I Used To Be An Actor
From performing on stage to writing on my couch
As promised, here’s a bonus essay in honor of my one year substack anniversary! Check out my celebration/ reintroduction post here.
I am still playing around with what feels like an authentic announcements section here. That being said, here are some things I’m doing that these days (much more detail in the reintroduction post above.)
The Start Of It All is a twenty-something’s guide to empowerment, resilience, and authenticity at the dawn of adulthood. This book is full of questions exploring self-growth, community, career, dreams, and more. Each question is paired with a story straight from my 20s.
Self-promotion can be hard and icky but I am working on it, as evidenced! It would mean the world to me if you would check out The Start Of It All, grab a copy if you’re interested, or send it to someone you think might enjoy it. Even resharing it on social media can be hugely helpful (and also makes my day!) Here’s what people have been saying so far.
I host a weekly discussion group called Authenticity Tuesdays!
You can read more about the original inspiration for the group here, but the long story short is that I decided I wanted to start the year off talking about authenticity instead of how to become a completely new person — as society encourages us to do every January. I very quickly realized that I wanted to keep these conversations going past January, and am so grateful for this community!
Join us on Tuesdays from 8:00 - 9:00PM on zoom whenever you’d like, and just email me at alexajordancoaching@gmail.com to get added to the list. Check out some of the past prompts here.
There are probably more things I could share with you like my downloadable workbook and the What Authenticity Means To… series, but I’d rather get to the essay so let’s go!
In the past, when people have asked me why I switched from acting to writing, I’ve jokingly replied “Well I decided that I would rather write in my pajamas than audition.”
But that’s not exactly it.
*The sentence below is around the 17:37 minute mark.
When I heard Maya Rudolph say, “I’m not the actor for all of the stories I want to see,” I think back to the dolls that I played with as a kid.
I loved my dolls more than anything. I had all different kinds of dolls. Bratz, Diva Starz, American girls, Barbie’s, knock-off American girls, paper dolls, stuffed animals. I loved them all.
After a dinner at a family friend’s house a few years ago, I crawled on the floor to play with one of the kids and her Barbies, instead of helping the adults clean up. I hadn’t played with Barbie’s in years. It brought me more joy than I could ever describe to be back in a Barbie dream house.
I felt the same way when I visited the HUGE American Girl Doll Store in Chicago a few summers ago.
I loved creating elaborate stories for my dolls. They had rich interior lives. Big emotions. Subtext going on underneath the main plot.
Ex: A big fight happened in the car while one doll family was driving to their new house - but they pretended everything was fine when they met the neighbors. They got into a huge fight later.
There are only two seats in the Bratz convertible. Who gets to drive? Who gets to ride shotgun? Well, it depends on which Bratz are getting along that day.
The mini Barbie, Kelly, was sometimes a little sister and sometimes Barbie’s daughter.
For someone who didn’t have a boyfriend until after college, I gave those dolls some complex love lives. Divorces, separations, broken engagements.
Imagine how excited I was when I got The Sims in middle school.
When I decided to pursue acting, I thought that I would be able to channel my love for make believe into my art fully. I thought that I was successfully doing just that for many years; immersing myself fully in each role and committing each story I was part of within the world of a play.
On the outside, I did my job well enough and gushed on and on about my passion for my craft.
But on the inside, a different story was unraveling.
“I used to be an actor.”
A sentence I say fairly often, that sometimes gives me chills.
It’s wild to me, that many people I come across or have only met in the last five years or so, don’t know about this huge, huge chapter of my life.
I’ve wanted to be an actor since before I even knew what acting was. I didn’t even register that Idina Menzel was a real person for years; to me, she was Elphaba Thropp. My 8-year-old self did not want to play Elphaba. I wanted to be Elphaba. I wanted to fly. That is how powerful of an experience I had, in the Gershwin Theater when I saw the original cast of Wicked at 8 years old.
I also think it’s why I sobbed during Dear Old Shiz, during both 20th anniversary performances I saw. (It’s not a sad song, it’s just so nostalgic!)
I never felt fully in my body as an actor.
I held a lot of tension and anxiety about getting it right.
A teacher once told me to do my monologue like an old craggy witch. And I could SEE it and DESCRIBE it in my mind. But I couldn’t embody it. I could tell a story about her, but I couldn’t quite become her.
“I’m not the actor for all the stories I wanna see.” - Maya Rudolph
A lightbulb went off inside of me when I heard Maya say those words.
I want to create characters I’ll never play from my couch, and then watch brilliantly talented people bring those characters to life. I feel like I have much more creative freedom as a writer, to create these worlds and communities. There was always some restriction as an actor based on what I could do, what I was willing to do, and how much i was willing to transform as someone who feels everything so deeply that it can be a strength and a detriment. Acting was emotionally and physically exhausting to me in a way that I eventually realized wasn’t sustainable.
And even in the midst of all my success as an actor, there was still that same much exhaustion and anxiety. During the peak of my career, I found myself longing for a night off to get dinner with my friends and be in bed by 9pm instead of performing the same show multiple times a week.
Since transitioning from acting to wrting, I’ve slowly become more embodied. I finally got back all the energy I was using to try to channel other people. I finally got to start taking deep breaths. I got to go to shows and fully enjoy them instead of thinking “who could I play in this show??”
I got to embrace a sense of play, once I stopped trying to be “good” all the time.
I think I needed the audience to go away, to really feel a deep freedom. I didn’t want to entertain people anymore.
In comedy class once, we had to stand in front of the class and try to make everyone laugh using the same phrase (hey guys, lookee lookee.) We weren’t allowed to sit down until our teacher said so. I understood the assignment and learned a lot about comedy. AND I was also so deeply terrified.
If you told me to write something down to make someone laugh, I wouldn’t be as terrified.
As a writer, I get to indulge my inner life in a way that my younger self playing with her dolls would have loved. It feels so natural. I get to connect with people by going inward and paying attention to the thoughts that don’t make sense to the naked eye until you really sort through them. And there’s been a lot of self acceptance and patience and self respect involved in the process of learning to honor my thoughts.
And - it’s also just really fun to watch my crazy ideas come to life and have that validation where an audience member says me too. Because I’m like “Oh, you like this wild idea I had at 3AM that I turned into a play? Cool, I love that.”
I have the same freedom here with all of you in the Wild Cozy Free community, where I get to express my thoughts from my couch and connect with you without having to be onstage. It’s a different kind of artistic expression I never expected to love so much, but I really really do.
PS Check out the last 90 seconds of the voiceover for an insight I had while recording this essay that really surprised me.