116. Imposter Syndrome, Too Scared To Join SAG-AFTRA

After finally becoming eligible to join SAG-AFTRA imposter syndrome leads Tiwana to believe she wasn't good enough just yet. She shares the  unethical non-union commercial that caused her to finally join the actors union, two years later and the instrumental players that helped to remind Tiwana of her value. 

Music "Mesmerizing" by Pixababy 15617

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Music Pixababy "Mesmerized" 15617 & 11492_comamedia

Transcript

(music)

Hello Actor Fren. Welcome back to Acting Lessons Learned. I'm delighted to have your ear, time, and attention. If you're new here, I'm Tiwana Floyd, the creator and host of Acting Lessons Learned. I share intimate details of things I've learned in my acting journey that helped me become a working actor in Los Angeles. This episode is part of a series of my commercial career experiences. The area where I've had the most success and received many questions on how I made it happen.

Whether you've listened to this podcast in its entirety or bounced around, you know that once I became eligible to join SAG, I waited two years to do so. But I have yet to share why I waited so long. And nope, it's not the cost of entry. The dues. It' something else

You will likely relate to or understand what it's like to experience imposter syndrome. Unless you're an outlier with an extraordinary sense of self-worth or a sociopath. Imposter syndrome was the reason why I waited two years to join SAG.    

Once I became eligible to join SAG, my feelings of inadequacy led me to believe I wasn't yet good enough to act opposite union actors. I felt I needed more time to get better. The biblical term "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another" is true. Joining the union when I did, was the best thing for my career, yes, for financial reasons, but also, My craft became sharper by acting opposite working union actors. 

In this episode, I share how imposter syndrome played its part in delaying my decision to join SAG. The agent and two commercial teachers who significantly impacted my career by helping me identify my value, and finally, the unethical non-union commercial that caused me to say Bleep non-union work. It's time to join SAG.

After I booked my first National commercial. I didn't believe I could do it again. I thought my first booking was a fluke. Like a lottery, the odds just happened to be in my favor that one time. And I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to do it twice—the luck of the draw. The thing about success. When you do it once, you have to follow it up and make it happen again. But for me, I was caught up in the "sophomore jinx."

In baseball, the sophomore jinx means a rookie's second year will be a bad one. He'll get injured, play a horrible season, or the team will fall apart on account of his playing style. 

In college, it refers to classes getting much harder, and sometimes the student will change their major.

In music, it refers to the artist having a billboard-topping, mega-hit first album, then becoming terrified that the second album won't be as good, suffering ridicule from their fans. 

And, in acting, it's can I execute another excellent performance to be hired again? 

The sophomore jinx can be so debilitating that people quit and walk away from a second attempt. Quitting wasn't an option for me. It wasn't even on my radar. Instead, even though I was eligible, I didn't join the union. At that point, I had booked so many non-union commercials between NY and LA that it felt easier, aka safer, to continue on that path. I was still with the agent who had gotten me the SAG national. She was content to continue getting me non-union audition opportunities, and I went on to book three more non-union commercials with her. The third would be my final non-union commercial. The experience I had on that set had me say, Eff, these non-union jobs. It's time to join SAG. 

It was a commercial realtor's. There were about ten principal actors hired. When I arrived on the set, the production had the talent sitting on metal folding chairs in the direct sun. A union job requires production to provide the actors have safe, comfortable seating. But non-union jobs are lawless. They can treat actors like cattle. 

It was hot and uncomfortable that day. But the final straw was the contract. The producer had slyly included an "in perpetuity" clause when my agent had negotiated a termed buy-out. I called my agent to get her assistance on the matter. Her directive was for me to ask to speak to the producer. I was irritated by her suggestion. Part of an agent's responsibility is to be the middle man on these things, to protect their roster of actors by reinforcing the negotiated deal. And also to keep the production from retaliating toward the actor on set. 

If you've listened to episode 115, where I speak about Ann Wright, my first commercial agent in NYC, you know that Ann handled these inconveniences with one phone call. I was surprised that I was left to fend for myself, which is an awkward position for me because I didn't have the aptitude to go toe-to-toe with a producer, and also, I also feared losing the job or being regarded as problematic. 

I had no choice but to advocate for myself. And I tried to do so as discreetly as possible. And of all people, I was dealing with a PA who, like me, was not skilled to handle these issues. She was just as nervous as I was, which made me angrier yet firmer in my stance. And do you know the producer would not come to me to discuss the situation? The PA pointed him out to me. I could see him sitting on the other side, passing messages to her to tell me, with his final message to me being, "tell her to cross out "in perpetuity" and initial it. So, I followed his direction, but I was still livid by the producer's discourteousness and was embarrassed because it turned into a bit of a scene. The other actors were against me, saying, just sign it. You're getting paid. What difference does it make? So I had to swallow the disrespect of the producer. And my anger toward the other actors who didn't see the value in protecting theirs and our image. While turning on me. 

I didn't have the courage I do now. The person I am today would have either signed the contract "UNDER DURESS" or walked off the set if the producer hadn't come over to make it right or if my agent didn't handle it. Also, I'm SAG-AFTRA now, so the contracts don't have in-perpetuity clauses, but producers always try to get more for less at the actor's cost by adding other items to the contract. 

That was the beginning of my resentment toward that agent. Shortly thereafter, once I cheerfully joined SAG "without her permission," her words. I terminated that agent. The entire account of that situation is in episode 102, "Agent termination-Time to Go."

And guess what? The contract I signed for that realtor's commercial came back to bite me in the butt 4 years later. The commercial had long stopped running. But there I was in an entirely new spot with my image edited into the end. I took a photo of my television and pulled up the copy of my amended contract (Actor Fren, ALWAYS KEEP COPIES OF YOUR CONTRACTS for any services you offer your name Image and Likeness, always keep your contracts). I was so disgusted when I saw myself in a new spot. I contacted my new agent, a sharp negotiator explaining the entire ordeal. And she was on it. She got back to me in a couple of days, defeated. There was a vague phrase that worked against me. I can't recall what it was now. But she told them their unethical business tactics were the reason why I joined SAG.

Here's why it sucks to sign an "in perpetuity" contract. Those producers can use the footage of me in any way they want forever and ever throughout the universe. So, once Mars is up and running, yes, Mars, the planet Elon Musk is looking trying to make into a metropolis for the affluent, that realtor's spot could air on a mars TV network, and I wouldn't earn a dime more, or whatever the currency on Mars will be. I'm being facetious. But you get what I'm saying. It's incorrigible.

Once I joined the union, the next hurdle was adjusting to a new criterion. I went from being a medium-sized fish in a non-union pool to a minnow in SAG's Pacific ocean of actors. I began auditioning for casting directors who didn't know me or my work. This wa s a whole new set of casting directors. The actors were olympian style auditioners. And my opportunities shrunk drastically. It was like starting over yet again, It was starting over again. 

I was often intimidated, as if I no longer knew what I was doing in the room during auditions. I experienced brain farts and mental blanks. I had out-of-body experiences and difficulties comprehending the story board and the script's wording. These SAG actors I was auditioning with were quick to learn lines, exacting in their execution, and seemed to be annoyed with me for not being up to their speed.

I sometimes had a difficult time understanding the session runner's explanation. They spoke with a shorthand I had yet to learn. Quite possibly because I was so in my head I didn't hear them well. I found out later that not all session runners are good at giving explanations. Some consistently over-explain, providing too much information that causes actor's to be confused. That still occurs present day, and I sometimes wonder if it's unconscious or on purpose, but that's a whole other episode. Fortunately, I've been working long enough in LA to know who the over-explaining session runners are and how to disregard the preamble and fluff they put into the directions. 

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about. During commercial auditions, the session runner operates the camera, gives direction to actors, and works with casting directors, directors, agencies, and production team members to ensure that the audition and callback sessions run smoothly. And just like any human on a job, not all session runners are great at what they do. But when you're a new actor, you don't know that. But over time, if you have an awareness, you figure it out and try your best to make your audition count.    

I thought I had become a lousy auditioner. In retrospect, I was making an adjustment to this new normal. Which ruined opportunities to book jobs because auditioning IS the job. Some actors confuse the booking as the job. Nope, auditioning is the job. And we had better love doing it. More importantly, be good at doing it. 

After joining SAG, I needed to be better at auditioning. My callback ratio was low. I would experience tremendous stress in the room, especially when I was paired with other actors. And when they asked us for a button or something funny to close out the audition, I would say something inappropriate things. Not crass, just statements that made no sense in the moment.  

By this time, I had left the agent with whom I booked my first SAG National commercial with, the one who left me to fend for myself on that last non-union commercial and leveled up to an agency with a roster full of recognizable booking commercial actors. Imposter syndrome reared it's head again. I felt like I didn't measure up. After twelve months of not booking anything, I had the added self-inflicted pressure that my agent would drop me because I wasn't booking. They didn't drop me. I went on to have an outstanding eight years them. Thanks to Angela Strange, who was my north star at the agency. I'd call her a pit bull in a skirt because of her negotiating prowess. She was, well still is, a sophisticated, highly-intelligent Black Woman who truly cared about her actors. I'd argue all actors. You can find many interviews if you google her name. She also offers sage advice on Clubhouse. 

Angela would call me out of the blue and check on me. I'm getting a little emotional thinking about it. She'd ask me how I was feeling. We'd talk for a little while, and then she'd say, Tiwana, you're going to start booking. I've seen it happen to so many actors. It just takes a simple adjustment. You may not know what that is right now, but once it clicks, you'll be a booking machine. She believed in me. She was the first agent I had in LA who expressed her faith in my ability. And that went a long way for me. I was having a hard time in LA. I had been here 2 or 3 years at that point. Living in Los Angeles is a demanding adjustment for anyone, and I had a leg up coming from NYC. Surely, I could adjust moving from one metropolitan city to another. But the added culture shift is the Hollywood system. It's own beast that requires a certain style of navigation.

Ooh wee, was I struh-gaaah-ling. Financially, with friendships and intimate relationships. I was questioning whether I would stay in LA or not. It was hard finding a community, people who shared my sentiment and experiences, and more importantly, those I felt safe with. All of my family was back in NY. But as my homeboy says so eloquently, and I quote, "I can't see my dreams actualized back home." Moving back to NY wouldn't be the most suitable move for me. 

Don't get me wrong, I had a handful of friends I could commiserate with, as they were experiencing the same as me. Damn, nearly everyone in Los Angeles is striving toward something. Some form of success in entertainment. And that makes us all narrow-focused. 

It's not on purpose that we become self-centered. It's the nature of the beast. One truly has to make a concerted effort to consider others. And that is hard when you first move here because you are in acclimation mode, which sometimes equates to survival mode. 

To have an agent call me from time to time, to check on me and tell me it's going to happen one day, and to remain patient, meant a lot. It is only now that I realize how much I needed to hear her words. It's only now I recognize the depths of my appreciation for her. 

During one of our calls, she suggested I take a commercial class, a refresher course. I wonder if she could sense that my self-esteem was waning. But I sure do appreciate her making that suggestion. And I took her advice by trying a one-on-one with a guy, which was unsuccessful. We didn't speak the same language, and he increased my feelings of inadequacy. And then, I found two commercial teachers who made a positive impact. Killian McHugh and Jill Alexander. 

Killian, at the time, was a session runner for a prominent commercial casting office here in Los Angeles. From him, I learned the technical components of auditioning for commercials. How to take ownership of the room. How to interact with the props. How to Read a commercial script for cues. How to plan my implementation before I'd get in the room. 

And the most significant breakthrough came when I worked with Jill Alexander, a thriving commercial actor in her own right who had once worked in commercial casting as well. She taught me how to employ and evoke emotion in a commercial audition. How to use ad-lib exposition at the top and close of the audition. How to use my point of view about the product, the other actors in the scene, and the location. Most importantly, she taught me to be myself using what makes me genuinely humorous instead some fake persona of trying to give casting what I think they wanted.

The combination of working with both Killian and Jill lifted the cloud of uncertainty. I began to book national commercials again, sometimes three in a row. I returned to myself as the girl who moved to LA from NYC, knowing how to audition. Now I was more confident. I could enhance the abilities of previous commercial teachers Joan See and Stuart K. Robinson contributed. It was a discovery period where I learned, Oh, sometimes, I will hit a wall. And when I do, it's okay. But I just need a refresher course or new tools when I do.  

There is a myth that commercials are all about a look. And that is part of it, but the craft of acting is a major component it requires craft, an ability to be present and to execute within the framework or narrative of the commercial's throughline. It's all happening so quickly, a commercial audition, on average, from entering the room could take 5-10 minutes. So there is no time to build up to scene. You'll get two takes that need to be varied to show range. Those who respect the commercial audition process get more opportunities to audition. The frequency keeps the actor sharp, with fewer nerves, becoming better all around at auditioning. Booking commercials became my new normal. I never take for granted that I've mastered the skill. Because, like everything in life, change is constant.