Recently, I was flying back to L.A. from London and had the good fortune of talking to Mat Fraser, a star of “American Horror Story: Freak Show.”
He’s sort of become the breakout sensation of this season’s show and it’s all the more wonderful because he suffers from the genetic condition called phocomelia, in which he was born with malformed arms.
He talked about the irony that for 20 years he knew he was going to break through in his career based on who he was—that being himself was the only way in.
And that’s the truth for each of us.
We’re all types. Humanity in general (and the business specifically) is going to reduce you and type you. That’s what it does. People feel so much more comfortable putting others into categories—labeling them, marginalizing them. So the business is going to say you’re too big, or you’re not big enough; you’re Asian, you’re not Asian enough; you’re too pretty, you’re too ethnic, you’re too green, you’re too old, etc., and on it goes.
Your job is to quickly figure out your type, not so that you can limit yourself or be defined by it, but so that you can find
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