I had so many dreams of where I wanted to go, who I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do.
Theater companies I wanted to start with classmates, movies I wanted to be in, directors I wanted to work with, stories I needed to tell.
They might take a little time, I thought, but it would happen.
What I didn't have was cash, a bank account, a credit card, or an apartment.
I just had debt. A big, hungry, growing, larger, every moment debt.
I packed the life that I knew with socks and a toothbrush into my backpack and I slept on couch after couch after couch after couch at friends apartments in New York until I wore out their rent-paying roommates welcome.
I dusted pianos at a piano store on Leadlow Street for five months.
I worked on the property of a Shakespeare scholar for a year pulling weeds and removing businesses.
I went on unemployment once, but for not for long I couldn't handle the guilt.
Eventually I was able to pay rent for a spot on the floor of an apartment on the Lower East Side, but my roommate had a breakdown and disappeared.
And then, finally, after two years of job and couch surfing, I got a job in application processing as a data-enterer at a place called Professional Examination Services.
Then I stayed for six years.
From the age of 23 to 29, well, they loved me there. I was funny. I wore black no-cape, no-tites.
I smoked in the loading docks with the guys from the mail room and we shared how hungover we all were.
I called in sick almost every Friday because I was out late the night before. I hated that job and I clung to that job.
Because of that job, I could afford my own place.
My dream of running a theater company with my friend and fellow Bennington graduate Ian Bell had died.
When I was 29, I told myself, the next acting job I get no matter what it pays, I will, from now on, for better or worse, be a working actor.
I got a low-paying theater job in a play called Imperfect Love, which led to a film called 13 Moons with the same writer, which led to other roles, which led to other roles.
And I've worked as an actor ever since.
I didn't know that would happen. At 29, walking away from the data processing, I was terrified.
Ten years in a place without you, six years of the job I felt stuck in, maybe I was afraid of change. Are you?
And so at 29, in a very long last, I was in the company of the actors and writers and directors. I'd sought out that first year, that first day after school.
I was, I am, by their side.
Raise the rest of your life to meet you.
Don't search for defining moments because they will never come.
The moments that define you have already happened, and they will already happen again.
And it passes so quickly, so please, bring each other along with you.
You, you just get a bit derailed. But soon something starts to happen. Trust me. A rhythm sets in.
Just try not to wait until like me, you're 29 before you find it.
And if you are, that's fine too. Some of us never find it.
But you will. I promise you. You are already here.
You'll find your rhythm or continue the one you have already found.
Don't wait until they tell you you are ready. Get in there. Sing.
The world might say you are not allowed to yet.
I waited a long time out in the world before I gave myself permission to fail.
My parents didn't have much money, but they struggled to send me to the best school.
And one of the most important things they did for me is that once I graduated, I was on my own.
Financially, it was my turn.
This made me very hungry, literally. I couldn't be lazy.
At the end of the day, none of us are happy with our jobs all the time.
But I just sort of had some perseverance in terms of what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do.
And I think no is a very powerful word in our business that is very hard to use early on in your career.
But I also think I was pretty arrogant when I was younger.
So I used that word maybe too much, but it also helped me with the finding rules that I did like.
