"Is it generally known that an actor's life is a difficult one - not glamorous, most of the time, and filled with disappointment and rejection and hard work? We who spend our lives working in the theatre know this so well that we may mistakenly assume the rest of the world knows, too. Yet clearly not, or no one would come from the ranks of civilian life to enlist in the wolrd of acting. Many do. The dream still exists: one's name up in lights, one's face up there on that giant screen, the adoration of the public, great romance, fame and glory.
The truth is that for every actor who gets hired for a part fifty or a hundred or two hundred do not. An actor is forever trying to get a part; an actor is forever getting rejected never knowing why, simply not wanted. An actor's life is not to be envied. It consists mostly of losing out, of being turned down. Unendurable, such a life, for most of us...
To go into acting is like asking for admission to an insane asylum. Anyone may apply, but only the certifiably insane are admitted... from any rational point of view, to become an actor is an act of insanity."
-from Audition by Michael Shurtleff
