You’re probably not going to be a star, but you might be a great actor someday. If you work at it. That should be enough.

When I was just starting grad school, there was a young student finishing up their BFA. I heard whispers about this person. All the agents wanted to sign them. All the casting directors wanted to meet them. There was a lot of buzz around this one student. And I understood it. This was a very charismatic human. Physically striking, too. You wanted to watch them when they worked. As an actor, they weren’t too bad either. There were a few students in the same cohort who may have been slightly better actors, but not by much. There were some I found more attractive (the actor under discussion wasn’t gendered toward my innate preferences, so what do I know?)

This actor did eventually become a huge star. It seemed like a foregone conclusion. Maybe it was. After all, a lot of people who spend their entire professional lives identifying stars knew what they were looking at. 

But what did they see? And does it always work out the way it did for this person? Does being a star always require those in-the-know to agree about your worth ahead of time? Should you even worry about being a star? 

The answers to these questions are:

1. Beyond what I described above, I’m still not sure

2. Unfortunately, no

3. Absolutely not 

4. I get why you might, but honestly, I don’t think so. 

Here’s the thing. Becoming a star is not an impossibility for anyone. This is confirmed by the fact that stars do indeed exist. But it’s not a thing you can bank on any more than you should view winning the Powerball as a retirement plan. People do win the Powerball lottery, so it’s not impossible. But it’s vanishingly rare. 

What does a big star like, say, Brad Pitt have going for him that most of us don’t have? Well, I’m going to assume he had the same kind of buzz going on around him that my fellow alum enjoyed. That means that he probably never had to read for an U/5 (Under Five: A five-lines-or-less part on some tv show, somewhere) or anything comparably small. He probably signed with a top agency out of the gate…or close to out of the gate. Having a strong team pushing your career uphill helps, to be sure.

Also yes, Brad Pitt looks like Brad Pitt. And that helps. There are a lot of beautiful people in the world and, fairly or not, in almost every aspect of life it does help to be physically attractive. That’s doubly true for actors. However, I know tons of beautiful people - achingly, shockingly beautiful people - who aren’t successful or famous. And many famous people are not exceptionally attractive. So it’s not everything. 

Brad Pitt is a talented actor. Yes he is. So are a lot of other people. Talent, alone, isn’t enough. And even when you have it, it needs developing. It needs to be shaped. Training is essential. If you read on-screen like Brad Pitt, it may be a trade-off that much of your growth occurs in front of the camera in high profile projects. Believe me when I say that is not ideal. Most training, like that of myself and my undergrad friend, takes place away from the public eye. You can stumble and fall down in relative obscurity. Brad Pitt has talent and honed that talent. But it took a while. And he did most of it in public. That’s hard. 

Brad Pitt is hard working. Yes he is. And that is not a thing to take for granted. It is essential, in fact. We should all learn from that. But I know a lot of hard-working actors. Many of them are making a living, but not as A-list celebrities. So that can’t be it, either. 

Brad Pitt got lucky. Yes he did. He is handsome, talented, hard-working and with a top-flight team nurturing his career, but a long series of events and choices made by dozens of people all had to unfold in very specific ways for Brad Pitt to happen. That’s true for everyone in a similar position. Patrick Stewart might still be doing supporting roles in Shakespeare plays if a Paramount exec hadn’t seen him give a lecture in LA in 1986, leading to Star Trek. Paul McCartney could very well be teaching guitar in Liverpool had his first band not recorded “‘Til There Was You” on a demo tape that landed in producer George Martin’s hands at EMI. 

Such is the way of things. Becoming Brad Pitt is like winning the Powerball, running out into the world to cash in your ticket, getting struck by lightning and rolling into the street where an eagle swoops down to shit on your head. I haven’t crunched the numbers, exactly, but it’s like that. 

So what guarantees are there? Well, learn your craft. Truly, what else is there? If big things are to come, they will come in part because of your abilities. And even if those huge breaks don’t come, you’ll have developed serious skills you can use to earn a living. 

In baseball, if you fail - FAIL - to hit the ball 70% of the time they’ll erect statues in your likeness and put you in the Hall of Fame. You’ll earn generational wealth. But in order to hit the ball that remaining 30% of the time requires constant diligence and practice. It is a lifelong commitment to refining your skills. In acting, a good start to a career may find you losing out on the part 95% of the time or more. Probably more. But the more skilled you are as an actor - the more tools you can bring to bear - the more likely you are to eventually start booking. And then, with a little luck…