Friday, December 14, 2001
Year-end trivia
By STEPHANIE McGRATH -- AllPop
If you're one of the hundreds of people who e-mail AllPop to ask for advice on how to enter the entertainment business, a chance to become an actor or a pop star is ahead of a new DVD player or snowboard on your holiday wish list.
We can't offer you a magic "in" to the music or movie business, but we can provide some hard-won wisdom from two stars who spoke to AllPop about their professions and how their experiences might help you achieve your dreams.
Thora Birch is a 19-year-old actor who's spent most of her childhood
starring in movies. Among her credits are the Oscar-winning flick
"American Beauty", this year's much-praised "Ghost World", and the fantasy film "Dungeons & Dragons".
 Jake |
According to Thora, the best part of her job has nothing to do with red
carpets or hefty pay cheques.
"[The best part of my job is] the fact that you often get to travel, and
that can, in a huge way, broaden your perspective on the world, which is
something that is very important for someone my age and for actors,
period."
For Willa Ford, a rising young pop star who famously dated Backstreet Boy
Nick Carter, the best part of her job is making a living at doing something she enjoys doing (and getting the occasional cool outfit, too).
"Well, I'm a girl, so all the free clothes are pretty good," she says.
"[But] The best part of my job is getting paid to do what I love."
Now, you may be half reading this and half day-dreaming about your future
life of photo shoots and stadium tours, but both Thora and Willa warn of certain things to watch out for if you're entering the movie or music business.
"[You need] to forewarn yourself that this is not the easiest job," says
Thora. "It's very difficult and almost, at times, [it can seem] vaguely
impossible to pull off, but that's not the truth. It is possible, and I
think people need to learn a little resilience before entering this
business."
Willa meanwhile, thinks you should think long and hard before dropping
everything for a life in the spotlight.
"I love my life," she says. "It's not for everybody, though. It takes a
very strong individual who can take people beating you down all the time
and take people saying you're fat when you're skinny. People, man, they
wanna hurt you, and sometimes your best friends will do it to you and you
just gotta be ready to be able to take the punches and get back up and
know who you are. The bigger you get, the more people beat on you.
That's just how it is."
So do either of these stars have any idea how you can join them in
the spotlight?
Thora knows you have to be resilient, but she honestly thinks that
sometimes, things just work out for the best.
"I think luck factors into it," she says. "I know I certainly feel lucky,
because I started young and it carried through, and the fact that
starting out young gave me a lot of time to grow and learn not only as a
person but as a performer."
Willa has some concrete advice for those who aspire to be
musicians. First, Willa says that you need to figure out what "level"
you want to be on. If fame and a lack of privacy aren't for you, she
suggests going to university to study music, working on your writing
skills so you can provide songs for other people, or forming a rock band
to entertain you on the weekends.
But if it's truly the life of a pop star you crave, Willa says that sometimes you just have to "Drop everything, give up everything, and just go for it. That's what I did, but I don't recommend it. I got lucky."
Like Thora, Willa says you have to be persistent to make it in the
business. She also says that there will be times when things are going
every way but yours, and during those periods, you just have to "better
yourself".
"If you don't know how to play piano, go take piano lessons," she says.
"The more prepared you are for the minute that you make it, the better
off you are, 'cause you need every skill you can (get) to beat the other people out."
Willa also says that when you're on the road to success, watch out for
individuals that make too-good-to-be-true promises.
"Don't trust anybody off the bat," says Willa. "If somebody says they're
going to make you this, they're going to do this for you ... until your
record is on that store shelf, don't believe s*** they say."
So good luck, aspiring actors and musicians, but be prepared for a bumpy road ahead.
