Episode 302: Gossip and the Acting Community

This week we're going to talk about gossip. Oh my god, I used to love gossip.  I used to love to talk about other people, what they were doing. Ugh, it was so amazing. Can you tell I was a teenager in the 80s?  But today I'm going to talk about why gossip is actually not that great.  And I have really been the target of gossip as well, and maybe I had to burn through some karma there.  It's really hurtful, so hurtful when you are the one being gossiped about and you find out that somebody else is saying something about you, whether it's good or bad.  If it's good, it's nice, but if it's not so nice, it's not great. And I think we probably have all been on both sides of it. If not, you're probably not human.  But I want to talk about why it's not great as an actor.  And it's something that I have really honed in on.  It's been a long time now, but yeah, it's just something that I've really tried to curb. Because it's not nice. Gossip isn't nice. And I know this is not this might be one of those podcasts where you're like, I don't want to listen to this one. Let's listen to another one.  But if you're feeling that way, make your ears grow bigger.  So here's the thing about gossip. Number one. I have five points about this. It erodes trust. Yeah. It's very hard for me to trust someone who's talking shit about somebody else.  Basically, what it does is gossip, it undermines. It undermines trust. It really undermines, and I also, there was once I had an acting teacher at Guildhall who said, if you don't want to be judged, don't judge. Because it really undermines trust, and especially if you're in a production of some sort, whether that be film, television, theater, commercial, it doesn't matter, it really erodes trust.  It also creates an environment, and you create your own environment in this industry of suspicion. And it breeds insecurity. Oh my god, let's talk about acting class.  I want my acting class where I need to be free, to be free of gossip and bad talk.  And the thing is that people then if there's an environment of that, you become wary.  You become wary of sharing personal information that really might be helpful for the work. And isn't that what we're trying to do? To become better actors. They may feel or someone may feel or I may feel that information that I shared while trying to find truth in a character might be misused or spread or might damage a relationship.  So this idea that, gossip at the moment sometimes it feels so good, and let's talk about why it feels so good. It feels so good because it gets the focus off of ourselves.  I have to tell you, I just had this feeling come over me, which was like, yuck. And that's the whole thing. Gossip is really yuck.  Because what it is doing is It brings me back to this phrase, winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners. And that's why gossip is so harmful to us, but also to others.  But I wanted to do a podcast about this because I feel this is not a subject that is brought up enough around in the acting community.  And it needs to be because we are a creative community.  The other thing is, and this is, it's very painful is that it really can damage people's reputations.  There's two sides to every story, and maybe we don't know the whole story.  And also, why is it our business? I find I, in the past, I've tried to make something that isn't my business, because I didn't want to focus on my life and take responsibility for what is going on with me. And damaging somebody else's reputation is so unfair. It's so unfair.  The thing is that when we keep the focus on our own lives and our own creativity and on our acting training and on our business and on our core work, when we do that, man, we don't have freaking time to gossip or to focus on somebody else. And also, I was teaching this in my private class and actually in the weekly class as well, this thing about assumptions. We assume things about people. Or we assume that somebody means something when they don't.  Watch assuming that somebody means the same thing that you do.  We always want to get clarity. Are you saying, just so we're clear, nobody ever is upset about getting clarification.  I once heard that assumptions are the mother fucker of all fuck ups, and that is such a great phrase.  So I don't want to assume something about somebody else, just because somebody else had said it about them. And this is a biggie. This is a biggie. You know what gossip also does? It increases stress and anxiety.  And I don't know about you guys. I don't know about you. I don't need any more stress. I don't need any more anxiety.  And this is the thing, it also can make you feel very isolated.  You think that you're connecting with somebody about how bad somebody else is or what somebody else did. But ultimately, it's going to lead to some kind of anxiety and possibly even some kind of depression, depending on which way of the spectrum you like to go. I personally like to freak the fuck out rather than get depressed. But, whatever your bag is. And it can negatively really impact your mental health when we talk about others. And look, I've done it! I have done it! I used to do it a lot! Especially as a teenager. I didn't know any better.  But these are the things we want to think about. Because again, what are we trying to do?  We're trying to do that thing that we most need to do, which is keep the focus on ourself and as actors on our acting training, becoming a better actor, moving ourselves forward in business and doing the work on ourselves. So when those opportunities come, we are ready for them and gossip has no place in any of that.  And again, going on this idea of the toxicity. of gossip, is we want to create health in our lives.  And what gossip does is it really creates like a toxic work environment.  And that work might be in our very own apartment while we're chatting on the phone, or negatively texting about somebody, or negatively emailing about something. That might get passed along. We don't need that.  We don't need that. We want to create support and love in our lives.  The last thing that I want to say about gossip is that it's time consuming.  Because let me tell you, it's going to be easy to find somebody who's going to want to jump right in there with you. Jump on the bad, the hate bag bandwagon. We don't need to do that with gossip. Other people, and we don't need to do it to ourselves.  Because that energy could be spent on productive tasks.  That energy could be spent on becoming more efficient in our acting career. Becoming more focused on our acting career. And that will stop us from being more positive.  If you find yourself doing this, and this is a big one again, it's using your mind to govern your brain, I beg of you, catch yourself, just stop. Stop.  Apologize to the other person. Say, you know what? I want to stop this because this is not making me feel good and I'm sure on some level it's not making you feel good either. Let's just stop. Let's talk about something else.  It's okay to do that. It's okay to do that, especially when you're moving yourself in a more positive direction.  Okay, one more thing. Just thought of this. It wastes energy. And we really only have a finite amount of time and a finite amount of energy. Let's make sure we're doing it that's moving us towards something good, Like a fabulous acting career. And a fabulous life.