The following Notes From the Field essay was written by actor Linus Roache, who stars alongside Nicholas Cage in the feature film “Mandy,” in theaters now.
I think I learned the first big lesson of my career when I quit acting—but I learned an even bigger one when I started again.
Let me explain.
By the time I was 30 years old, I had been ambitious enough and lucky enough to achieve many of my goals as an actor. I’d had a successful stage career playing leading roles for prestigious theater companies in the U.K., had starred in a major television series for the BBC, and a small independent film I had made was finding international acclaim. I hadn’t stopped working for 10 years and, on one hand, things couldn’t have been better. The doors of success were being flung wide open to a whole new level. But I found myself suddenly frozen to the spot, unable to respond.
Acting had been my great passion from a very early age, and I loved the craft—truly, madly, and deeply. But somewhere along the way, my focus shifted from my love of the craft to how I was being perceived for what I did. My sense of self-worth and value as a person had become more and more tied up in my
Leave a Reply