On my trip home last weekend, I found myself reenacting the moment-of-truth in an HBO miniseries: I sat sobbing next to a stranger on a Greyhound bus bound for Baltimore, MD. Why the histrionics? I had been rejected from a program I applied for, and along with a string of other “no thank yous” I was beginning to feel more than a little discouraged.

Then, I got a little message from the maker. The bus pulled over on the side of the highway. Apparently another bus had broken down, and its passengers had been waiting for a few hours. This is after they rode for 45 minutes on a flat tire before being rescued by a police siren urging the driver to pull over. Needless to say it gave me a little perspective, and a chuckle or two to boot.

Once I reached my destination—my uncles house in the boondocks—I was met with a little more encouragement. My family swarmed me with questions about my prop

osed move to the west coast, my induction into the NY actors’ circle via a Law and Order episode, and my weight loss. (The product of moving from the south to New York City without money for a metro card during college…) They teased me, tried to force-feed me pork, and looked me square in the eyes to say, “We’re so proud of you.”

It doesn’t get much better than that.

I’ve been more fortunate than a lot of young struggling actresses and starving artists. In fact, I use those terms sarcastically because I am neither struggling nor starving. Actually, I don’t know many folks who are. The image of the young actress waiting tables and running off to auditions, though common, is not the complete story. I have friends who work in event planning, friends who baby-sit the smartest kids in the country, and even friends who operate their own small businesses in the process of auditioning.

I chose acting because I love it, and because I have the attention span of a shoe fly at a barbeque. I’ve had about 17 jobs since I started working…less than 10 years ago. I started auditioning for film and television with some success in college. After college, I enjoyed a brief stint as a personal assistant, a grocery stocker (overnight!), and a house manager for an Off Broadway theater house. Currently, I work for an organization that combines my two life-loves: acting and activism.

All of that to say, don’t believe the clichés. A lot has changed for actresses in the industry; especially for Black actresses. Yes, I’ve been on auditions for music videos, but I’ve also auditioned for leading roles on networks that have historically reserved leading roles for young white men. In both cases, I walk into the audition room and I see Black women, as I know us to be: diverse. We walk into an office in midtown with different styles, shades of skin, hair, heights, widths, and voices. It’s not a matter of being dark or light as in the era of School Daze, and the kinship is out of this world.
After my mini-series breakdown on the greyhound, I sent out a text to my closest friends asking for prayers of encouragement. One text came from another young actress who I see all the time. She wrote:

“When I feel like that, when I hear the voices trying to bring me down, I just go the other way. I say it out loud! If there’s any action you can take—do it. Read a book; watch a film that inspires, paint, draw, or just smile. Know you’re on the right path, and when you are close the voices work overtime to mess with you.”

This is the text from a woman whose work I respect and admire. We met on the set of a student thesis film—a passion project that is now in the festival circuit & doing very well. She is one of many who represent what the film industry has to look forward to in the next few years because of course it’s not all pomegranates and green tea frappuccinos. For every film directed by Charles S. Dutton, there are ten music videos calling for voluptuous or model-type women. For every role like Key in Children of Men, there are eighteen for a new reality show. There are tons of flaws in the system, but I must believe the potential for growth reaches through the cracks in the supposed glass ceiling.

Then, there is personal choice. Though I’ve placed them as opposites to the work I prefer, music videos and reality TV can pay the bills. Admittedly, I am a snob. Much to my casting-director friends’ chagrin, I won’t take work because it pays or because it builds my resume. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t play a drug-addict because believe me, growing up in Baltimore I know it’s a reality that the world still needs to know about. It simply means that for many young Black actresses, acting is a part of life, but not life itself. We no longer have to make compromises to our spirits for a dream that fades before it is ever fully ignited.

Of course, compromise does not mean sacrifice. I have hustled to pay for training. I have missed major family events, and even the aforementioned trip home was a two-day rarity. I hate the look in the eyes of my friends and family that says, “We’re proud of you, but we miss you too.” And I have definitely stayed awake for 48-plus hours after sleeping for two. (This during my overnight grocery-stocking phase of 6 months.) At the end of the day, however, I realize that days need not have endings. I see that even time itself can be challenged and stretched and mediated.

I find what I, and life, am truly capable of.

Tonight, I continue to pack my few possessions in preparation for my move to California. Fortunately, it is as much a life-choice as a career-option, and I have never been so confident in any decision I’ve made to date. I will be starting over in many ways. I don’t have the connections or reputation I have in New York, but the most important lesson I’ve learned as a young actress is that you can’t wait to live your life. Life must not be about the next role or the next step. It is really and truly about the process of living itself; a lesson that makes an artist infinitely more interesting to watch, and gives one far more to say in the process of storytelling.

So, I look forward to the adventures ahead. What is the industry like in L.A.? I’ve heard rumors, but half the stuff I heard about New York would have put the breaks on my career had I believed it. Besides, courage, optimism, or insanity are the only options for mindsets in this business. I have a healthy dose of all three. I figure there are two disparities between my move to California and my move to New York five years ago. I predict I’ll eat L.A. up like Fruity Pebbles…whereas N.Y. was more like unfrosted mini-wheats…First; I have a foundation of faith, friends, and opportunity in California. Although I moved to New York for college, I knew no one, and my course load could not prepare me for life in this city. Secondly, and more importantly, my family will visit me in California.
I’m sure of it.