The Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome, or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

Letting Go of Shame by Patricia S Potter-Efron and Ronald Potter-Efron

“Shame is more than a feeling, it is a set of physical responses such as looking down or blushing combined with predictable actions such as hiding or withdrawing from others or having uncomfortable thoughts such as, “I am such a failure in life” or spiritual despair.

The definition of shame is a painful belief in one's basic defectiveness as a human being.”

We make choices based on our belief systems, our past, our values, and our collective consciousness.

We always choose what is the best possible choice at that moment. We are always doing our very best.

You are not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible for you...

About Andy:

Specializing in voice-over, Andy Roth is one of New York’s busiest casting directors with a career that has spanned over two decades.  After several years as the in-house casting director for one of the country’s top commercial talent agencies, Cunningham Escott Slevin & Doherty (CESD), where he did the voice casting for over a thousand projects for animation, commercial, television, film, video games and more, he started his own company and has since been working with many of the biggest advertising agencies, casting houses and production companies in the world.  He has cast shows for such high profile companies as Discovery Kids and Netflix and worked on projects for known brands including, Spotify, Oculus, Target, Calvin Klein, Geico, Kraft, Coca Cola and many more. His handiwork can be seen on just about any network, cable channel, video game system, and all over the Internet.

As a voice director, he’s directed shows for major companies including Netflix and Funimat...

From the book: Wisdom by Andrew Zuckerman

“Tennis taught me so many lessons in life. One of the things it taught me is that every ball that comes to me, I have to make a decision. I have to accept responsibility for the consequences every time I hit a ball. 

It also taught me about delayed gratification. No matter how you look or how much money you have, you still have to learn your craft. You have to hit a lot of balls. You have to train.

There are disciplines of life that you learn from tennis or other sports. Another thing is that you learn to adapt. I have two sayings, champions adjust and pressure is a privilege.

When you’re playing a tennis match you can’t say stop I want to do another take or can I play that over. That’s the way sports are. They’re very real that way. They teach you lessons in life but the most important one is accepting responsibility. You have to make a decision, and live with the consequence, that’s what tennis does with every ball that comes to me. And...

Joel Steingold is known for his work on HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER, HAWAII FIVE-0, and SHAMELESS.

You can see him in numerous other Films and TV shows both on camera and as a VoiceOver actor.

Catch him currently in THE CHI.

Be an asset to the environment that you’re working in.

What are you doing daily, weekly, monthly, to enhance your career?

"Work begets work."

Specialize in the slow game

Don’t worry about the money initially.

 Burnout means you are at a point where an extended period of time has gone by without you taking care of yourself.

Whatever you put before taking care of yourself, you’re going to lose.

When you’re burnt out take a step back and observe.

Take time out to think about where you are in your life and where you wanna go.

What my ego thinks I can get done and what I can actually get done are very two different things.

Overwhelm happens when I am trying to catch up with what my ego thinks I can get done.

Slow down and look at a week, a month, a quarter, a year.

Start to plan, and take some of the pressure off.

Emotions that come up:

• Burnout
• tired
• defeated
• disappointed in myself
• am I ever going to achieve this?

Cure:

• Baby step it.
• Take time off and just take care of me.
• Journal.

You don’t to quit, what you want is a break.

When I’m overwhelmed the number one thing I don’t want to do is stop but the number one thing I need to do is stop.

Expectations are premed...

About Eric:

Eric Nelsen is a multiple Emmy Award winning and Tony Award nominated American actor and producer. He is best known for his work as an actor in Hulu's revival of All My Children playing AJ Chandler, and most recently, his recurring role in season 4 of Showtime's hit drama The Affair. 

On stage, Nelsen portrayed Brett Sampson in the original Broadway production of 13, and starred in The Good Mother, produced by The New Group. He has appeared in over 30 television series, including The Blacklist, Girls, The Following, NCIS, Blue Bloods, and iCarly.  Nelsen has also appeared in the Universal Pictures film A Walk Among the Tombstones opposite Academy Award nominee Liam Neeson and Coming Through the Rye opposite Academy Award winner Chris Cooper.

In 2018, Nelsen most recently won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Digital Daytime Drama Series for his work on the Amazon web series The Bay. As a producer, Nelsen has won three Daytime Emmys for his work...

So many feelings come up around the opening

• I’m not ready...
• How do I do this?
• Will I sound like a fool talking to real people?

There is a special anxiety around it.

There was anxiety around the pandemic because it had never happened before…but that same anxiety is around opening up because it’s never happened before either.

What are the things we can do to take care of ourselves emotionally while this is going on?

Fear and anxiety are never going away, but how we handle those can change.

When we stay in anxiety, we are in victim energy, catabolic energy— energy that eats itself, it's self-destructive.

We want to be in anabolic energy.

How can you break it down? Baby step it.

• Turn our attitude into if I’m anxious about xyz…then what you want to ask yourself is “how can I take responsibility for that?
• ie: If I’m afraid of redoing my resume, then what is one small action I can do to work towards that?
• Go as slowly as you need to in order to take care of yourself.
• Ju
...

About Mark:

Mark Ivanir has been working as a professional film and television actor in Los Angeles since 2001. His first major film role was in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Oscar-winning epic SCHINDLER’S LIST. He rejoined with Spielberg twice, first for a cameo appearance in Terminal, then again for his much anticipated Tintin. A pivotal role in Robert Deniro’s 2006 film, The Good Shepherd, landed Mark a role in Barry Levinson’s What Just Happened, this time acting alongside Deniro. Currently, Ivanir awaits the release of four studio features: Johny English Reborn (starring Rowan Atkinson), Everybody Loves Whales (staring Drew Barrymore, Kristen Bell, John Krassinsky), A Late Quartet (co starring Philip Seymor Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Christopher Walken) and 360 (co starring Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law, Rachel Weitz and Ben Foster). He has booked over 35 Guest Star and Guest Lead roles on television shows such as: 24, Monk, CSI NY, Law and Order, Fringe, CSI Miami, Nikita and many ot...

Think of something that happened to you that you’ve held with you throughout your career and created some sort of thought attached to it.

Think about how that instance is holding you back.

“Forgiving is not forgetting, it’s letting go of the hurt.”

Resentment- the only person it’s hurting is you.

Think of resentment as a replay on a football field.

When you have a resentment, and replay what happened in your head, you are reseeing it.

Ex: Two guys collide, and you hear the break of the bone, and the commentators go ooh that was a bad break, and they watch it again. The next time you swear the sound got clarified, louder, and you swear the grimace of the guy who got hurt got bigger, the color got brighter.

And each time they play it again, the sound gets louder, the color gets brighter.

Resentment does just that.

“Don’t allow someone to live rent free in your head.”

How many resentments do I have that are taking up energy and space?

This is the question: Can I love myself e...

About Ed:

Ed Lewis is a Voice Director for Video Games, Animation, Audiobooks, Commercials, Documentaries, Promos and for pretty much anything else you want him for. Ed’s extensive experience casting Film, Television and Theatre for ten years, paired with his actor training from the University of Michigan give him a unique perspective on how to approach Voice Over projects. He treats his work as a VO Director exactly the same as his time directing auditions for The Wire, Chappelle’s Show, 24 and others.

Ed’s experience working in casting with amazing directors like David Simon, David Koepp, David Esbjorson and all other sorts of Davids has taught him how to direct projects from children’s animation to first-person shooters. Communicating with actors can be a challenge, but Ed has the vocabulary, insight, experience and knowledge to communicate the client's vision and to make the recording sessions productive with even the most difficult and complex individuals.

What did casting ...