought about. When you set a realistic goal and meet it, your nervous system registers safety. You begin to experience yourself as reliable. And from that reliability grows confidence that is not loud or performative but deeply rooted. You stop negotiating with yourself all day long. You simply become someone who does the thing they said they would do. 

LESSON THREE: Get Rejected Often

Somewhere along the way, many actors develop an unspoken strategy of self protection that quietly limits their growth. We do not call it fear. We call it being realistic, being selective, being strategic. But often what we are really doing is avoiding situations where we might want something deeply and not get it. We scroll past opportunities and tell ourselves we are not right for them. We hesitate to send that email, submit that tape, ask that question. We try to spare ourselves the sting of rejection by pre rejecting ourselves first. It feels safer. It feels like control. But it also keeps our world small and our courage underused.

Recently I have seen a woman online document her mission to be rejected one thousand times in a year. She applied for things wildly outside her comfort zone, expecting doors to close in her face. Instead, alongside the no responses were a series of astonishing yes moments. She entered competitions she thought she would never win and found herself shortlisted. She applied for opportunities she assumed were out of reach and was accepted. Her conclusion was simple and quietly radical. Chase rejection. Because on the other side of the no you fear might be a life you did not dare to imagine. That spirit feels deeply aligned with the working actor’s path. Not reckless, but willing. Willing to be seen trying. 

Auditioning is not only about booking jobs. It is one of the primary ways you build stamina, skill, and emotional resilience in this profession. Every tape teaches you something about your process. If you only allow yourself to go up for the roles you feel almost certain about, you rob yourself of the growth that comes from stretching beyond your comfort zone. Apply first. Tape first. Let the logistics and the what ifs come later. You can always turn something down if it truly does not work. But you cannot learn from an opportunity you never gave yourself permission to attempt.

Chasing rejection does not mean lowering your standards or sending in careless work. It means offering your best work more often and detaching your sense of worth from the outcome. It means understanding that a no is rarely a verdict on your talent and far more often a reflection of variables you cannot see. Height. Chemistry. Timing. A producer’s preference. When you normalise rejection, it loses its power to paralyse you. It becomes part of the rhythm of a working life rather than a dramatic commentary on your future. And with each no you survive, your fear shrinks a little. Your bravery grows a little. Your capacity to stay in the game long enough to meet the right yes becomes stronger.

Working actors are not the ones who never get rejected. They are the ones who get rejected constantly and keep expanding anyway. They build careers not only on bookings but on the sheer volume of times they put themselves forward. They understand that courage is a muscle, and like any muscle it grows through repeated use. So send the tape. Ask the question. Submit the application. Risk the rejection. Because every time you choose the possibility of rejection over the safety of hiding, you are also choosing a bigger life in this craft. And that willingness, more than luck or timing, is what keeps an actor working rather than waiting.

Your next role might not come from an audition, but from something small and brave you decide to make yourself.