Money Matters Part 2: A Cinderella Story
Welcome back to Money Matters, a three-part series where I share with you my reflections on making a living as a professional actor in the past few years. In Part 1, I talked about living with friends and finally managing to scrape together an Emergency Fund (ie. a few months’ living expenses), as well as working through the trauma of financial instability within my family in recent years. Now, get ready for a big turn-around in Part 2!
From Rags to… Employee Benefits!
After losing the family home, I started getting a lot of pressure from relatives to find a ‘real’ job. In Chinese culture, the eldest child is expected to provide for the family. I still don’t agree with this mindset, but I was much younger at the time and my self-confidence wavered a lot from hearing incessant ‘advice’ from my elders.
“Make your Linguistics degree useful,” everyone kept saying. “You can’t do acting forever. Who will hire you when you’re 30 and don’t have any real work experience?” OUCH.
I struggled to let go — I didn’t want to do acting just as a hobby again, but perhaps this professional actor life is not for everyone and I had to accept my fate. After talking things out with other actor friends, I planned to still act on the side while working a 9-6 job, and when I’ve saved up enough, perhaps I can afford to go back to doing it professionally again.
It felt like a part of me had died, but I told myself to get on with life. What else was I supposed to do? I continued teaching drama classes and performing at children’s parties, but I also started preparing CVs and cover letters to be sent to copywriting listings. I like writing, I don’t know if I’d love copywriting, but let’s give it a go.
I am glad to tell you I never ended up sending any of those cover letters because a life-changing call came on my 25th birthday. I was on my way home from teaching when Hong Kong Disneyland asked if I would be free to talk.
Oh right, I had gone to an open audition weeks before!
They asked if I would accept a full-time contract starting in May. I replied, “Can I come over now to sign it? I’m in the area.”
It was truly a Cinderella moment. It was as if God/the Universe was telling me to not let go of my dream. It also felt damn good to tell my relatives I got a stable acting job (from the beginning, everyone had serious doubts about me pursuing acting professionally).
“Oh… it’s good that you have employee benefits,” they said, thin-lipped.
The point of me telling you this is not so that you can hold out for those elusive full-time salaried positions in the arts industry. Let’s be real, there aren’t enough to go around and it’s dangerous to hold your breath. What I’m trying to say is that I needed financial stability after a few tumultuous years, and it’s okay to find some stable ground for a while if it helps fund your dreams in the long term.
I’m not sure where I got the misguided idea that being a ‘real’ arts practitioner means doing it full-time and nothing else, but I gave myself so much unnecessary pressure to pick either the arts or a day job when the reality is, most artists are balancing both. Had someone told me that having a day job doesn’t mean giving up on your aspirations (in contrast to my relative’s approach… well-meaning but extremely harsh), maybe it wouldn’t have felt like the end of the world.
I know I said this moment was like divine intervention from above, but in reality, getting into Hong Kong Disneyland was the right opportunity paired with an accumulation of hard work over the past year and a half. Besides taking on different gigs, the process of taking workshops on acting and improvisation, learning about how to use my body and voice well, selecting a suitable monologue, auditioning for different plays… I kept at it until eventually, something worked out. I wouldn’t say I’ve peaked in my career yet, but it’s definitely one of the big breaks in my life.
Happily Ever After?
With this newfound stability, I was able to increase my monthly savings amount by a lot more. In pre-lockdown times (and when things reopened between lockdown periods), I continued to be active in the art scene outside work. I joined plays, did improvisation theatre, and took loads of drama workshops. I had less time to cook, so meal prepping became more important than ever.
On my days off, I saved money on transport whenever possible by taking the tram, walking, or leaving gatherings at a reasonable time so I wouldn’t be tempted to taxi home. If I wanted to buy something nice, I took a picture of it and waited a few weeks to see if I still wanted it. Often times I realized it was just a temporary urge that eventually passes, but if I still wanted it (and it’s something I can see myself using a lot), then I would let myself get it.
Yes, it required a lot of self-discipline, but a new goal had emerged and I wanted to be financially ready for it. That really helped keep me in check.
I had side hustles to speed up the saving process. Having decided to further my training in the UK, I know exactly how soon I can expect to reach it after doing some calculations. There was a certain high that comes with knowing there would be a regular amount of cash in my Chequing account by the end of the month, and I signed myself up to do a lot outside of Disneyland for personal growth because we gotta carpe the hell out of this diem.
However, under this façade of go go go-ing, I believe this came from a place of… you guessed it, unresolved trauma! I have experienced multiple burn-outs over the years because I was afraid that if I don’t take hold of every opportunity I can get while being on a salary (especially theatre-related things), I might not have the chance to if it was suddenly taken away.
Living in pandemic times has exacerbated that fear and reactivated memories of losing everything in the past. My Savings has grown far beyond 6 months of living expenses now, but on certain days I still get that panic when the world is on fire again. People have told me that I’ve become thinner, and I suspected it was from making only 2 meals a day to save money and from all the times I made myself push through with a packed work schedule. Sometimes, extreme frugality can be an unhealthy coping mechanism, so it’s important to take a step back and be honest with yourself about what’s going on when your physical or emotional health is being compromised.
Letting It Go
It’s been 3+ years with Disneyland now. Being here has given me a completely different artistic experience as compared to freelancing. It requires a lot of mental stamina to do the exact same performance multiple times a day for months, to play characters so far away from my usual myself. I found new ways to keep things interesting by reminding myself that it might always be someone’s first time watching and drew energy from people I have never met before. As grateful as I am to have gotten to know the other side of show business, it is time to use the money that I have saved up for the past 6 years of working.
One thing I’ve taken away from this period is that humans (including artists) thrive on a certain level of stability, and it doesn’t always mean chaining yourself to a desk. It’s not so black and white like that; sometimes full-time jobs can be within or adjacent to your field, and not all desk jobs are soul-crushing. I sincerely hope you are able to find something that you enjoy and is challenging in a good way, but if find yourself forced to take a job you’re not excited about, know that it will only be for a certain duration in the grand scheme of life, and make sure to map out an exit strategy with a target savings goal in mind.
Stability looks different to everyone, but the good news is, you can customize how much you need as your life calls for. To some, it may mean doing a 9-6 job for a couple of years. To others, it may mean 3 full days working at one place, and spending the rest of the time going to auditions. During my freelancing days, I have actually worked part-time in the back office of a performing arts NGO three days a week for a few months. It was a worthwhile experience for sure; I’ve gotten behind the scenes of producing live theatre and financially it helped me prepare for the disaster at home.
I learned a lot about what I like in terms of work; I prefer doing creative work that requires me to physically get up and interact with people, such as teaching or performing, but I also recognize the convenience of sit-down work that I can do in front of a computer too, such as voiceover or translation. Furthermore, I am someone who thrives on having variety and values growth in different areas — one of the many reasons why I keep myself engaged with after-work things. Having a full-time job, while necessary for a short while, can’t afford me the flexibility I now need to develop my own projects. So it feels right to me to let it go. Perhaps one day I will take another full-time job again, but I shall take it month by month as I head into the unknown (are you enjoying all these Frozen references??)
To wrap up, a full-time job has bought me time to know what kind of work I enjoy, to save up, and gain clarity on my life goals, and now my savings have bought me more artistic freedom in the future. It’s all about finding the right balance that works for you in different periods of your life.
Other Takeaways:
Keep working on your craft. Even when you don’t know what the next big break is going to look like or when it will come, keep building your skills and artistic practice. Being prepared for the right opportunity could look like having a few contrasting monologues (1-2 minutes) or songs ready to go for any type of audition, building a portfolio of your past work (online or otherwise), or taking a class to work on certain skills.
Note down how far you’ve come. I suggest writing down a list of things, big or small, that you have done each month to have concrete proof of your growth, eg. trying a new style of dance for 4 sessions, learning how to make 2 new meal prep recipes.
It’s okay if priorities shift! You’re not ‘selling out’ or ‘quitting’ if you find regular employment outside of the arts industry; you’re making things work in the long term. Or maybe even letting go of something that isn’t serving you anymore. Don’t beat yourself up for ‘not being able to make it work’. You never know what the future holds anyway. Just do what you need to do to take care of yourself right now.
You can always change your mind later. To be honest with you, I had reservations about working at Disneyland because it’s a very specific type of acting, and I wasn’t sure if I would be suited to it. My friend who is a life coach challenged my worst-case-scenario thinking by saying, “Maybe you’ll love it, who knows? You can give it one year and see”. I’m glad I did!
Never stop learning. I know everyone’s energy levels are different; you may be too tired after a whole day of work to go take a 3-hour workshop. I’m not saying you need to do this every day, but it’s important to find time to nurture your growth as an artist. Expose yourself to different types of performance by reading and watching plays. Keep in touch with people you’ve worked with and meet up for coffee. Join a workshop or a play if you can squeeze out the time. If you want to switch to a new field, it is essential that you make time to learn relevant skills so you can transition over when you’ve got the money to do so.
If you are still here, thank you so much for staying with me till the end. I hope to expand on my future plans in Part 3. Stay tuned!
