I use a screenwriting software called “Final Draft.” Love the program. Hate the name. “Final” Draft? Really?? I’m trying to bridge that first tentative connection between inspiration and manifestation, and already I’ve got the word final hanging over my head?
Okay, maybe I’m being sensitive. But as an actor, evolution has been key to my professional survival. At 20, I was cast in a zeitgeist-defining TV series. By 27, I was adrift. I’ve since managed to work my way back into a very exciting flow, but there are definitely a few projects along the way I’m hoping you either never saw or have long since forgotten. No need to go on IMDb. Really. Just keep reading.
Recently, I staged a full-on reinvention. I co-created, wrote, executive produced and starred in my own show (about a DJ, of course). And while it garnered the best reviews of my career, boy was it a process. Exhilarating highs were matched by debilitating lows spent questioning, “Is any of this good?” But what I eventually realized is, you have to allow the process to benefit your work. A first draft is a guess. A “final” draft…is just a best guess. If you’ve done it right, you’ll discover so much along the way you’ll look back almost embarrassed by what you didn’t know—couldn’t have known—while banging out that first humble effort on Final Draft.
But the age we live in isn’t big on process. It’s a “gotcha” culture, high on “likes,” followers, and scathing zingers that feel true, whether they are or not. And labels. The internet loves its labels.
I was reminded of this in October, amidst the first wave of Harvey Weinstein allegations. I saw brave women challenged on everything from credibility to timing to—most appallingly—complicity in the violation of their own human dignity. Here they were, re-claiming their narrative and transforming a moment of powerlessness into one of resolve and getting backlash for it.
It pissed me off.
As someone who’s dealt with harassment and abuse on a few levels, it’s my understanding that people cope with it the best they know how at the time. You can’t judge their process. I retweeted an article illuminating this, added a few words of support backed up by a passing mention of my own experiences with powerful, abusive men, and went to bed.
I awoke to discover a backlash of my very own. Most of it was easy to dismiss—until I got called out for not naming names and saw speculation naming dear friends and mentors as possible perpetrators. I felt sick. I was just trying to help. But that didn’t matter. I quickly clarified the perpetrators were not famous, and had either already been punished or were dead, but the damage had been done. Should I have just shut up?
Fear of getting it wrong can be so paralyzing it’s tempting to stay quiet. But that creates its own problems. So how to navigate?
It’s something I struggle with even as I write this. Legendary acting teacher Stella Adler said, “In your choices lies your talent.” And I’ve always loved that, because it puts the power in our hands, in every moment, to get it right. It’s not about any past role, review, nasty comment, or mistake, and it’s certainly not about someone else’s complete disregard for our dignity, or our initial response to it (or even our second).
“In your choices lies your talent” means, to me, that the source of our prowess is our instincts. That we’re not defined by any kind of win-loss record but by how diligently and honestly we keep watch for what we’ve yet to discover. And that, as long as we reserve the right to keep evolving and making our own choices, no draft of ourselves can ever be labeled “final.”
James Van Der Beek is an actor, writer, and executive producer on Viceland’s What Would Diplo Do? He will next appear in Ryan Murphy’s FX series Pose.
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