113. More Than 'JUST' An Actor

After watching the Val Kilmer documentary, Tiwana was reminded of how a privileged childhood could pave the way for actors who come from affluent families.

Tiwana shares the lessons learned from watching the documentary and how, from  now on, she will be like Val and use all of her artistic tools to stop waiting and start creating.

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:: About Tiwana ::

Tiwana Floyd is a Los Angeles-based actor, improviser, writer, and content creator. Acting Lessons Learned is her love letter to her Actor Frens, to assist them in navigating the working actor system while reminding them they are not alone in their show business experiences.

Tiwana's personal stories about the lessons she's learned along the way in her 20-year acting journey can be cringy, comedic, uplifting, and sometimes sad. Still, all to enlighten the listener on the peaks and valleys of being an actor. 

This podcast is for actors of any age at any career level. It's also for non-actors curious to learn what an actor on the rise endures to grow a career.

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Transcript

I have been on a working actor track for 18 years, and it's only now in 2002 that I'm learning what I could have done differently to expedite the growth of my acting career. And I'm gonna share that with you today.

Hello, Actor Frens, I'm Tiwana Floyd, and this is Acting Lessons Learned, a podcast where I share short stories of the experiences that led me to learn the lessons that helped shape my acting career. As you listen, I hope you find relief in knowing you are not alone in this career building process. The ebbs, the flows, the Pangs and triumphs of growing a career in an industry with no linear path.

You are not alone. We are all experiencing the same thing, except where in our experience. You're not alone. I'm continually curious to learn how great actors become great and how they arrived at the moment when they became highly sought after actors outside of nepotism being wealthy, or simply being 16 and stunning, according to Hollywood's idea of stunning. Of course. How do the actors we respect and love break through the fray?

I've spent innumerable hours analyzing all levels of working actors, interviews on tv, podcasts, written articles, and while I have had success in my career, I have not yet reached the sought after actor stage, and I'm trying to figure out how do I get there and let's face it. No matter the actor status or where we are in our career, we all want more, more, more acting opportunity. Okay, That doesn't rhyme. We all want more acting opportunities and we all want to get paid to act. Well, I'll speak for myself. I want to get paid to act.

I am a crusader for autobiographical stories of working actors because greatness leaves hints. I recently watched the documentary Val about the extraordinary outstanding actor Val Kilmer on Amazon Prime. If you're unfamiliar with Val Kilmer's work, I beseech thee to watch damn near everything he's done. This is why I don't do Shakespeare. No, but seriously, you should watch all of his work. It's, it's definitely a class in mastery.

And if you are familiar with Val Kilmer and wondering why he disappeared from the Hollywood scene, he was diagnosed with throat cancer that left his voice impaired and so he's unable to act. Or, act using his voice, but he's still a full fledged artist. So much so in the documentary.  Spoiler alerts. You might wanna fast forward a few minutes to bypass the spoilers. It's not a lot, but I don't know. Sometimes people don't like spoilers.

In the documentary, Val Kilmer recorded pretty much his entire life as a kid. He owned a video camera and shot thousands of videotapes and film reels throughout his life and career. Audition tapes, behind the scenes home videos, ideas for films.

I know I said I wanted to learn from actors who weren't affluent. Still, I've come to realize every actor's story, whether from a wealthy or modest upbringing, has golden nuggets of insight ready to be unearthed. Adapted and repurposed. I'll get to my takeaways in a moment. The documentary is narrated by Val's son using footage from the B-roll Val shot over the years from his childhood to adulthood.

It's an extraordinary story. I highly recommend you watch it. You'll see how from the beginning, Val Kilmer took charge of his career and led with full artistic license and autonomy, which I'm a huge proponent of. I just didn't know I could do that. Without divulging the entire documentary, I identified five crucial things that gave Val Kilmer a heads up in his career.

And I'll share how I plan to incorporate what I've learned into my career going forward.

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Here are the five crucial things that made Val Kilmer a stellar talent and gave him a heads up in his career.

One. Val learned the elements of story. From the perspective of a young novice filmmaker, he and his brothers were child filmmakers.

Two, when Val was a young boy, his father was a real estate baron who purchased the Roy Rogers ranch. Val and his brothers turned the ranch into a movie set. He even made a talent reel in fifth grade. This means he learned how to edit, which to me is the ultimate storytelling device.

Three. When he became a prominent actor, he still filmed self-tape auditions for the roles he wanted to play, and wrote letters to the directors requesting consideration.

Four. He was raised by a businessman, so Val was business minded and therefore took ownership of his career.

And Five. He was deeply committed to the craft of acting.

Oh, and I should probably say that he attended Julliard at 15. I know you're thinking, Oh, no wonder he's so good he went to Julliard. But let me contest that idea, if you will, and I'm not discrediting Julliard, but Val's early years as a child filmmaker informed his artistic license way before he arrived at Juilliard.

He had a working knowledge of storytelling from acting, filming, directing, and editing. So Juilliard helped him to master his craft as an actor, but he came in loaded. Now it's very clear to me with the aegis and resources from Val's father's wealth that Val had a privileged childhood and due to systemic and economic marginalization by design other actors and I lacked access to technological equipment. Land and business savvy.

Had I had that kind of self-sufficiency access and knowledge as a child, or even when I started my career in my thirties, I believe my acting career would look much different than it does today, and that's not me living in regret or resentment. This is me recognizing a valuable lesson to learn because I can now employ these ideals going forward in my career.

As I watched the documentary, my mind went to three things,
Talent
Self-tape reels and
Outreach 

Talent and training. We already know what that is. We get that. What was crazy to me is Val and potentially other notable actors of that time were filming self-tape auditions in the eighties and nineties. Self tape auditions only came to my awareness around 10 years ago, which then made me wonder why my drama school hadn't taught me to study filmmaking and self-tape auditions and outreach when I graduated, or during my training, in 2003.

When I completed drama school, I was taught that noble work was being on stage, performing plays. There wasn't even talk of television because television wasn't seen as a dignified platform for thespians. I was made to feel getting paid for my art was selling out. That's crazy. That's so antiquated and so small minded.

There was very little mentorship regarding how to cope in the pursuit of acting. No discussions on how to manage rejection or the feelings of stuckness after you've done everything possible. No guidance on the sacrifices and money it would take to pursue an acting career. And speaking of money, I wasn't taught financial literacy from an actor standpoint. After leaving the conservatory, I accidentally stumbled upon the Actor's Fund, now called Entertainment Community Fund, to learn financial literacy for actors because we don't it a check every week as an actor, actually, we're always pretty much unemployed. I think it's one of the reasons why Ryan Reynolds calls himself a part-time actor because we don't really act full-time.

We get the gig, we act, and then we're unemployed. And if you don't know about the Entertainment Community Fund, check them out. It's an extraordinary government funded resource for anyone in the entertainment with many online services and programs. I'll leave a link in the description. 

I can't comprehend why any university conservatory or acting teacher doesn't adequately prepare their students to enter the workforce and operate as business people.

I've been on the working actor track for 18+ years, and it's only in the past three years during the pandemic, when I experienced relevant thinking that I learned what I could have done differently to expedite the growth of my acting career. And that was these six things. 
1. Ownership. I waited for others to make my career happen.
2. Access. I waited for in invites and auditions to. 
3. Outreach. I only sent postcards and not footage 
4. Self-sufficiency. I waited to book work to get footage, instead of creating my own footage. 
5. Self sustainability. I waited to book commercials to earn a living. 
6. Narrow focused. I only focused on how to be a better actor when I'm so much more.

Do you see how much waiting I did? It's sort of infuriating that I waited so long for someone else to give me opportunities, and I wonder how did I come to live in such a constrained state of mind? Look, I'm a woman of many thoughts and theories, and I can only deduce, there is a system designed to keep actors in a perpetual state of disenfranchisement.

Out of the haze of my self-inflicted actor rat race, chasing the next audition, I found that I am more than just an actor. I have become a content creator, writer, iphoneographer, that's like a cinematographer with a iPhone. It exists. It's real . I'm a director, I'm an editor, and I'm a social media strategist. So today and going forward, I take ownership of my career. I create access with self-generated content. I'll share my work through outreach to platforms with high visibility. I am self-sufficient in creating content, showcasing my voice and talent. 

My sustainability comes from revenue generated from all of my art forms, and my focus is now the grand vision for my entire life. Not just my career, not just me as an actor. Everything I do from here on out has to fulfill my grand vision for my life. 

So like Val Kilmer, I will use all of my storytelling skills. Like myself, I will step into this new normal of who I am as a creator and create my own way, and I hope you do too. 

That's it for this episode of Acting Lessons Learned.
Be sure to check out entertainment community.org. Uh, the link will be in, in a description. I bet you'll find resources you didn't know you needed. If you've learned something new or you were moved by something, I said, won't you hit that follow button and be sure to give a star rating four or five stars. That's a subliminal. Messaging . 

And if you'd like to connect or learn more about me, go to my website or follow me on Instagram. All of those links are in the description, Actor Frens, thank you for listening to my Discoveries. Be safe out there and remember to always put yourself first and let's start creating our own way. And stop waiting. I think we've waited enough. 

Until next time. Bye.