Golden -- I Am Not Afraid.

Today marks the first day of my next adventure. 

I flew in from my final week of filming Olympus last night, as I rode the bus back into Toronto I had a moment, or an exhale, as I realized, "It is done." 

This is not to say that I was waiting for what has been one of the most life changing events of my life to be over, it was acceptance that I've completed one chapter and will now be moving into the next. 

As I sit here, this morning in my bed, with my recently reclaimed cats, kneading my spare pillow into submission, I feel open; I feel excited and inspired. The possibilities have become endless once again. This might scare some, but I am not afraid. Instead, I am thankful. Over the last few months I've had the pleasure and the gift of spending a copious amount of time being with myself; learning who I am. 

I shifted immensely over this project, as always, as an actor and a man. 

I'm slowly cementing the people in my life that make me feel creative, allow me to be myself and encourage my offbeat patterns. Identifying this circle is allowing me to relinquish my need for control, gives me my much-desired confidence and makes me realize that we all need each other. 

Before I flew out to Vancouver, last week, my agent and I had a lovely conversation about where we want to go from here; I'm coming off playing a series lead on a network television show and have a new standard of work that feeds my trajectory. This is not to say that I'm now a classist, entitled actor who will only do a select amount of projects per year, *cough, Daniel Day-Lewis, cough* I'm certainly not in that position (far from it). What it is allowing me to do is give myself perspective and artist choice. 

As ambitious as it may sound, I don't want to be part of a project I'm not proud of. I don't want to look back in 10-15 years and go, "God, why did I do that?" or, "I needed to pay rent.." I will say this enough about my "Joe jobs". I want each and every artistic endeavour to be a source of pride and education. Perhaps it's a lofty idea, only time will tell. I have a wonderful and supportive partner, in my agent, and I know that she has my back; A rarity in the industry. With her and I's partnership at the height it is and me coming off of a project like this; everything is my favour. Now more than ever, it would behoove me to not go out there and kill it in my auditions. 

With my ideals aligned, my partnership strong and my resume improved, the only thing I need to get underneath me, to be truly successful, are my nerves. I have to learn how to work with them, rather than against. I shouldn't be ashamed of my nerves, but should thank them for letting me know I'm alive and passionate. They are part of me. 

Between some good/new friends, the biggest pieces of advice I have received lately are, ironically, to stop taking peoples advice and to start listening to myself. I have been in student mode for so long now and it's imperative for me to step into the artists/adult life; trust my abilities and the experiences I have under my belt. 

I have a tendency to continually ask people for advice, simply because I want to hang out with them or want to talk to them, almost always it turns into me asking them questions I already know the answers to, or walking away without much more perspective than what I went in with. I can meet someone new and not talk about my craft, or how they deal with being an artist, as radical as that may seem; we can simply talk about life. We can talk about their other interests, which are more essential to my work than ego stroking. It also keeps dawning on me that I have worked more than some people twice my age, in TV at least, and need to take pride in that fact. I don't need to start spitting my advice on strangers, but I can rest easy knowing that I carry that experience, both on my resume and on my face. I don't want to lose my positivity and wide-eyed perspective, but I have to step up and become an adult, "Studentmon digivolve to ADULTMON!" 

I have been meeting new people, who aren't actors, who have been making me feel so much more human. They have allowed me to learn about them and hear about their lives, which are vastly different than mine, and rightfully so. It's been refreshing to learn about things besides acting/writing/producing, I love all those things but sometimes one needs perspective. 

Right now, that one is I. 

I have accepted that I will need to get a part time job in the New Year, and am not bothered by that, because I will find something that will supplement my life, rather than become it. That's what I must to remember; My focus is my creative life, not being the best Starbucks barista. 

Life is in a great place for me; I'm golden. 

A good friend of mine and I had dinner the other night and spoke about the ease I feel in life right now and how I do not want to drop below this level again. She replied, "Then don't let it, but if it does acknowledge it, be in that state truthfully, and then rise back up." She is a wise woman. 

And now, I leave you with some Jill Scott: 

Golden

W.

Honeymoon Period

I've heard, the best way to learn how to swim is to be thrown into the deep end. I'm actually a great swimmer, so this idiom doesn't really apply to me in liquid environments, but it does apply to my first day on set.

In the last few weeks, as with any new job, I have found myself learning how to negotiate my needs for each situation while working to bring the writer/director/producers ideas to life. It's requiring me to put a lot of trust in the powers that be, which is good for me. 

As you may be aware, I have a tendency (I use that word lightly) to over analyze things. So the less time I have to think about the situation or ask questions the better. I'm known for wasting all kinds of time talking rather than doing the task that is required of me. 

Cut to: Me in karate class when I was 13, all I did was distract my classmates with ramblings of Digimon and going on Parisian tours. Eventually, it came time to show what we had learned and I was put into the ring. It went something like this: Karate with Wayne.

A similar situation happened when I tried to play the clarinet in junior band. 

When one is only allowed 2 or 3 takes, max, for a scene, one learns very quickly that there is not a lot of room for failure. Lessons need to be learned quickly and without much discussion. This is very different from theatre school where we would all go around, share our feelings about the scene, discoveries we had made and what worried us. Then we would all lie on the ground and breathe deeply for about an hour while an unlucky classmate massaged the tension out of our sweaty backs. 

Ahh, the good ol' days. 

This particular show is shooting an immense amount of footage a day, moments lost worrying about trivial things is money out the window. This lack of time has forced me to start filtering out the most dire and important questions for the director, and figuring the rest out myself. In hindsight, this is a valuable lesson to learn for me not only an actor, but also a person.

Another one of my character flaws is that I, again, have a tendency, to take things personally. Mainly because I open myself up to people, more than I need to, and expect them to respect my "honesty and openness", but unfortunately, society views this as a weakness and people end up using me for their personal gain. As I get older, I am learning how to protect my heart and only expose it when it's truly safe. I think a huge lesson I'm learning here is that although I feel like Lizzie MaGuire in her movie, working on this project, it's still a job in the real world and I can't let peoples' insecurities and judgments affect my work. 

The rose-tinted glasses have been broken; the honeymoon period is over. 

Although the aforementioned may sound jaded, I want to state that I feel very taken care of on this show. The cast and crew are wonderful people, I feel honoured to be surrounded by some extremely talented, albeit not well known (yet), actors who are wonderful resources for me. Through them, and listening to their stories I'm learning how to protect my work and releasing my need for constant approval.

This quote has been motivating me lately:

"When you become confident, your opinions start to matter and your ability to work with people grows exponentially." -Kiefer Sutherland.

In case you missed my last post: I have launched, while trying to avoid pretension, my official website and Facebook page. The idea behind the launch is to streamline all of my social media pages into one access point. If you are interested in following me and my journey, I encourage you to take a gander! 

W.