We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah Carson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Sarah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I didn’t know I wanted to pursue a creative path until I was in my 60’s. I’m a cousin of the deceased late night talk show host, Johnny Carson. I remember him as a kid saying more than once that “the entertainment business is a brutal business.” So I stayed about as far away from a creative profession as I could. I got an MBA from the Harvard Business School, I’m one of the first women to get an MBA from Harvard. For many years, I worked as an executive in the corporate world, Then I left to start my own business. Actually two. I’m a financial advisor and a private investigator. Since I had moved to California in the 1980’s to take an executive position, it became a rather common thing to have a stranger walk up to me on the street and say, “I saw you in such and such.” Of course, I wasn’t in such and such. One weekend I went to a Bryn Mawr College alumnae event (Bryn Mawr is my alma mater). An actress walked up to me and said, “if you aren’t an actress, you should be.” The industry would love your look.” After that, I enrolled in an acting class with Lesley Kahn. It felt like the universe was pushing me in that direction. I absolutely loved it. That’s how it all began.
Sarah, 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?
As I’ve already said, I got into acting by a number of encounters with perfect strangers, who thought that I was already one. I know I’m not the first senior to embark upon acting much later in life, but it’s still pretty rare. I’ve always been a sort of trail blazer. First, I left a simple farming community to go to Bryn Mawr College (one of the 7 women’s colleges on the East Coast known as the 7 sisters.. Then I become one of the first 100 women to get an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Then I become the sole female executive in a multi-billion dollar company. Then I become a private investigator, which in the 1990’s was pretty male dominated.
Along the way, besides being a private investigator and a financial advisor, I’ve done a variety of other things: military intelligence operative, faculty at two universities, yoga and meditation teacher for over 40 years now, grain farmer, board member and officer of two not for profit organizations, animal rescuer, etc. What I can offer now as an actress now, is that I’ve actually done many of the roles being cast in real life. It adds a layer of believability to my acting others who have been acting most of their life may not have. Of course, I’m very hard working and professional in my conduct. That’s how I’ve been able to juggle so many activities throughout my life.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Well, my creative journey hasn’t been very long, and what I’m about to talk about hasn’t been available as a resource for almost all of it. Besides learning the craft of acting, there’s a lot of additional time that has to go into the business side of acting–doing the things that help one get work. As someone with a business background, I’m not daunted by the uncreative activities that go with acting. But those activities do take a lot of time. As someone who packs as much into their life as possible, it can start to feel like a hamster wheel sometimes.
I’m really excited now, though, to be discovering the potential AI has for reducing the amount of time one has to devote to the non creative side. Like all technical advances, there is great potential to use AI in a destructive way.. And there’s great potential in it to simply the business side of acting.
I know I’m what the marketing profession calls an “early adapter.” Kind of goes with trail blazer, don’t you think.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When I entered the business world way back then, the conversation about women getting equal pay for equal work hadn’t even started. The view I had to contend with is that women are too emotional to make decisions under pressure. As a consequence, I soon learned that when something went wrong in the business I was in and my position had to responsible for or at least participate in fixing it, I had to be the last person to cry. just to prove I could work under pressure. As a result I had to become emotionally very armored.
Those defenses I soon learned were pretty counter productive I learned when I started acting. I had to learn to make myself more vulnerable. So the unforseen side benefit of taking up acting was it’s theraputic benefit. It’s allowed me to be more fully myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sarahcarsonactor.com
- Instagram: castsarahcarson
- Other: https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/SarahCarson
Image Credits
Brian Parillo, Jeff Hardwick, and myself.