#soulsick

I TURNED DOWN my first role today.

~x~

Well. Technically I turned it down last night after much agonising and back and forth.

And turned it down again, after being told that ‘surely I could get out of whatever other commitment I had’.

And subsequently managed very litle sleep due to further agonising.

~x~

In all honesty, I could’ve wormed my way out of anything else I had on, but I just didn’t want the role.

I wanted to be working. I want to be working. I even didn’t mind the project as a whole - it was something I was looking to fill a gap in my experience with.

But I just didn’t want the role.

~x~

Perhaps it’s a little ungrateful of me. Perhaps it’s the result of some naive, pretentious foolhardiness. I’m new and green and I should take what I can get and be fearless and challenge myself by trying to lift it to its full - or transcend - its potential, right? I know. I’ve heard it, I think about it, I did think about it for hours and hours and hours on end for this one. It’s a small piece. It shouldn’t matter either way! You’re being too serious about this.

But the thing is, instead of trying to talk myself out of this one - like I can occasionally tend to do before auditions - I was desperately trying to talk myself into taking on something I’d already been offered. Usually this is a no-brainer ‘yes!’ for me, even if the material is just ‘okay’ - I understand that there are a limited number of roles to go around, that the basic principles of economics are at play, that I can’t afford to be quite so picky, nor do I tend to feel the need to be at this stage. It’s a fine system - my goals are slightly more experience-oriented than purely career-building at this point in time, which effectively means I get to carpe diem (#yolo?) my way through life for just that tiny little bit longer.

But no matter how hard I tried to justify the pros of taking this one on, the thought of playing this particular caricature made me feel a little sick.

Soulsick, if I had to give it a word - or if I had to give the concept any sort of concrete feeling.

I can hardly explain it, because there wasn’t even anything overtly wrong with it, but it was wrong, regardless. For whatever reason, it was very, very wrong. I’m sure the project will turn out to be perfectly fine and amusing enough for a comedy with or without me and will be far from a disaster (although - again, it’s just a feeling - but it’ll probably be far from a resounding success, as well).

~x~

I’m sure I made the right decision, because I no longer feel that sense of utter and abject wrongness.

~x~