A lot of times, a Struggling Actress will take a look at future events and sigh, "That's during pilot season." "That thing's during episodic time." "I can't go to that, because I can't be away for two weeks or my agents will kill me!"
You know what you have to say to that?
Bull Pucky.
Take. The. Vacation.
Take the time off to see your friend get married. Take the time off for some badly needed recharging. Take the time off to maintain a level of sanity for the craziness that is your life for the rest of the year.
I'm on vacation, meeting my new niece during what my agents and managers call the busiest time for their clients at my level - THIS, they say, is the beginning of pilot season for people who are not movie stars, who are not tv stars. THIS is the time they can push their new clients and get them seen.
This is the time I'm taking off to feed, burp, and change diapers. This is the time I'm taking off to rock a baby I will know for the rest of my life to sleep. This is the time I'm taking off from auditions, from callbacks, from pilots, so that I can stare into the blue eyes of the most beautiful baby girl and watch her yawn and slowly drift away to dreamland in my arms, against my chest, nuzzled in my neck.
You might be struggling, but you can't keep passing on life events so that you'll always be available to a possible job opportunity that might actually never materialize. You need these events to help you make acting choices- to remember how you feel now so that you can use it for another character- because now you know what it's like to go to get engaged, to go to a wedding, to hold a baby.
And if you have reps like mine who say, "That's an important thing that only happens a few times a lifetime. Go, go be with your family. It's more important than anything else," hold onto them. Because they get it. They get the struggle. They get what it's like to be an actor.
And they believe in you enough to get the next audition when you come back.
And if you have reps who ask "would you fly back for this commercial in the middle of your trip because it pays $2,400?" it is perfectly okay to say, No, I wouldn't. Because time with family is worth so, so, so much more than that.
And always will be.
