We recently connected with Lindsey McDowell and have shared our conversation below.
Lindsey, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
No, I haven’t. I used to pray and wish to be in the shoes of people I assumed were wayyy richer than me because they were on a show and could DEFINITELY pay their rent from being on said show, alone (right?). Now, after hearing so many raw and honest stories from my peers and idols during the WGA and SAG strikes last year, my perspective has changed. If you’re filming an HBO TV show or a Marvel movie for 3 months… there’s still 9 months of the year you need to pay your rent. Even if you filmed it for 12 months, you may not book anything for another year and a half? So what are you doing to pay your bills during that time?!
Luckily, I found some wisdom from Elizabeth Gilbert. She said she made a promise to herself at 16 that she would take whatever jobs she needed to in order to be an adult and pay for herself so she can continue to have a “love affair” with writing. And I am with her! You have to feed yourself and you can’t hold a knife at (in my case) writing and acting’s throats every night and beg it to make you money. So yeah, my day job/my thrival job is a software engineer. It’s changed everything for me and made me more able and flexible to do what I love and take care of myself.
Lindsey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I moved to Los Angeles and onto my sister’s couch (in her studio apartment!) after my freshman year of college at Howard University. I got involved in everything I could. I went to acting school, improv classes, sketch classes – and eventually wrote, produced and starred in two web series (Echo and Nellie and MisSpelled), and my short film (Dominique’s Baby) was a finalist in Amazon’s All Voices Film Festival. I’m really proud of my narrative work. I’ve also been featured in To The Bone (Netflix) and Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) and was a staff writer on HouseBroken (Fox).
I think what I love the most about storytelling is having the ability to change people’s opinions or soften their hearts on subjects/characters that the audience swears they know already. I like offering a different perspective in my work. It’s usually a little zany – but (I like to think) always earnest.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
When I moved to LA, it was a different time. Truly – every single teacher, mentor, ‘gatekeeper’ gave advice like: “If you want casting/directors/execs to notice you – make your own thing!”, “YOU CANNOT HAVE A JOB! You need to be 24/7 AVAILABLE so that you can go on ANY audition!”, “I have a friend who hosts casting director workshops, you should put this workshop on your credit card!”, or “THIS is the person you need to go to for headshots!” with the implication that if you DIDN’T do these things, you didn’t want it bad enough.
After doing all the things (and being in an impressive amount of CC debt), I realized… “OH! People just like to have something to say”. Producing a season of a web series is EXPENSIVE! It takes time, skill, herculean levels of effort, etc… why did these ‘gatekeepers’ so flippantly give that advice out like it wouldn’t make us all kind of bankrupt?
I decided I was going to stop going to workshops (California state cracked down on them anyway – they are… sort of illegal), paying $1000 for new headshots, and making seasons of digital content with my own money.
The hardest thing to unlearn was the idea and belief that “You cannot have a real job because no one wants to hire an actress because they’ll always be gone filming or to auditions”. First of all, anyone telling you that wants you to suffer. They want you to be in the mental state where you have to take ANY job just to get ahead. Second of all, you will not get 365 damn auditions. There are 7 days in a week. If you get one audition – there are 6 other days in the week you could be bringing in money for a class you wanted to take or a skill you wanted to build. Or to just go see your folks at Christmas! You know how many Christmases I had to miss because I didn’t have the money??!?!? NEVER AGAIN! GET THE DAMN JOB!
The second I got my first big girl job, I was so nervous about getting an audition and not being able to go. But? Everytime I got an audition, my boss at said big girl job (LOVE YOU JOHNNY!) championed the heck out of me. He would ask people in cubicles to go to a conference room with me and run lines. When I booked a role where I needed to play guitar, he sent me to the break room with his electric guitar gear to practice (for weeks!). At my second big girl job, I got staffed as a writer on a Fox show and my boss told me it was too cool to pass up and let me do both. At my third big girl job, my boss made a special announcement when I needed to go film in Ohio for a week for Hauntology and my team was SO over-the-moon for me.
I think the sooner you can give yourself a little certainty as a creative, the more creative you can be!
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Post-Production. I know that sounds really weird. But my ideas always start out as an inkling at a cafe, with my family, or on the toilet. To be able to be in someone’s editing booth or sound studio and hearing all the elements of my silly little story come together but truly made better by the suggestions and talents of others bringing THEMSELVES to the project? It’s incredible. I feel less alone. The people you team up with in post are ultimately your first test audience. I love sharing the final with people but holding the almost-born baby with my creative family members and sort of finessing and praying over it (in a sense) always feels really holy.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://lindseymcdowell.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindseymcqueen
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MisSpelledTV
Image Credits
Leah Huebner Samah Meghjee @marissadela @casdemayo