The In-Between: The Hardest Stage of an Acting Career (and Why Nobody Talks About It)

Hello there. Just gonna go live on Instagram and Facebook. Sweet. Welcome to Powerhouse Conversations. I'm really excited about today um because I think a lot of us can relate to this. So, here's the scene. You're scrolling Instagram, an ad pops up, and it's a class for actors, like a business class for actors. It's about how to set up your casting profiles or how to get your first head shot or how to find an agent. And you were like, I did all that years ago or I know how to do that, right? The next ad you see is some master class on booking the call back or you know something more advanced and they're like yeah this is for actors who are auditioning every week like you know you need to have opportunities this is booking the series regular whatever and you're like well that would be nice but I'm auditioning like a handful of times a year or maybe a few times a month so one of these offers is way below you you're not a beginner anymore. And the next one you feel like is just a little bit above you. And so you just have this feeling of like there's nothing that's out there that's for me. An actress that I was talking to recently really summed it up, which is why I'm having this conversation with you. She said, "I feel like I'm a little bit of an in between for many of those kinds of offers right now." And so, I want to use her language, the in between. You're past the beginner stage, but you're not yet booking consistently. You're not at the place where you're like, "Yes, I can comfortably earn a living from this." And you're standing in this like weird liinal gap that almost nobody is speaking to right now. So today is going to be all about that. What the in between is, why I believe it's genuinely like the hardest stage of an acting career and what to do because there is there is like a playbook for this in a way and I want you to know what that is. So let's get into it. Clip [snorts] that. All right. So um first let me just talk a little bit more about what this in between stage I'm talking about is because half of the problem with this is that it doesn't really have a name. So, you know, you might be in the in between if you have real training, you have years of real training and you're good. Like another class is not the thing that is standing between you and the career that you want. Of course, you want to continue to get better, but you have the skills to do the things that you want to do. You have materials. You have head shot. you have a reel, even if it's not like showing the type of footage that you want, like it's a decent reel that shows you, you know, you have your casting profile set up. Maybe this stuff needs work cuz it can always get better, but you're not starting from zero. You're in between you're in the in between. If you have booked things, you know, you might have a co-star here and there, you might have an indie here, you know, you've done some theater, you have proof that you can do this, and there are people who know the work that you can do, people who have who have hired you, but the auditions feel like a trickle, not the flow that you want, and your bookings are occasional, like you don't feel like it's consistent. And when you look for guidance, you feel like everything is either like yelling down at you, beginning actors 101, or this is for working actors who are already auditioning every week. So if that's you, the first thing I want you to know is that you are not behind. You are not stuck in some weird version of the beginner stage. Like this is this is actually a different stage. It's its own thing. It has its own rules. And every actor who has ever built a career probably spent serious time living in the stage. They just don't talk about it afterwards because it's not fun. Like there's no place for this in the highlight reel. Clip that. So why is this in between stage the hardest stage? I think there are three reasons for that. First, there are no real milestones. The beginner stage is full of milestones. I got my first head shot. I got my first agent. I got my first like real audition. I got my first booking. Like there are things that you can point to that show that you're making progress and that feels good. But when you're in the in between, it's almost like there not a lot of milestones and you're doing the work, but the work kind of is invisible. you know, warm, keeping relationships warm, um, making your positioning more clear, improving your materials, building recognition of your name, you know, none of it is like, hey, this is what I did this week. I warmed a relationship with a casting director that I met at a workshop. Like, it's just not it feels like nothing is happening even though stuff is happening. Clip that. The second reason that this in between stage is one of the hardest is that the advice that you hear everywhere kind of stops applying to you. All the actor advice that's on the internet was kind of built for someone else. It's built for either, you know, the beginner where you've known this for 5 years already. Um, and also you start to wonder like are the basics my problem? like, do I need to get new head shot again? No. No, you probably don't, right? And then the advanced content assumes that you're getting all this opportunity that you don't have yet. Like, how am I going to apply this like audition technique if I don't even have auditions? So, you're navigating this super confusing stretch of your career with stuff that's not that helpful, you know. Um, another person that I was talking to recently kind of put this into words that I think were are, you know, helpful. It's not just making yourself do the thing. It's knowing what to do. Clip that. And then the third reason that I think the in between stage of an actor's career is so challenging is that this is where the doubt comes in and it starts to take hold and it's nasty. You know, when you're a beginner, you're just getting started. There's this newness to everything. You hit these milestones and it's really exciting. You know, you get your new head shot, you're like sharing them. It's exciting. You get a real, it's exciting. So, there's all this hope. And also, you haven't been spending years doing this. So, you still have like this idea that this could happen at any time. And yeah, there's a hopefulness to it. And if you're consistently working as an actor, you have evidence. You have things to talk about. You have bookings to talk about. And this in between actor doesn't have either of those things. It's just a lot of effort without any confirmation that it's working year after year. And so guess what? People quit. This is the stage where quitting happens. Not because people aren't talented, but because nobody told them that this stretch of time is normal. So they just kind of like read it as this is not for me and I need to go do something that's going to allow me to have the life that I want to have. Clip that. And why is it that there's not a lot of content about this stage and a lot of people talking about this and a lot of advice around this? Because well guess what? It's easy to sell to beginners. It's really easy to be like, "You don't know anything. Here's what you need to know. You need head shot. You need an agent. They, you know, beginners will Google it, find somebody to sell it to them. Boom. The in between actors problem is harder to like encapsulate in a 3-week program and put it on a sales page because the problems are more subtle. It's about your positioning. It's about whether your materials are actually telling the story that you tell. It's about your relationships, which take time to build. It's about strategy. It's about consistency and showing up. So, you are mostly getting skipped by the content machine of coaches and whatever. And that's not that doesn't mean that you can't be helped, but that means that there is a little bit of a gap there. and it's not your fault. So what does the in between actually require? I believe that the core of it is a shift from acquiring and getting new things to connecting connecting authentically. Hey Jody. And that's really what it's all about. Um, you know, the beginner stage is all about acquisition. You need to acquire training. You need to acquire materials. You need to get your casting profiles together. You need to have a vocabulary for what stuff means in the industry, right? It's like a lot of stuff. And because that's what worked earlier in their career, the in between actors instinct is to be like, "Okay, things are stalling. So, let me acquire more. Let me take another class. Let me do new head shot again. Let me learn a different technique. But at this place in your career, this is not about acquisition anymore. You mostly have the stuff. The in between responds to three different things. First, legibility. Not more materials, not necessarily different materials, but materials that are telling one clear story. Does everything that you have, your head shot, your real, your profiles, the way you are perceived on the internet, your social, your socials, all that good stuff, does that point at the same castable specific actor? Clarity is important. And if you have a clear story, your materials don't even have to be that great. it. They will outperform beautiful, amazing materials that tell five different stories because it's just like confusing. The second thing is relationships. This is what is going to power this entire stage. This is why I talk about this so much. It's why we do things like the fearless 21 challenge in the table. You get through this in between stage through consistent human outreach, reconnecting with everyone you've already worked with, staying warm with casting directors who've already called you in. Building new genuine industry friendships, making a power move a day, right? Even one a week is going to keep you moving because the auditions that break you out of the in between usually don't come from cold submissions even by your agent. They come from people who know you. Clip that. And then the third thing that the in between requires this hard in between stage of an acting career is that you've got to prioritize data over your feelings. The in between always feels like nothing is working. It feels terrible sometimes, like honestly. So, you need facts to really make your decisions. You need to understand what's really happening. Um, so I'm talking about tracking your submissions, understanding your audition ratio. Um, tracking your outreach and what comes back from it, reviewing it monthly because your feelings are going to tell you throw in the towel. It's time to quit. And the data is going to tell you what to adjust. And so we're going to trust the data here. Legibility, relationships, and data. That's that's the playbook for the in between stage of an acting career. None of it's glamorous, but all of it is so doable, and it's actually not that hard, right? This is the stage where your career is actually going to get built. Clip that. So the in between is actually who I built the table for. It's not a level below you. It's not a level ahead of you. It's for the actor that you are right now. We do all of this together. The positioning work, the outreach, the monthly review of your actual numbers. And you'll be in this community of actors who are also at the stage where you feel seen and you're actually safe to say, "This is hard. I'm having trouble with this. I'm struggling with this. And it's also built for actors who actually have lives, who, you know, have families, who have other jobs, who have other demands on their time, you're likely not able to spend 40 hours a week on this. And so, if you're tired of navigating this using someone else's map or using a map that doesn't apply to you, come take a look. It's claim.com. The link is in my bio and um in the description on YouTube and all that good stuff. So, if you are watching, hello to those of you who are watching. Let me know if you feel like the in between is where you are. Um how long have you felt like you're in it? And what's the most what's the most annoying advice for actors that you keep getting that clearly is not for you? I want to talk about that. Hey y'all. While you are dropping that in here's the whole thing in three lines. I'm just going to summarize what we talked about. The in between is a real stage, a real career stage. It doesn't mean you're failing. Almost everyone who made it has spent time in this stage where you are not a beginner, but you're not quite working as consistently as you want. And it's kind of confusing because the milestones disappear. The easy stuff is no longer stuff you need to do anymore. And the advice stops fitting that you're hearing. Not because something's wrong with you, but because you're past that or you're not quite there yet. And the way you do it is by focusing on your legibility, your relationships, accumulating real data to make decisions on and not scrambling and thinking, "Oh, I need new headsh shots. I need a new class. I need a new this. I need a new that." You are not behind. You are in the middle of the build. So, keep going. I'll see you next week.