ActorCEO 100: Be Your Own Advocate with Juan Javier Cardenas

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Training as an actor leads you to building skills that last a lifetime. Your craft is unique to you and it’s what brings your most honest, human elements to each of your characters. It makes you the brilliant actor you are.

Sometimes your acting training can leave some gaps when teaching you about the business of acting, and that’s ok. Most of these institutions are built to focus on the craft and steep actors in the philosophies or methods handed down decade after decade that have proven effective when bringing out the most potent and practical human characteristics that tell great stories. But actors who plan on bringing these deep and profound human experiences to audiences for many, many years MUST know about the current business of acting so that they can continue to work in this business.  Without this understanding, actors can loose their focus and have trouble sustaining a career where they can afford to keep working as an actor.

Juan Cardenas talks about the need for actors to be their own advocate in episode 100. He stresses the importance of cultivating the drive to make the right connections, build the right relationships, and learn the necessary skills to continue to push their career forward regardless of the challenges. Juan says he was blessed to be surrounded by motivated and self-driven artists when he was in grad school which helped hone his own instincts to push himself to go get the career he wanted. It’s never easy, but when you KNOW that you are in control and you are the best advocate for your business, then the task of building the career you want becomes more important and certainly more exciting.