Hollywood Actor Says Acting is a “Waste of a Life”

Acting may not be for everyone. Hollywood and British actor Tom Conti argues that acting is “a waste of a life”.

Tom Conti is an award winning actor. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1979 for his performance in Whose Life Is It Anyway?. He has also been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1983 film, Reuben, Reuben. Most recently he appeared in the Christopher Nolan version of Batman, Dark Knight Rises. 

You would think an actor who has worked on so many movies, theater productions, and TV shows would love the fact that he’s an actor? But, that could not be further from the truth.

In an interview with Telegraph, the actor explained that acting is a waste of a life. “Acting is a waste of a life,” he tells The Telegraph. “There are so many actors now – 85,000 in the UK, but only a few hundred in work on any one day. I meet people at the stage door with a young child in tow and they say, ‘how can we help our child to be an actor?”

But, that’s not the only problem he has with acting. The Academy Award nominated actor revealed that he has a major problem with actor unions.

When he joined in the 1960s, actors had to prove experience before they could get the Equity card, “so young girls would be forced to dance in clubs in Morocco in bra and panties to get a card. That was bad. Nowadays, if a cast member has a problem on one of my productions, I will take it up for them and fight for them. It’s often more effective.”

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