The world feels like it’s coming apart. The industry seems uncaring. Your reps (if you have reps) are wrapped up in the Pilot Season/awards/industry swirl and can’t help; hell, they’re not even returning your emails. There’s a knot in your stomach and you feel stuck. As a deep-feeling being, you’re carrying a ton of stress, [...]

Rejection feels crappy. It feels awful to have someone tell you, “No, we’re choosing someone else," or, “We’re letting you go.” It's especially hard if you’ve put yourself out there, if you’ve made yourself vulnerable. You’ve worked hard. You’ve invested in the job. You’ve done wonderful work. And you love it. But what about this [...]

It all feels like too much; one devastating hurricane after another, never-ending racial inequality, horrific gun violence, political ineptitude. There is profound suffering everywhere.  Any rational person would be excused for disengaging, doing nothing because it feels like there’s so much to do. But actors aren’t often the rational ones. No, actors are different.  They [...]

You want to impress the casting director, producers, and directors in a casting room. You come in wanting so badly to do well, to know your lines, and to give them what they want, which is completely understandable. But here’s the thing, nobody knows what they want other than to be affected. And what they [...]

It usually happens around 3pm. A dull headache sets in, followed by irritability, and then an intolerance for anything and everything. My wife, daughter, and I are all among those who get what is referred to as “Hangry,” the marriage of Angry and Hungry. It's not a medical term, but one that accurately depicts what [...]

  Charisma has a lot to do with two factors: 1. Being utterly present - receptive and vulnerable to the environment (particularly to be electro-statically alive to the other beings sharing the stage) AND 2. Our ability to be at home with un-comfortability. In life, we often find ourselves in a place of duress or [...]

Finding your type is the act of figuring out the recurring character types that present themselves in the Industry, then discovering what character type you are. It assumes that there are boxes and that it’s an actor’s job to fit into the box. Are you the Funny Best Friend? The Dumb Jock? Maybe you’re the [...]

For the last year, The BGB Studio has been on borrowed time. The lease on the building that has housed us the last 6 years was ending and the owner didn’t want us to stay (something about too many actors roaming around, clogging toilets, etc). We’d been actively looking for new space for two years [...]

Over the years we've seen every kind of actor choose every kind of path in an attempt to carve out a successful acting career. And most actors fail. In fact, after all these decades, we've only seen one path that works consistently.  And we're going to tell you what it is. But let's start with [...]

You are first and foremost an artist. Say that aloud a few times. We are all artists and often the hard part is simply embracing that. Steven Pressfield says in his wonderful book, The War of Art: “If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a writer? Am I really an [...]

What does it take to declare Artistic Independence? To decide that you don’t have to wait for the Industry, for anyone, to allow you to be an artist? To take command of your career and express yourself independent of an Industry that just doesn’t have the capacity to take care of you? This is an [...]

No actor is safe. There is always a reckoning. There is always a moment when your training, your talent, and your dogged pursuit of the business fall prey to the forces that sabotage, undermine, and ultimately sink your career. And the worst part is no one tells you about it. Indeed, there is another acting [...]