• What do you feel you don’t understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or who has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions as you?
During my career, there have been many things I haven't understood, things that have baffled me even to this day. As a young teenage performer, going off to theatre school, I thought that talent was everything and if I worked hard enough I would land any job I wanted. So that is exactly what I did, worked as hard as I could, graduating at my peak fitness and condition. I was so lucky I got the job from my first audition and went off cruising around the world. However when I returned to London to audition again for shows, I was herded like a cow along with hundreds of other hopefuls, only to be cut after a few counts of dancing. Sometimes I would be cut because of my height or the colour of my hair. I didn't understand what I was doing wrong and why I wasn't getting roles.
I soon realised that talent is not everything and many other factors come into it that is out of my control. I found talking to other more experienced professionals, friends or work colleagues, helped me to understand the industry and how sometimes certain luck factors come into play. Speaking to peers who were so unbelievably talented and had performed in top West End shows, only to be working six months later in retail, made me see how unpredictable our careers can be. As time goes on I understand more and more things within performing arts, and while we should always strive to be better and better, we should not always assume we were rejected because of lack of talent.
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