“It’s great to see you… So, what are you working on? What’s the last thing you did?” You know the moment. You’re at a party, or a reading, or running into someone at a coffee shop, and they ask the question. But — you’re not working on anything. Not an acting job, anyway. Maybe you’re auditioning. Maybe you’re not even doing that. Maybe it’s been four months, and the phone has been quiet in a way that’s starting to feel like its own sound.
What do you say?
Some actors don’t go out. They’d rather be out of circulation than have to deal with the questions they’d prefer not to answer. Most actors lie. Not maliciously — they reach for something that sounds like forward motion. I’ve got a few things in the pipeline. I’m in talks about a project. I’m being seen for something. I’m in the mix for a very hush-hush project. The words are technically possible. They’re also a way of hiding, which is its own kind of erosion. You spend enough time managing the impression you make on other people, and eventually you lose track of what’s actually true for you.
Some actors choose to overcorrect the other way. They break out a boo-hoo story. They treat the question like some intervention they’ve been waiting for, and suddenly, whoever asked is standing there holding space for you, when they were looking to keep it moving. And that’s not honesty. That’s a different kind of performance — the one where you play someone falling apart, so you don’t have to actually feel it alone later.
Neither of those is what I’m talking about.
What I’ve learned — and it took longer than I’d like to admit — is that the question what are you working on is not a trap. It’s also not a job interview. It’s a social ritual, and the person asking usually wants one of two things: a genuine connection or the relief of knowing you’re doing fine. Most of the time, they’re not taking notes. They asked because they’re standing next to you, and that’s what people in this industry say to each other.
So say something true. Something that doesn’t require performance. People who know me understand that I never sit still, so I say, You know me, always keeping busy. I’m between projects right now, which I’m using to write. Or: Slow stretch — so I’m taking class again, which I should’ve been doing anyway. Or simply: Honestly, it’s quiet right now. That last one is harder to say than it sounds. Try it. Any actor who’s been in the trenches knows this business is cyclical. You’re not confessing anything they haven’t already been through.
Notice the impulse to qualify it, soften it, append something that makes you sound more in control than you feel. That impulse is worth examining. Because underneath it is usually the belief that if someone knows you’re not working, they’ll think less of you — and that if they think less of you, something real and important will be taken from you.
That belief is a lie. And it’s been stealing from you longer than unemployment has.
More than 30 years of doing this have given me this insight: the actors who navigate their slow periods with the most integrity are not the ones who manage their image. They’re the ones who have built an independent interior life that doesn’t depend on whether they’re currently working on a show. They’re writing something, or reading obsessively, or teaching, or in somebody’s basement working a scene for no audience and no credit because the work itself still means something to them. They have an honest answer to the question because they’re actually living one.
I’m not romanticizing the dry spells. I’ve had them. They’re disorienting in a specific way that people outside this industry don’t fully understand — because our work is also our identity. When the work goes quiet, the identity wobbles a little. That’s real.
But the way through that wobble is not a better cover story. It’s a more honest relationship with how you’re actually using your time and energy when no one is paying you to do anything.
So figure that out first. What are you working on? Not for them. For you. If the answer is nothing, that’s information. Maybe you need to rest. Maybe you’ve been waiting to be chosen for so long you’ve forgotten you can choose. Maybe you need to start something small and private and yours — something that has nothing to do with an audition or a submission — to remind yourself that you’re still a maker and not just a candidate.
Once you know the true answer, the social one gets easy. You say it straight, without apology, without performance.
And then you ask them what they’re working on. Because they might not be working either, and they might need someone to show them how to say so.