While the documentary community is way ahead of Hollywood, it is still nowhere near where it needs to be. Filmmakers of color rarely get hired by the powerful production companies, and they are not getting supported enough by broadcasters and funders to tell their own stories.
Mr. Steven Bochco is a very wise man. After a many-monthed nationwide search to find a precocious teenage doctor, he hired me.
It scared me to death to think about improv, but I got hired for a year at Second City in Chicago, which made me nervous, but I found I could improvise. Then I was in a group called the Ace Trucking Company, which we'd do, like, a half hour set of material, then open up for improvisation.
Money begets money. If you don't have that, you wait around to be hired by somebody at the mercy of others. If you have that money in your hand, you desperately try to make the best use of it and move ahead. And that's generating income for yourself.
When I got hired to do 'Guardians,' it was the dream of a lifetime for me. This is what I've been working towards. I've always wanted to create a space adventure, and especially a space adventure with a raccoon. Now that I'm finally able to do it, I created exactly the movie I wanted to make.
Most things I get hired on, I get hired because I improvise something funny, or they just think I look weird.
When I was a teenager, I thought maybe I'll be a filmmaker, making film documentaries. My dream when I was a girl was I would be hired by 'National Geographic' or work with David Attenborough, but it didn't happen. I became a model.
The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing.
Like many people, I kicked around, struggled to become a writer, finally got my first full-time job around 27, 28, at 'The Hill' newspaper. They hired me as a copy editor, which was kind of funny because I'm semi-blind because I have an eye disorder.
I realized my dream and was proud to be a Superstar. I never won a title, but being hired by WWE and being a Superstar, to me, was like winning a championship.
I'm convinced that I've been hired for jobs because I can cry on cue.
Waiting to be hired, as an actor, especially, is soul-destroying... There is always something you can do... Create something, a play reading... Anything. But don't rely on other people to come to you. Put yourself out there.
