Inertia Woes

One of the things they never teach you in theatre school or tell you about in those magazines that glamorize this profession, is how much time you’re going to have to spend waiting, mostly alone, in a room. Waiting for the phone to ring. Sometimes you stare it with all the concentration and will it would take someone who believed in telekinesis. You wait for other people to get their shit together, you wait for other people to remember you whilst they’re putting their shit together, you wait so much you forget to put your own shit together.
I wonder how many truly gifted, intuitive, natural actors the profession lost simply because it made them wait interminably? How many faces we’ll never see on the screen because they just couldn’t handle this crippling inertia. The ones that are around either got lucky or were too stubborn to say “Enough!”. I’m hoping to slot myself into the first category but am comfortably already a member of the second.
It truly amazes me how long it takes to start a project that’s you’re already cleared for, signed the contract for. You’re in! Then the delays kick in, first one month for this, then two weeks for that, and on and on…Till you want to leap into the office and pummel everybody in sight in frustration.
And forget about going and trying to get a life. The minute they find out you left town on a road trip, or just to get away or are busy with something else, they’ll start calling you all the time. “Kahaan hai tu?” “Kya kar raha hai?” “Office jaldi aa!” So you rush over because, naturally you think, something’s about to happen. We’re off! We’re ready to shoot! Thank you gods!
But…no. You talk about the weather, the industry, the women, the last couple of (always bad) films you just saw. And you drink over-sweetened, over boiled tea, and you leave.
I hope I don’t go mad before my first film “Sikandar” even releases. Maybe I’m already nuts and don’t know. Hmmm….