EPISODE 3: ADAM SHAPIRO
ADAM SHAPIRO
On demystifying sorcery, resumé tricks, and why not getting a job isn’t the same as being rejected.
You know Adam from his roles in so many movies. Movies like The Female Brain, Steve Jobs, and Now You See Me, to name a few. He’s also done a ton of TV. You may recognize him from Grace and Frankie or The Affair or that Netflix show, Sense8 or, KINGDOM. He’s got a few indies coming out soon and he just made his Broadway debut as Ogie in the musical Waitress.
Adam Shapiro on IMDB
QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE
29:03 ~ “As actors, we don’t have paint and we don’t have instruments and it’s just us, so if you don’t know who you are or have any sort of - which I didn’t for a very long time and I’m still working on that - but it was with every passing year and every passing therapy session and every passing... relationship I had and every job experience I had that has, what I believe, turned me into an actor, but I don’t think I was an actor, and I still show up on a set with real deal actors and think at some point someone’s gonna come in from the union and go, ‘I’m so sorry Mr. Shapiro, there’s been a mistake. You’re not an actor.’”
32:30 ~ “First you don’t know that you don’t know and then you know that you don’t know and then you don’t know that you know and then, now, you know that you know.” - KF
38:17 ~ “On my way up to San Francisco, I was just really feeling super insecure about the whole thing and nervous about it… My therapist gave me a really good trick, this is just a one-off... I would just look at my resume whenever I go in for something or whenever I’m about to meet somebody… because a lot of times, you do something or you have an experience, but… it’s not like that stays in your mind forever and you build up all these experiences and then you start to think of yourself differently, like you’re still that kid from Abington, Pennsylvania, who’s trying to get into the musical… and so it… actually really helps me… I’m like, ‘oh! I forgot about that and that and I did that and I did that and that I did that fine and that was with that guy,’ so I remind myself… I try to remember specific moments when I was intimidated and then was not... That just really helps me because… the moment I’m done with a project, it’s like it never happened.”
42:36 ~ “It’s hard to make yourself not feel like an imposter when you think that the thing that those people are doing who are real is magic or some sort of sorcery… It doesn’t matter how many credits you have or how much experience you have - if Kate Winslet and Michael Fassbender are wizards, then you’re always gonna feel like, ‘I’m an imposter.’”
45:56 ~ “When I do something once, I’m really nervous about it and then the next time I do it, I’m not even half as nervous… And now that I know that about myself - I just know that about myself - If I’m really nervous for something, I say, ‘Okay, that’s okay to be nervous… because this is really gonna help me next time.’”
1:04:26 ~ “Here’s my thing with rejection… I always try to have this perspective on what I do, which is: It’s a lot like being a car salesman, being an actor… If I don’t get this thing… then I am not rendered unemployed at that point. I am a professional actor. I have a job and a career and a company, which is me. And if someone walks into a car dealership and they ask that car salesman for a yellow version of the car and they go, ‘Oh, well we’ve got actually everything but the yellow…’ and the person’s like, ‘Yeah It’s just not what I’m looking for. I want the yellow.’ And they walk out. That car salesman is not now unemployed… They don’t cease to be a car salesman anymore, because that person didn’t find what they were looking for in that shop...’ And I think of that from my perspective as an actor, which is, I’m a professional actor. I have a full time job. And I think, when people think that they don’t… I know a lot of people who say, ‘I’m an out-of-work-actor.’ And I’m like, ‘well, then that is what you are, because you’re saying that…’ To have the mentality that if this guy doesn’t want it, fine, I’m still a car salesman. I’m gonna sell one of these cars… You could have a bad year and you could have a great year, but you’re still, this is what you do, then that person walking out of that car dealership is not rejection... So for me, if I don’t get a part, I didn’t get rejected.”
1:10:58 ~ “Normally the thing that gets me out of something is making something…. It’s something that’s super tangible that I can do… I learned how to play guitar one year when I was really depressed. I learned how to edit and just became super into editing film… Graphic design - I’m on photoshop everyday doing something. I’m always making something... Normally, for me those are the ways that I eventually get out of it is to get inspired by something and then lose myself in something else.”