Unprecedented Opportunities and Unprecedented Risks
Casting directors and agents have been talking about the unprecedented opportunities Covid- 19 is bringing to beginning and intermediate actors. Will you risk it?
This is a once in a lifetime chance. A rare and historical window that is opening. The unknown actor can be cast because established actors won’t be taking the job. They don’t want to risk being on set and getting the virus and bringing it home to their loved ones. Casting agents are casting nets out to actors who are willing to risk it.
Over the past three months I have turned down work that could get me seen. Roles that would level me up from where I am currently at. When the pandemic hit I was doing well in my voice acting career and starting to make strides in what is my real passion, acting in film and theater. It’s disappointing. Time is a precious commodity and I will have lost a year (or more) to the pandemic. But even though the doors being opened by casting due to the current circumstances are tempting, I cannot risk my life and that of my family.
Every production is claiming it will follow Covid - 19 protocols. Distancing, closed sets, masks, sanitizers and temperature taking. But can that really guarantee your safety? All it takes is one person, traveling to and from the set and coming in contact with one infected person to blow it all up. The safety relies on testing, and that testing would need to be frequent. In the US, the availability of testing has been an issue, and can take a while for results to be known, and in that time, that infected person can be reporting for work on a set.
On Reddit’s Acting board, one woman recently booked on a commercial set described her experience of feeling unsafe and unprotected during the shoot. She stated that she didn’t feel that the guidelines were being followed. I can imagine what a nightmare it would be to accept a job, show up for it and see the lack of follow through going on. What would you do? Walk out? Stay and submit to the life threatening risk you would be taking not only for yourself, but for your loved ones too? And what about the safety protocols of low to micro budget jobs who do not have the budget for all of the testing and safety protocols?
I understand that the industry desperately needs to open up. I understand actors desperately want and need to get out there and work. But is that desperation causing us to take chances and ignore the realities? This is a tough call and one I am really struggling with. I’m curious as to how other actors feel about this. Please leave your comments below.
For anyone who may need it, this is a list of resources put together by Backstage for anyone in the performing arts struggling through this crisis.