Intimacy Directors and Coordinators Podcast
Where Intimacy Professionals in TV, Film, and Theatre come together to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry.
Intimacy Directors and Coordinators Podcast
You Can Make It!
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🎙️ Podcast Show Notes Introduction
Have you ever been told that making it in the entertainment industry is nearly impossible? That even if you do succeed, you'll spend your life overworked, underpaid, and burned out? In this episode, Jessica Steinrock and Marie Percy challenge one of the most persistent myths in the arts and entertainment world. Together, they unpack what it really means to "make it," why success looks different for everyone, and how limiting beliefs about the industry stop talented people from pursuing meaningful careers. Whether you're an aspiring intimacy professional, actor, director, or creative entrepreneur, this conversation will help you rethink what's possible and take ownership of the career you actually want to build.
👂 What to Listen For
- Why the myth that "nobody makes it in the entertainment industry" keeps so many talented people from even trying
- How defining success on your own terms can completely change your career trajectory
- The surprising opportunities available to intimacy professionals beyond traditional film and television work
- Why waiting to be "discovered" may be holding you back from creating your own opportunities
- How resilience, creativity, and a willingness to adapt can help you build a sustainable career in the arts
🔗 Important Links
Welcome to the IDC podcast. This is the place you know where intimacy professionals come together to keep their finger on the pulse of what exactly is happening inside this rapidly changing industry. My name is Jessica Steinrock. I'm one of your co-hosts and the CEO here at Intimacy Directors and Coordinators. I use she, her pronouns.
SPEAKER_00My name is Marie Percy. I use she, her pronouns. I am the chief creative officer here at IDC and your other co-host for the podcast today.
SPEAKER_01I'm so excited to talk about this topic. It's something I feel deeply passionate about, which we're gonna be busting a myth today, per huge. And that myth is that you can't make it in the entertainment industry. And even if you do, the industry is so soul-crushing and toxic that you'll be overworked, underpaid, and constantly burned out.
SPEAKER_00You know, the lecture your parents gave you when you were like, I'm gonna go get a BFA in theater and acting. And they were like, Don't you dare. You'll never get a job, you'll never work a day in your life.
SPEAKER_01I mean, some of us really listened to that myth, myself included. Like my undergraduate degree is in advertising and weather. And that's, you know, largely I come from mathematician, physicist, computer science, engineer kind of household. And and while, you know, thank you, mom and dad, I was very supported in many of the things that I did. Uh, there was always this kind of underlying tone that what I was doing was a hobby and I should get a quote unquote real job and then pursue, you know, my dreams on the side. And that that was it always kind of gave me this sense of disbelief that the work that I was gonna do wasn't actually going to work. And so I always had to be hedging my bets in order to make sure that there was kind of something that that would catch me. You know, I do think that this comes from a place of love and a real awareness of some of the challenges that are inside our entertainment industry. And I don't want to erase those. And also, art is a valued and uh valuable skill set and career choice, and there's a lot to challenge when it comes to this idea that no one makes it in the entertainment industry, which is a phrase I hear all the time. And as we know, plenty of people make it, quote unquote, in the entertainment industry. And making it can look so different. I don't know. Marie, is that a narrative that you got a lot when you were growing up?
SPEAKER_00You know, I was like kind of I well, I did gymnastics for a long time. So I wasn't like a theater kid in high school. I was like doing gymnastics. And then in when I was doing my undergrad, I was getting a degree in mathematics. And then I was such an overachiever in high school that I had like done all my gen eds already. So I happened to have room in my schedule to do a BA in theater on the side. My parents were never thought that I was gonna go into entertain into the entertainment industry, so they were like never trying to dissuade me until all of a sudden I was, and then we're like, oh, this is happening now. Okay. But they were always really supportive. But I think even in my awareness of what I was planning to do, I was very aware of, okay, the entertainment industry is a gig economy. If I want to be an actor, I'm going to be auditioning 90% of the time and working, getting actual roles 10% of the time. You know, like I understood that there's a lot of structural things about the way working in the entertainment industry is that you have to plan for, adapt for, you have to plan for times where there's a lot of work and then plan for times where you're not getting as much work. And so there's really like a skill set for navigating the highs and lows and the unique demands of being a gig worker in the entertainment industry. And so I think, you know, if you don't have those skills and you don't understand how to navigate that type of work dynamic, it makes a lot of sense that people then have this belief that, oh, you'll never make it or it's not gonna work because it looks different than go to college, get a nine to five at a stable company, work there for 30 years, contribute to your retirement fund, and then retire, right? Like it's a very dynamic way to live your life and build a career. And so I think I think that's part of where this myth comes from of like, oh, you'll never make it. It's because what does it mean to make it? It's it is an alternative career path to what most people are looking for in their lives.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sometimes I think about the way in which the entertainment industry is envisioned as like there's this bag of rocks, right? And we are all like like we're being represented by the rocks. And there's some some power from above that's gonna reach into the bag of rocks and grab one lucky rock, and this is the rock that now can make it, right? And we're all just kind of waiting for our shot, our opportunity, our big break, right? We hear these terms over and over and over again that, you know, when when that external hand pulls out our rock, then that'll be the moment that suddenly it's gonna shift and life's gonna change, and that I will have made it and I won't have to worry. And time and time again, whether I'm talking to actors, intimacy professionals, directors, that that is just not the way that people actually experience the industry. Sure, a small handful of people might land a role that sets them up for a lot of success. And they're able to then leverage that moment in time, et cetera, et cetera. But that's so rare. And many times I hear folks who feel like they they got that moment and then it didn't turn out the way that they thought it was going to. And over and over and over again, the folks that I hear being the most successful are the folks that aren't thinking of this industry as a bag of rocks in which they are powerless to be chosen. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01That that when we throw out kind of this this bag of rocks metaphor, and instead we we explore all of the different ways in which success can look, it opens up a lot of opportunities for is success just a breakthrough role that gets me XYZ? Or is success being able to act most of the days of the week? Is success being able to leverage my skill sets as an intimacy professional to pay my mortgage? You know, and is that leveraging of that skill set only able to be done as an intimacy professional on a TV and film set? Or can that be an intimacy professional consulting for a project or working in the theater or teaching a class or using some of those skill sets in a completely different industry? And that idea of what success can be or can look like and what a happy and fulfilling life can be and can look like is such a different question than whether or not I've quote unquote made it in the industry. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's just this huge oversimplification of the reality, which leads to this like oversimplified belief of like, well, no one's gonna make it. And it's like, well, we haven't defined what making it means. So how can you say no one's gonna make it if you don't know what that means? Like for me and my personal values, it is more important to me that I be able to choose the roles that I accept and the intimacy direction gigs that I choose to take and that I choose not to take, than that I be working as an intimacy director 100% of the time. I would rather have the ability to say, yes, I want to work on that gig because it aligns with my values and my current time and energy level and bandwidth versus feeling like I have to take every single gig all the time. And that's like that's my version of success. And to me, that feels like I've made it. I can say no to that project without totally tanking my career. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01And I think kind of the nefarious side of this, like nobody makes it in the entertainment industry myth is that it, for me at least personally, it really stopped me from even trying for so many years, right? Like even when I went into my undergraduate degree, uh, I picked weather because it's the most performative of the sciences that I could think of. I'm like, what kind of scientist gets to be on TV? Ah, the weather person gets to be on TV, right? And I went into advertising because I'm like, oh, commercials are kind of like TV and film, and that's a way to be kind of adjacent to this industry that I loved, but felt so too scared to invest my time in. Because what what if, what happened if I spent my time and energy investing in this career and it didn't work out, which everyone was kind of telling me that it wasn't going to work out, or the chances that it would work out were so low when I wish someone had told me, hey, this, there are some real challenges with this industry, but let's talk about what success could look like for you. You want this, okay. Well, then it's gonna come with these obstacles. So let's create an action plan to overcome those obstacles. You know, you want to only be working as an intimacy director on this type of, you know, on projects that have to deal with this subject matter. Okay, well, there's not that many of those. So you might want to look into what supplementary income looks like that's flexible enough so that when those gigs arrive, you can. Or maybe you're willing to expand into other areas, other fields, work as a teaching artist. All of those things are so powerful and necessary and create such positive impact, but often weren't in this discussion of what making it or what success could possibly look like and creating real action plans for tangible careers. I don't know, Marie, how how big is this industry?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I pulled, I pulled, um, I pulled some data here, folks. According to Google, the entertainment industry globally is a $649 billion industry. $649 billion pass through the entertainment industry every year. So clearly, some people are working in the entertainment industry and getting paid and doing work that they love and that's fulfilling for them. Like, if anybody is like, oh, there's no money in the arts, I'm like, there's a lot of money in the arts. There's so much money in the arts. People want to be entertained. People dem, you know, and the demand for entertainment is non-stop, especially with the the crazy little TVs we have in our pockets now, right? Like the entertainment is nonstop and people want to be entertained. They want to be engaged with stories. It's it's just crazy to me how big this industry is.
SPEAKER_01And there's so many opportunities, right, for non-traditional paths in the arts, right? That there is kind of this like, okay, well, I'll I'll audition and work at, you know, this place, or I'll get this gig as an intimacy director and then get this gig as an intimacy director, and then and then I'll work at this one theater, and it'll be great. But there's also so many opportunities for independent entrepreneurship, independent creation. If you're really passionate and want to intimacy direct a project that has a specific subject matter, I bet there are other people who also are really passionate about that subject matter who want to direct and act in that piece. And so being this kind of multi-hyphenate entrepreneur artist can actually create more opportunities for you to be an intimacy director or an intimacy coordinator by making your own opportunities. We don't have to wait for the hand to come in and grab your rock out of the bag. You can be the hand that grabs your own rock. Is that a weird chat of it? That's a weird thing to say. Uh we're gonna roll with it. Be the hand that grabs your own rock.
SPEAKER_00Okay, but in all seriousness, I think this is so important because I think it's really easy for people to get into a space of a victim mentality about the industry. Well, the industry is this way, and therefore I can't have what I want. I am a victim. I am at the whim of how this industry works. And it's like you have so much more power to decide what you want to do with your life now more than ever, to connect with other people who are interested in the same things that you are, to connect with other people who want to work on projects that you want to work on, to start things from the grass, from the ground up, grassroots, you know, small indie projects. Start that theater troupe with your best friend from your BFA program. You know, like it start offering your services as an intimacy director to your current network. You know, there are so many steps that you can take to get your rock rolling downhill that you don't have to wait for someone to pluck you out of the bag. And and I honestly, the work that I have done in my career that has been the most fulfilling has been the work where it has been me and and other people that I connect with and I share values with, starting projects together versus the work that I have done where I have been hired by someone else to do a thing for them.
SPEAKER_01Well, and and so often too, right? This narrative stops people from even trying. And then we don't get their voices and their artistry. You know, this is again something that I experienced where I almost didn't go into the entertainment industry at all. And how sad would that have been for my own life and my own choices and experiences? I feel so grateful that enough people said, Hey, you can do this, that this is an option, this is viable. It might be hard, it might be challenging at times, but you have the kind of grit and determination to make something that's gonna work for you. Because at the end of the day, if you feel like you were meant to do this work, then you're meant to do this work, right? Like that's that's the crux of it. You know, and that's it, it sounds, I feel like so often it's the idea of like, oh, follow your heart is this like loosey goosey, oh, you know, head up in the clouds, they're not being practical. But that's just not how I've experienced it or how I've seen other really successful professionals experience it. That following their heart actually is what leads them to doing great work, to being creative, to thinking outside the box, and then also to getting the tools they need to build sustainability, to think about what success means for them, to explore topics and ideas and projects beyond the first initial scope of what success looks like. And that then ultimately has been what's allowed them to create the most change, to push back against the most toxic industry norms, uh, and to create careers that they love and lives that they're proud of.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And I think it is having the courage to take those first steps because whether you're following your heart and you're like, this is my dream, it's my pie in the sky dream, and I I everyone tells me I can't do it, or you're like, I am choosing this well-trodden road that everybody says is safe. I'm gonna go do this corporate thing that kills my soul, or whatever that is it means for you. Right. Like, either way, whatever choice you make, you are going to encounter challenges along the way, because that's the nature of life. Life is full of challenges. Nobody is exempt from problems, regardless of your level of success or what you're working on, or how much you've made it or not made it. The nature of life is that you are going to have desires, you're going to pursue them or not pursue them. And either way, you are going to meet challenges that are going to force you to grow, or you're going to be stymied because you're not growing to overcome those challenges. And so, my feeling is like if you're gonna experience challenges in life regardless, why not follow your dreams and do the things that are important to you and do the things that light up your soul and gain the skills you need along the way and learn along the way. And there will be, you know, different kinds of challenges along different life paths, but everybody has challenges. So it's it's kind of a erroneous argument.
SPEAKER_01Basically, if no one's ever told it to you, you can make it in this industry, period. People make it in this industry all the time, and you can make it. And there are tools, support, training colleagues who are going to be more than willing to support you in those goals and in those dreams. It might be challenging. It's going to be challenging. I'm not even gonna say might, it's going to be challenging no matter what that that path is, like Marie was saying. Uh, but you can make it. Uh, and if you needed to hear that from someone today, hear it from us. This this industry, if you feel called to it, then then they're called to it. And there is options and there are pathways forward for you.
SPEAKER_00We need more intimacy directors and more intimacy coordinators in this world making a difference in our industry. So we need you. We need you.
SPEAKER_01All right. Well, that's it for us on today's podcast. Make sure to like and subscribe and check us out for more episodes. If you have any questions as well, please also let us know what topics you want us to unpack, discover. And at the end of the day, you know, go out there, make change, help change the world. You've got this.