ACHIEVEMENT and AUDITION

This month of September will certainly be memorable…What an incredible succession of events, again I realized that life is never at an end, that surprises can always hit us, that trains are always passing and we have to be ready to jump aboard or at least  be ready to look at them.

Yes, nothing is given, but opportunities are always offered to us, of course some of us are luckier and have many more opportunities than others! But is it also because some always keep their eyes wide open, their hands always ready to grab, their heart always pounding at novelties, their souls always responsive to new information or to live new adventures?

This month I was told that I will be honored by a prestigious Foundation with a LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT award…                                                                                                                       

I am extremely touched and honored, a life time achievement to ME ?????

What did I really achieved to deserve such an honor? Most of my life I was pushed and led by pure necessities, by dramatic moments,  sometimes by despair and very often by ambition… Always ready to do, to try, to take risks, to advance, to survive, to be…

The American dream is a reality…I don't think my grandfather who left the Jewish ghetto of Tunis more than 100 years ago, or my father with whom I left Tunisia 55 years ago practically as refugees could have ever imagined that!!!

Life time achievement!!!!

Life has been a succession of huge surprises and incredible luck!!! From the beginning of my adult life, opportunities were offered to me: my debuts as an actor followed by a career as a theater director and actor, my arrival in the USA, my teaching in universities, my French theater in America for 10 years, my first opera in 1982 leading to my 400 hundred productions, my duties as a general and artistic director, my work as a designer, my writings, my new life as a manager at the age of 60, all of it was the result of opportunities offered to me.                                                                                                             Yes of course, then we have to deal with the gift of the opportunity, and register all that is given to us and deliver more than expected in order to fulfill our commitments.

 A definition of achievement is: A thing done successfully, typically by effort, courage, or skill.

Effort? Courage? Yes, I cannot deny that I gave a lot of efforts and had in many occasions a lot of courage or some will call that nerves or even self-appreciation.

Skill? I do not know if all my adventures and all my so called successes were the result of skill!

Certainly the result of perseverance, stubbornness, and belief in others by having the possibility to surround myself with men and women who knew more than I did in their specific specialty.

We have to learn how to trust others and sometimes believe that they know more than we do, and then we can have successes.

Life time achievement!!!! 

I learned early and I still believe that the best achievement is not how much we do, how much money we make, how much recognition we get, but how much we are able to give and bring to others! I know some people reading this will think “He is full of it, it looks good to say that”…

But the reality is:

As an actor or a singer, even if we love what we do and we find great satisfaction doing it, the best achievement is to know that an audience can be deeply moved by what we bring to them, can discover more about itself, and can even be changed in some beliefs or some actions. And this can be said about all the achievements we can have as a teacher, a director, a writer, a manager, or anything…

THE BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT IS TO SHARE OUR KNOWLEDGE WITH OTHERS…And if I have done that, I will be happy in the next decade and in peace with myself to have received this award.

But to have achieved some things called achievements does not mean it is the end or a way for us to be self-satisfied and  start to be unaware of the world around us… There is always room for more adventures, more attempts, more endeavors, and more possibilities.

I said at the beginning of this posting that this month of September was an incredible succession of events.

Yes sometimes an incredible lesson of humility is given again and it is an injection of youth.                                                

This month I was made aware that a TV series was looking for specific roles for men in their sixties… The series is called MOZART IN THE JUNGLE!!!! 

I have not been to an audition since 1972, but I decided to go and try to remember how we feel when we go to an audition, what we hope and what we expect, how we can impress the people in charge of the audition and make them know us..                                                                

I dressed the way they would expect for  the role they were looking for and  I arrived at the audition an hour earlier and waited for my turn in the middle of people of all ages, some my age and some much younger….Finally my turn came, they called my name, mispronouncing it of course, but I am used to that( Uzan is a strange name in the States)…I was expecting to have a conversation with the casting director, or at least tell him a few things about me, but we exchanged 6 words, just to be polite…

He asked me to read a text of a few lines while they were filming me, asked me to do it again with a different intonation, and then thanked me and opened the door for my exit…

They did not need a copy of my resume, they did not ask one question about who I was…NOTHING…

I left, not upset, but rejuvenated and very pensive…Rejuvenated because I realized that in my twenties I went to many, many auditions comparable to that one, and pensive because I promised myself to act differently when I listen to singers in an audition….                                                                                                                                        It was a great lesson in humility, they were just looking for somebody specific and did not care about who I was, what I do or had done, what my ACHIEVEMENTS were or anything.

Two days later, I received a phone call informing me that I was cast in the role and if I was available the following week for the filming…I said yes… YES, YES, YES….I hung up in shock, again life was generous to me by giving me opportunities to be again what had been my life 45 years ago…IT IS NEVER OVER…
                                                                                                      Even more, I arrived at the studio and had the huge surprise to discover that the star of the show was Malcom McDowell and my scenes were with him… In 1968 and in 1972, I was in the French version of 2 of his movies: IF and CLOCKWORK ORANGE…Again fate is sometimes scary… I told him and he was really excited to know that…

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 While again in the staff and the crew, nobody asked me anything about me, who I was, and where I came from (my French accent may have been the reason), the cast was a wonderful group of human beings, ready to do the best possible job and help each other as much as possible … Mr McDowell was a delight to work with… But I was again a pawn in the game doing what I was supposed to do…

The same month I am honored for LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENTS and I go to an audition after 45 years like a young man, and I do the best I can to justify my presence there surrounded by great actors. What a wonderful lesson of life, a wonderful lesson for life, yes.                                                                 
Nothing is never over, we will always have more opportunities to grow and to learn until the end… Never drop, never give up…                                                                                                                 
 Yes some moments will be difficult and disappointing, yes many, many disappointments caused by events or people we believed in or trusted, but more will happen, new trains will pass…  

                                                                   

LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENTS does not mean LIFE IS ACHIEVED, more AUDITIONS FOR LIFE WILL COME… 

Let’s always stay vigilant and ready…And let’s not forget the most important, the real achievement is to share our knowledge with others.