Sanjit De Silva
The Actor’s Center Journal Vol. 1 Num. 1 September 2009
A Personal Reflection
by Sanjit De Silva
“Why do I want to be an actor anymore?” is the question that I seriously asked myself all last year. Why do I want to be involved with the day-to-day struggles of facing rejection after rejection, living paycheck to paycheck with no certain hope of stability? Especially after just having had a son born into this world? Can I really be involved in a profession where I might not be able to make enough money to provide my child with the things I grew up with? It seemed like every audition I went on, I brought the weight of those questions into the room with me. And, as a result, I gave mediocre auditions and dreaded walking into those rooms, because I felt so tense and full of anxiety about the fact that I needed to get the job to make sure I could give my son a future.
It’s a major decision to pursue the life of an artist and I believe an even bigger decision when you decide that you also want to start a family. Many people I met after my son was born said having a child made them even better at their profession. That work just started coming their way. And I had that same expectation as well. That I was owed work coming my way, because damn it, I got a mouth to feed and the universe is supposed to help you make that happen! Then the writers’ strike happened and there was just nothing going on. I fell into a deep depression about the state of my employment and I made the cardinal sin of tying my self worth and my value as an artist to whether I booked that job or not. And that was one of the biggest reasons I questioned my desire to be an actor anymore. Because, of course, if you tie your joy and desire and value as an artist to what the industry thinks of you and whether you get a job or not, then you lose sense of any tether to why you’re an actor in the first place. I also realized that I had stopped working on my craft, on myself, and on why it is that I became an actor in the first place. That “fire in the belly,” as my teacher Deb Hecht used to say.
At my lowest point of the year last June, I decided that I would take a Chekhov workshop with Master Teacher Slava Dolgachev that was offered to the Actors Center Workshop Company. Slava wanted to work on Ivanov, and he asked me to read Borkin, the more “comedic” role. But every time I opened my mouth, it felt forced and completely dishonest. Slava criticized me for not finding the honesty in the role, and I unleashed a whirl of tears and words at him. I told him that I felt no joy in acting, that trying to put on a happy face was completely unbearable to me, and that I no longer knew whether I had the desire or ability to be an actor anymore. Slava studied me coolly with his gaze. Then, he slowly said, “Why don’t you read Ivanov.” I said, “No, that would be even worse!” And he said, “You see what you are feeling in real life, is what Ivanov is feeling about his life. And so, you must play Ivanov!” That workshop went on for two weeks. I think I cried almost every day while I read that role, but slowly Ivanov started to teach me again about what it means to struggle for what you love, what it means to truly put yourself on the line. The simplicity, as an actor, in finding someone’s humanity and revealing it to other people so they can understand themselves and the world just a little bit better, started to boil up in me as I read Ivanov’s words. It became more clear to me that I am not an actor because I need to nail that audition or book that job, but I am an actor because I am deeply moved by and curious about the human condition. I want to find a way to communicate that passion to other people who are as curious and hungry as I am for an understanding of who we are. Because we have to find a way to make sense of the life we have, and one of the most important ways is to see that many other people share our experiences. In that knowledge, we then know that we are not so alone, that we are actually part of something bigger than ourselves. And that is truly something worth attaching your self to.
A recent graduate of NYU’s MFA program, Sanjit De Silva’s stage credits include: Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hartford Stage, Dir. Lisa Peterson), Masked (DR2, Dir. Ami Dayan), Macbeth (NYSF/Public Theatre, Dir. Moises Kaufman), Measure for Measure (NYSF/Public Theatre, Dir. Mary Zimmerman). Film credits include: The Company Men (Writer/Dir. John Wells Starring Tommy Lee Jones), The Hungry Ghosts (Writer/Dir. Michael Imperioli), August (w/Josh Hartnett), Arranged. TV Credits include: The Unusuals, I’m Paige Wilson (Pilot for CW, Dir. Rod Lurie), Law & Order, Law & Order: TBJ, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: CI, Jonny Zero. Sanjit is Associate Artistic Director of Rising Circle Theater Collective (www.risingcircle.org), a theater company dedicated to diversifying the American stage.