Power Games and Your Creative Career

Do you feel powerless over the success of your career? “Making it” can often feel like it’s defined by someone else and has nothing to do with how hard you work or how good you are. From casting directors, producers, people who hire you for a gig, to the audience themselves - there is often a sense of giving over your power to everyone else in hopes of being one of the “chosen few” in the spotlight. In this episode, Holly talks with Jeffrey Weissman, an actor for over 40 years about the power struggle in Hollywood, how to get ahead and succeed in the film industry, and we hear his firsthand account of how he was caught in the middle of a controversial power struggle over the casting of Back to the Future II. This episode includes an Initiation Exercise to help you shift your mindset from powerless to powerful - and to shake up the Power Paradigm. 

More video tips from acting coach, Jeffrey Weissman, can be found in the Interviews with Artists Video Library.

You might also enjoy these episodes:

​Episode 31 Audition with Improv: A Coaching Call With An Actor

Episode 28 Casting with Collaboration: Finding Your Fellow Storytellers

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About Your Host, Holly Shaw

Holly Shaw, CHT  is a performance coach, creativity researcher and stand up comedian.  Growing up in Indianapolis, IN she convinced her parents she needed to go to Chicago to get her own agent when she was 14 years old and has spent a lifetime in film, T.V. and on professional stages all over the world as an actor, dancer, and director.

Now she shares her passion for the problems that artists face as a Creativity Coach and a Certified Hypnotherapist and has helped hundreds of artists, from Emmy award winning and Grammy nominated artists to world class choreographers overcome their anxiety, stage fright, impostor syndrome, and creative blocks so that they can create original work and totally kill it onstage again and again without feeling like they're selling out or losing their sanity.

In 2016, Shaw wrote and released her book, The Creative Formula: Compose, Choreograph, and Capture Your Masterpiece  which has become an Amazon bestseller.  In 2018 she launched the Performers & Creators Lab podcast which was named one of 2019's most outstanding podcasts by Databird Research. She teaches regularly at the SAG/AFTRA offices in L.A. and SF and runs creative laboratory workshops like the Comedy Lab Open Mic once a month at Monaghan's on the Hill in Oakland. Follow her on Instagram @hollyshawspritely

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