By Priscilla Faia

If you're reading this article, I see you. I have been you. Maybe you worked consistently for ten years and then suddenly you haven't booked a job in two years (like I didn’t!). Maybe you haven't booked something in three months, three weeks, or ever. Whatever your version is, I know what happens next. The dread starts to seep in. Oh no. Something's wrong. I'm not doing enough. I'm not enough. My agents are going to drop me. Why am I not even getting callbacks?

And slowly, everything that happens (or doesn't happen) becomes another tally mark you're mentally keeping to convince yourself that something is wrong.

You don't get the audition: tally 〵

You don't get a callback: tally 〵

Someone you know books a series regular: tally 〵

You see another person announce a booking on Instagram: tally 〵

You tape something you thought you did really well and never hear anything back: another friggen’ tally 〵

Eventually, all of those little things start adding up to one big story: I'm failing. I'm not good enough. Something is wrong with me.

And then maybe, you book something. And your immediate thought isn't even, Holy shit yay, I booked a job! It's, Oh shit. Now I have to do this.

Oooofff. Have I been there.

The Problem is Probably NOT your Acting

Here's what I want to tell you from what I've seen and what I know ( I know everything ps. by the way - JOKING) As an actor who's been through it, and as an acting coach who has worked with so many incredible actors: the problem might not be your acting. It might not be your technique, your audition, your headshot, your lighting, your hair, or the way you taped the scene.

It might be what has happened to your relationship with yourself while you've been waiting for the industry to validate you.

At some point, you may have started outsourcing your approval. Your validation. Your sense of whether you're doing a good job. And the industry is a f*&^ing terrible place to outsource those things because the industry is so wildly inconsistent. You can be brilliant and not book. You can give the best audition of your life and not get the job. You can be doing incredible work consistently and still go through a period where nothing lands.

It can have absolutely nothing to do with you.

There are a million things happening outside of your control. Casting decisions, budgets, timing, chemistry, the list is endless. Sometimes someone else is simply a better fit for what they're looking for.

But when you're desperate for an answer, you start trying to control the uncontrollable.

You don't hear back from an audition, so you question yourself. You get another audition, and instead of asking, What do I think this character is? you start asking, What do they want this character to be? You make a choice, then second-guess it. You wonder if your lighting is wrong. You fix your hair. You change your eyeline. You convince yourself that if you can just figure out the right combination of variables, you can somehow change the outcome.

But you're looking in the wrong place.

The thing that matters is sitting right in front of you: your work. Your audition. Your version. How you see this character. How this character feels inside of you. What you believe. What you want. What specific, strange, human choice you want to make.

From everything I've seen and experienced, the thing that actually moves the needle is you doing YOUR work. Not reverse-engineering what casting wants. Not trying to become the version of an actress you think will get picked.

You.

Doing your work.

So What Happened to Your Instincts?

This is the part nobody really talks about. When you haven't been booked a gig for a while, it's not just that you're not working. You're living with a constant, low-level suggestion that maybe you're not good enough. And that shit gets under your skin.

You start looking outside yourself for evidence that you're okay: a callback, a booking, an agent email, a compliment, a casting director giving feedback, "Great tape." And when you don't get those things, you feel worse. So you try harder. You prepare more. You analyze more. You obsess more.

And somewhere along the way, you may have lost something really important:

The FUN.

You stop playing.

You don’t make the weird choice that came to you because you second guess.

You stop letting yourself surprise yourself.

You stop thinking, What would I love to do with this? and start thinking, What do they want me to do?

And without realizing it, you've started disconnecting from the very thing that makes you interesting as an actor: your instincts.

Your specificity. Your point of view. Your ability to walk into a scene and actually have an opinion about what's happening.

The work becomes about getting it right. But acting isn't about getting it right. It's about getting specific enough to be alive and present in a scene.

And honestly? Sometimes you need to remember that you're allowed to have some fucking fun.

My Two Years Without Work

I worked consistently for about ten years. And then I didn't book a job for two years.

Two years.

For a long time it felt like the worst thing in the world. Now, honestly, I think it was a privilege.

Not because I enjoyed not working….I absolutely did not (that shit was awful). Especially when someone would say “oh, are you acting still?” I would want to wade into the ocean never to be seen again. But those two years forced me to do something I hadn't really done before: get to know myself.

I had just left a relationship that was incredibly toxic and I stayed far too long. And NO, I will not be giving you the tea. I know you're dying for it you nosy thing! But this isn't really about the relationship. It's about what happened to me inside of it.

I had spent a long time disconnecting from myself….my opinions, my instincts, my wants, my boundaries, my voice. And when I left, I had to figure out who the fuck I was again.

Which turned out to be one of the greatest gifts I could have given myself as an actor.

Because here's something I've come to believe very deeply: if you don't know yourself, how the fuck do you expect to understand someone else?

Acting asks us to access the inner life of another human being. To understand why someone behaves the way they do. To find their contradictions, their desires, their shame, their joy, their wounds, their weirdness, their humanity.

And the more connected I became to my own humanity, the more access I had to exploring other peoples.

The Work Isn't Just Acting Work

Getting out of your own way isn't another acting technique. It's a whole other ball game. And sometimes the best way to become a better actor has absolutely nothing to do with acting.

Go have the uncomfortable conversation you've been avoiding. Pick up a hobby you're terrible at. Go somewhere you've never been. Fall in love. Get your heart broken. Make something badly. Spend an afternoon alone without your phone. Figure out what you actually like. Change your mind. Say no. Say yes. Have an opinion. Learn something. Let yourself be a beginner.

Live your fucking life.

Because your life is the raw material.

The more deeply you experience your own life, the more places you have to go when you step into someone else's. And maybe that's the part we've gotten backwards. We think we need to spend every spare minute becoming a better actor. Sometimes you need to spend a little more time becoming a more connected human being.

Sometimes It Just Isn't Your Season

I want to be super clear, because I don't want this article to accidentally become another piece of advice that tells you that if you're not booking, you're doing something wrong.

Sometimes you're not booking because you're not booking.

You can be doing incredible work. You can be deeply connected to yourself. You can be making bold, specific, truthful choices in every audition. You can be working with brilliant coaches, showing up prepared, taking care of yourself, and doing everything “right" and still not get the job.

It can have absolutely nothing to do with you.

Sometimes you're not the right type for what they're looking for. Sometimes someone else has a chemistry with the lead that you can't manufacture. Sometimes the project changes. Sometimes the network changes its mind. Sometimes they go in a completely different direction.

Sometimes it's just not your season. And that's friggen hard!

Because we are so conditioned to believe that if we work hard enough, we should be rewarded. But this industry doesn't work that way.

Your season might be quiet right now.

That doesn't mean your season is over.

Another season will come back around for you. Something more juicy than you could have ever expected.

The challenge is staying grounded in your belief in yourself and your work while you're waiting for it.

That, to me, is one of the hardest parts of being an actor.

Make Fans

My old agent - whom I still love dearly - used to say something that has stayed with me for years:

"We're making fans."

It's probably my favourite piece of advice I've ever been given.

Because it remains true.

I have gotten offers, auditions, and straight to producer sessions because I've built relationships with casting directors over the years. They know me. They know my work. They trust me.

And here's the funny thing: I've taped with some of these people for years and I've never actually booked a job with them.

But they keep bringing me back.

Why?

Because they trust me.

They know what I'm going to bring into the room. They know I'm going to show up prepared. They know I'm going to make a choice. They know I'm going to play. They know they can put me in front of a director and I'm going to be a good collaborator.

That's worth something.

And if I've learned anything in this business, it's that relationships are everything.

Not in a gross, transactional, "How can this person get me a job?" kind of way.

In a human way. Be someone people want to work with. Be someone who makes the room better. Be curious. Be generous. Do good work. Show up. Make choices. Have fun. Let people get to know you.

And then keep going.

Because sometimes the person who remembers you isn't the person who books you today. They're the person who calls you six months from now for something you never auditioned for. They're the person who says, "I have an actress I think would be perfect for this." They're the person who puts you on a director's radar. They're the person who brings you in again. And again. And again.

You are not just auditioning for the job in front of you. You're building a body of work and a community of people who know what you bring.

That's what my old agent meant by making fans.

And I think it's one of the healthiest ways to think about this career.

So What Do You Do With All of This?

If you're not booking right now, I'm not going to tell you that the industry isn't part of the problem. It is. There are things you cannot control: casting decisions, budgets, timing, type, chemistry, networks, other actors, and a million other things.

But there is one thing you can start paying attention to: what is your relationship with yourself while you're waiting?

Are you trusting yourself? Are you making choices that are actually yours? Are you still having fun? Are you doing the work because you love it — or because you desperately need the work to prove something to you?

Are you walking into auditions trying to get the answer right, or are you bringing your answer?

Because the goal isn't to become so good that you eliminate rejection.

That’s an enormous waste of time because it’s impossible guys!

The goal is to become so connected to yourself that rejection doesn't get to decide who you are.

And when you are connected to yourself, you can keep showing up. You can keep making fans. You can keep building relationships. You can keep doing good work even when nobody is immediately rewarding you for it.

You can have a quiet season without turning it into a story about your worth.

That's the work.

And believe me, I'm still doing it.

Why We Built the Liberated Actress Playground

This is also why Aliyah O'Brien and I built the Liberated Actress Playground.

We kept seeing the same thing: brilliant actresses who didn't need another person telling them they weren't good enough. They needed somewhere to come back to themselves.

The LAP is an online community for women in the acting industry who want to build a healthier, more creative, more sustainable relationship with their careers. We talk about auditions, obviously, but we also talk about the things underneath the audition: self-trust, nervous system regulation, creativity, rejection, ambition, boundaries, identity, and the weird emotional rollercoaster of being an actor.

Because we don't want to teach you how to become the actress you think the industry wants. We want to help you become more fully yourself—and then bring that into the room.

If You're in the Thick of It Right Now

If you're reading this and thinking, Yep. This is me, I want you to know something: you're not alone.

And you don't need to fix yourself because you haven't booked recently. You don't need to become more worthy. You don't need to earn your place. You don't need to obsess over your lighting until you've convinced yourself that your ring light is the reason you didn't book a guest star.

You might just need to come back to yourself. Come back to your instincts. Come back to your curiosity. Come back to the work.

And maybe, for a little while, stop asking, "How do I get them to choose me?" and start asking, "What do I want to bring?"

Because you can't control whether they choose you. But you can control whether you abandon yourself while you're waiting for them to.

If you need a little help finding your way back, we've created a collection of free resources for actresses to help you reconnect with your process, navigate auditions, and feel a little less alone in all of this.

GET LAP FREE RESOURCES HERE

I see you.

I've been you.

And I promise: this isn't the end of your story. It’s just the beginning.

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With love,

Co-Mother of the LAP,

Why You Aren’t Booking Acting Work (And It’s Not Because You’re a Terrible Actor)