[Music] i had so many dreams of where i wanted to go who i wanted to be and what i wanted to do theater companies i wanted to start with classmates movies i wanted to be in directors i wanted to work with stories i needed to tell it might take a little time i thought but it would happen when i sat there excuse me 22 years ago what i didn't want to think about is where i would be tomorrow what i would have to start to do tomorrow and i graduated in 1991 a great year a
time of resurgence for independent films in this country a time of relatively affordable rents in new york city i see i assumed that i could make a living writing my plays acting way off off off broadway and hopefully well one day join the actors i loved and respected in those independent films tv oh what no what are you kidding me no didn't even consider that i had much more class than that much more self-respect than that soap operas and what i didn't have was cash a bank account a credit card or an apartment i just
had debt a big hungry growing larger every moment dead [Music] so as you will tomorrow i had to leave beautiful vermont i packed the life that i knew with socks and a toothbrush into my backpack and i slept on couch after couch after couch after couch at friends apartments in new york until i wore out their rent-paying roommates welcome i didn't want a day job i was an actor i was a writer i was a bennington graduate i had to get a day job i dusted pianos at a piano store on ludlow street for five
months i worked on the property of a shakespeare scholar for a year pulling weeds and removing bees nests i went on unemployment once but for not for long i couldn't handle the guilt eventually i was able to pay rent for a spot on the floor of an apartment on the lower east side but my roommate had a breakdown and disappeared he later resurfaced in a religious cult i'm making this sound romantic it really wasn't i helped hang paintings at galleries paintings that inspired inspire you to think i could do that and then finally after two
years of job and couch surfing i got a job in application processing as a data enterer at a place called professional examination services and i stayed for six years [Applause] six years longer than my time at bennington from the age of 23 to 29 well they loved me there i was funny i wore black no cape no tights i smoked in the loading docks with the guys from the mail room and we shared how hungover we all were everyone called each other shorty i don't know what's up shorty how you doing shorty oh so hungover
shorty i called in sick almost every friday because i was out late the night before i hated that job and i clung to that job because of that job i could afford my own place so i lived in williamsburg brooklyn yeah you say that now [Applause] oh my kingdom for a time machine yeah that's right i lived in an industrial loft my rent was four hundred dollars a month [Music] my dream of running a theater company with my friend and fellow bennington graduate ian bell had died i won't go into those details but neither one
of us had any business sense and the theater we lived in it had no heat or hot water we didn't smell very good but we had our youth the youth gets old very quickly you'll see so ian moved out to seattle and i moved up to the street to my loft and i still didn't have heat in 1993 industrial loft meant not legal to live there i see i don't want this to sound cool and i feel like it's sounding cool ad-lib uh but i did have hot water hot water in my bathroom which a
friend of mine using said bathroom once shouted it smells exactly like a summer camp in here was true for some reason in the middle of brooklyn there was earth in my shower actual earth and then oh look mushrooms growing from the earth but i i was safe though the ideal fire control company was right across the street where they make all the chemicals that put out chemical fires i did not fear a chemical fire i would be okay and all those chemicals in the air were okay too because up the street we had the spice
factory they made spices and that just covered everything up in a nice cumin scent i had a rat but that was okay because i got a cat his name was brian no relation my grandmother had given me a pink pullout couch oddly no friends or recent graduates wanted to crash on my couch i put the couch on its end so brian could climb it and look out the window i had only the one window i myself could not look out the window it was it was quite high so i had no heat no girlfriend what
are you kidding me no acting agent but i had a cat named brian who told me of the world outside and i stayed for 10 years no don't pity me there's a happy ending when i was 29 i told myself the next acting job i get no matter what it pays i will from now on for better or worse be a working actor so i quit my position at the professional examination services my friends really weren't happy about that because it was so easy to find me when i worked there work was that was the
only place i had the internet this was at the beginning of the internet and now i didn't have either the internet or a cell phone or a job but something good happened i got a low-paying theater job in a play called imperfect love which led to a film called 13 moons with the same writer which led to other roles which led to other roles and i've worked as an actor ever since but i didn't know that would happen at 29 walking away from data processing i was terrified 10 years in a place without heat six
years at a job i felt stuck in maybe i was afraid of change are you my parents didn't have much money but they struggled to send me to the best schools and one of the most important things they did for me and graduates maybe you don't want to hear this is that once i graduated i was on my own financially it was my turn parents are applauding graduates are not but this made me very hungry literally i couldn't be lazy now i'm totally lazy but back then i couldn't be and so at 29 and a
very long last i was in the company of the actors and writers and directors i'd sought out that first year that first day after school i was i am by their sides raise the rest of your life to meet you don't search for defining moments because they will never come well the birth of your children okay of course forget about it that's i just six months she's my life has forever changed and that's the most defining moment ever but i'm talking about in the rest of your life and most importantly in your work the moments
that define you have already happened and they will already happen again and it passes so quickly so please bring each other along with you everyone you need is in this room these are the shiny more important people sorry it sucks after graduation it really does i mean i don't know at least it did for me but that's the only thing i know you you just get a bit derailed but soon something starts to happen trust me a rhythm sets in just like it did after your first few days here just try not to wait until
like me you're 29 before you find it and if you are that's fine too some of us never find it but you will i promise you you are already here that's such an enormous step all its own you'll find your rhythm or continue the one you have already found i was walking downtown in manhattan the other day and i was approached by a group of very sweet young ladies easy actually they're sort of running feverishly down the street after me when they got to me breathless it was really they didn't know what to say or
couldn't form the words but it came out that they were nyu freshmen and they were majoring in musical theater of course come on they were like science majors they're running after me what musicals are you doing i inquired well one of them said looking down at her shoes we aren't allowed to be in plays or yet our freshman year now they were paying a very high tuition to not do what they loved doing i think i said well hang in there what i should have said was don't wait until they tell you you are ready
get in there sing or quickly transfer to bennington when i went to school here if a freshman wanted to write direct and star in her own musical the lights would already be hung for her now i tell this story because the world might say you are not allowed to yet i waited a long time out in the world before i gave myself permission to fail please don't even bother asking don't bother telling the world you are ready show it do it did beckett say ever tried ever failed no matter try again fail again fail better
pennington class of 2012 the world is yours treat everyone kindly and light up the night thank you so much for having me here you
