The Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast

I hope you had A safe week. I am actually recording this podcast from New York. However, I do live in Los Angeles and I own a house there. 

And, like so many, all of us Angelenos, it's been a terrifying week, and I'm saying it's been a terrifying week, and I haven't even been there. 

But I've been watching the fire creep closer to my house, and at the moment I am recording this, thankfully, I am out of immediate danger.

My family is out of immediate danger. My house is out of immediate danger. 

I want to talk today. Briefly, this will be a shorter podcast about stress. Because over the past two weeks, I have endured a lot of stress. My mom and dad came out to Los Angeles to celebrate the holidays with us. 

And on Christmas night, my mom unfortunately had a stroke.

She spent the night in the hospital. And believe it or not, this is my mom's seventh. That once I got my parents settled, almost like I went upstairs and that's when I heard about the fires in L.A. and...

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Today is a podcast request. Yes! I take requests. So if you have an idea for a podcast, send me an email.

So this is a listener who wanted to talk about the idea of being too nice. 

So being too nice. She said, how often have you heard, “You're too nice.” 

I have had a few times and while I appreciate the other person's honesty and transparency, it got me thinking about the undertone behind that phrase, especially when it comes to going after what you want as an actor, performer or artist. 

In pop culture, actors can get a general reputation for being, dare I say it, self centered or too into themselves. 

But you also hear about those mostly established actors who also get the, “Oh, they're so great to work with and are so nice. What rules do you follow? What rules do you fudge a little?”

Especially if you're still trying to establish yourself as an actor. 

Does being too nice translate into being...

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Hi, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful holiday week and let me be one of the first to wish you a very happy new year.

Last week it was to close out 2024 and this week it is to welcome 2025. 

So allow yourself to find a comfortable position and if that means you need to push pause and get settled that's just fine do that now.

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Today I'm going to be doing a meditation to close out the year. 

And you can feel free to do this meditation as many times as you want. 

Because you can also think of this meditation as being something to close out your day, or your hour, or your morning, or your month, or your week. 

But for our purposes today, it will be to close out 2024.

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Today I'm going to do a podcast on self care. 

And the reason why I'm doing it now is that I find that December January time to be in some ways the hardest time. 

And I just had this idea. I'm recording this a couple weeks before the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays.

And I'm like, Peter, you're going to need to really listen to this in a couple of weeks. 

But yeah, I'm going to be honest. I find December and January to be tough. 

December, because there's so much going on. 

And January, because even if I'm in California, it's cold. Sometimes it's really rainy. And I feel sometimes overwhelmed by the entire year ahead of me.

And I hope someone out there relates to that. 

I do find December and January to be the two trickiest months of the year. All the rest I'll take. But December. December, I particularly find December tough, but January's tough too. 

The focus of this podcast is on self care.

What I most need to...

Today is going to be a short podcast, but it's going to be a very useful one. 

I'm going to talk about morning routines. 

I'm going to be using, I haven't used it in a while, the fabulous Melody Beattie.

The Language of Letting Go

And this reading that I'm going to be coaching off of is called Morning Cues. Melody says, “There is an important message for us first thing every day. Often, once we get started with the day, we may not listen as closely to ourselves and life as we do in those still moments when we first awaken.

An ideal time to listen to ourselves is when we are laying quietly, our defenses are down, and we're open and most vulnerable.”

Now, I'm going to stop there because I'm going to tell you what I do for my morning routine and then I'm going to continue to read Melody's reading. 

Every morning, when I get up, I make myself a cup of tea.

That's a non negotiable. 

And then, while my husband makes me a egg white omelette, as he does...

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Today I'm going to talk to you about the hazard of making excuses as an actor. 

And I'm going to start with perhaps something that if you were like me, or you are like how I used to be the idea of it's only me. 

So it's only me and therefore it doesn't count or, I'm tough, I can handle it. 

One of the things that making excuses as an actor does is it stalls personal growth.

And anything that would affect me in a negative way, I used to be like, “Hey, I'm young. I can take it. Hey, no worries. I can overcome it.” 

Until I couldn't. 

And so the first thing I'm going to talk about in terms of the hazards of making excuses as an actor is just that. Stalling personal growth. 

See, now, as a middle aged woman, I don't want to do anything that stalls me.

I don't want to have any energy that is moving against me. 

I want everything moving for me. 

Because you know what? I deserve it. 

And so do you...

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Today I'm going to talk about what I find a sad subject, and it is about unsupportive friends and unsupportive family members.

And I'm gonna give you a few points and things to think about. So that you can have the support, at least from me, and I'll talk about getting more support in a moment, that helps you when you're dealing with this. 

Now, the first thing, and I know because, man, I hated this word when I first learned it, was boundaries.

Learning to set boundaries, clearly communicate your goals and values to others, and establish boundaries when necessary. 

This helps you to protect your energy and stay focused on what matters most to you without having that negativity affect you. 

Now, I think that's really important, and I'm going to say something about boundaries in a moment, but I also need to teach you this little phrase.

Don't go to the hardware store for lemons. 

If you know that a family member or a particular friend is...

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About Risa:

For the past 4 decades Risa has worked consistently as a director, producer, casting director, writer, and teacher, and is a founder of The BGB Studio, a training space and artistic home for actors. She’s had the great fortune to have collaborated with some of the most talented, passionate, and groundbreaking artists in the world. She’s continued to move successfully from one arena to another – from theatre to film to television and back. With two feature films in her directorial body of work – the cult classic, 200 CIGARETTES, and more recently, THE CON ARTIST, made in Canada, Risa’s also directed in television, including multiple episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE for the WB, and several shows for HBO, Lifetime, and Comedy Central.

Risa has cast some of the most memorable movies of the past 40 years. Risa’s résumé includes decades of classics such as DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN,...

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A subject that has come up with private clients of mine and in my weekly group class has been the subject of discussion of quitting. 

And the phrase that I have been coaching on, is don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

Don't quit five minutes before the miracle. 

And I get it. Especially for those of us in the U. S. who have been struggling with the industry this year. Let's just be blunt. It's a bitch, okay? It's just been awful. I have a friend of mine who's a producer and he says the word he keeps using is brutal.

It's been a brutal year. 

But here's the thing. We're not gonna quit. There is no plan B. 

So let's talk about the things that we need to do to motivate ourselves to not quit five minutes before the miracle. 

So I'm going to have five points that I want to make and I'll coach a little bit around each one.

So the first one is, and this is really true for someone who has been in this business for...