A lot of people in MMA do part-time jobs.
I think that I'm lucky in that, even at levels where I, by and large, wasn't making enough money to sustain my life, I worked as a male nanny, I waited tables and did what I had to, to keep doing theater and acting.
For years and years, I was doing extra work and guest spots and anything I could cobble together.
When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.
I've been chasing some paychecks. Modeling. I don't discriminate against paychecks. I've got to pay the bills.
A lot of talented actors still have to pay their bills.
I am just a journeyman actor. Most often I take what's offered me, and I've been able to work year after year. I was in 'Scarface.' Some people think this must have done me a world of good. Truth to tell, six months after 'Scarface' I had to take a job with a real estate development friend for a few months just to get by.
I would see musicians performing at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and I knew that at the very worst I could do that.
Back in the day after I won my first pageant there was an agency that was getting me work on the side.
I don't do enough movies that I can call it a career. It really is sort of like summer jobs or something like that. It's very much like holiday work as far as, okay, I do it, and I'm there for two weeks and hopefully am working really hard, and then it's done, and I kind of go back to what I was doing before.
Obviously you'd always be happy to have another tour on the side, earning extra money, but for most of the players I think we're all pretty happy.
The friends I knew who tutored were well paid for work that seemed far less grueling than waitressing or late-night newspaper copy editing or all the other side gigs I attempted in my early twenties.
I have done a lot of television serials in order to make ends meet.
All that running around in my underwear put money in my pockets. I can focus on working in interesting movies without having to worry about supporting myself.
I could count my modeling jobs on my hands and toes. When I graduated from college, I moved to New York specifically to study acting, and I needed to pay the bills, and it's better to make a couple thousand dollars in one day than to wait tables six days a week.
For me, my 20s were all about reaching for the brass ring of work in theater, television, and film, surviving in between by waiting tables, painting houses, serving coffee, and temping.
Most of my friends all tend to work in restaurants part time, doing acting classes on the side.
I never had an official job, but I did play at a local cantina every Tuesday night, and I babysat a lot.
