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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, the 10th Doctor, played by David Tennant, is my favorite Doctor, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a lesson I learned when I recently attended Fan Expo Dallas.
Today’s Fun Fact: Did you know that we call the length of measurement a foot because it’s the length of the average man’s foot? Did you also know that a yard was originally the length of a man’s belt or girdle, as it was called. In the 12th century, King Henry I of England fixed the yard as the distance from his nose to the thumb of his out-stretched arm.
What I Learned Yesterday
What qualities do you imagine upon those who have found success? That is, when you think about them, what do you imagine they are like?
I’ve been fortunate to be able to attend 8 different comic-con events over the last 7 years. I really enjoy going to them for a variety of reasons including hanging out with other geeks, meeting new people, seeing all the great cosplayers, hearing about the experiences of those who work on some of my favorite TV shows and movies, and occasionally even getting to meet some of the people who work on some of my favorite TV shows and movies.
When I was recently given the chance to attend Fan Expo Dallas as a member of the press, I had a little bit of hope that I’d get to meet some of my favorite actors from Doctor Who or Person of Interest. While that didn’t happen, I still had a great time at the event, and had the chance to attend some very fun and informative panels with Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Michelle Gomez, and Arthur Darville from Doctor Who, Amy Acker from Person of Interest, Hayley Atwell from Agent Carter, and Kevin Conroy from Batman animated works.
I found these panels to not only be fun and informative, but I found them to be inspirational as well. Each panel was nearly an hour long and consisted almost entirely of questions from fans. Each actor greeted the person at the microphone cheerfully and listened intently to each question. Some of the questions might have been deemed silly or inane, but the actors never treated them as such.
Of course, many of the questions asked were from children. I particularly loved it when a 9 year old boy asked Peter, “When I grow up I want to be a part of Doctor Who. What should I do to get there?” Peter answered, “Great Question. You’ve got to be nice to your mom, you’ve gotta be kind to people, you’ve got to work hard and make the very best of the gifts that you have, of your talents, and take them out into the world. If you work hard, you’re kind, and you’re lucky, that will all be recognized. But the important thing is to have that ambition to want to do that because if you want to do something like that it means you’re a clever, bright and creative person. That’s the most important thing to take forward. To take forward that belief in yourself and in the belief in how valuable it is to bring creativity into the world.”
Another person asked Peter about the types of roles that he would like to played but missed out on. His answer was very insightful. He said that it depended on the status of his bank account. Of course, he dreams of the big roles and playing big Shakespearean parts, but there were plenty of times when he wished he’d simply gotten the part of the detective’s friend or the third banana.
The panel with Michelle Gomez was incredible. The part she plays on Doctor Who is that of the Doctor’s biggest rival, Missy, a.k.a. The Master. Missy is cunning, quick witted, clever, diabolical, energetic, and unpredictable. After spending time in the same room with Michelle Gomez, I think that she isn’t really acting when she’s playing Missy. She’s simply being herself. She had the whole room laughing and we never knew what would come out of her mouth.
She talked a bit about her journey as well. She was even candid enough to talk about how her facial features have given her a look that is suited to particular types of roles and how as she ages, her facial features change and create different opportunities for her.
Peter is 58 years old. Michelle is 49. Since both of them are Scottish and have done most of their work overseas, I wasn’t really familiar with either of them prior to Doctor Who. When it was announced that Matt Smith would be stepping down as The Doctor, there was a lot of chatter and speculation among fans as to who should take over the role. I immediately heard a lot of people expressing interest in Peter Capaldi. Even though he’d actually appeared in a minor role on Doctor Who previously, I had no idea who he was. Clearly a lot of other people did.
So from my perspective, it would be easy to think that Peter, a man in his mid 50’s at the time, must have been a long-established successful actor. But that’s just simply not the case. That was a quality I had imagined upon him. I didn’t imagine his hardships. I didn’t imagine him missing out on third banana and not knowing how he’d pay rent. Likewise, I didn’t imagine that Michelle had been a struggling actor for years before getting her break.
Here’s what I learned.
I say that I never imagined those actors to have not gone through hardships, but that’s not entirely accurate. The truth is, I never took the time to consider it. If I had, I would have assumed that at some point, maybe even years and years ago, that they’d struggled. But I didn’t take the time to think about it. I didn’t take time to think about their journey. I didn’t consider the hard work, sacrifice, grumbling stomachs, or impatient landlords.
I didn’t take time to think about the times when they got rejected over and over again. I didn’t think about the times they spent alone wondering if they’d gotten the part if they’d made a different choice or delivered the lines the way they almost did instead of the way they actually did. I never thought about watching other people perform the roles they missed out on and wondering, “what if…”
When I was in high school I wanted to be an animator and work for Warner Brothers. Unlike most other aspiring animators, I didn’t want to work at Disney. I wanted to work at Warner Brothers primarily because of a show that inspired me like nothing else ever had. It was a show called Batman the Animated Series. I had no idea that Mark Hamill was the voice of the joker or that Kevin Conroy was the voice of Batman. It was only years later that I learned that information.
While at Fan Expo Dallas I got to attend a panel with Kevin and it was amazing to watch him share his life with the audience. He shared a story about how he’d gone out to California to but got tired of the grind and decided to move back to New York in the year 2000. He borrowed a friend’s truck to move some furniture, and the truck broke down on the Long Island Expressway during rush hour.
After walking to the nearest pay phone, he walked back to the truck and met the tow truck driver. The driver didn’t realize that the truck was rear wheel drive and had to do a U-turn on the Long Island Expressway in order to hook up the truck. After that was done, the driver then had to do another U-turn to get them turned back the right way with the flow of traffic.
As they sat in the cab talking, they realized that they had been in the same class at the same elementary school 40 years earlier. The tow truck driver had then been accepted in to a very prestigious high school, then went on to a very prestigious college, and followed that up by going to another prestigious college for his graduate degree. After that he made millions of dollars being a day trader on Wall Street.
Kevin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How did he end up driving a tow truck? It was simple. He was over leveraged on dot coms and lost all of his money during the dot com bust. He was now lucky to have a job at all and was convinced he’d blown his one and only chance at life. Kevin responded by telling him that he’s lucky that he just failed for the first time and told him how smart, bold, and capable he is. When they were done the tow truck driver told Kevin that he was grateful that they’d crossed paths and Kevin felt the same way.
And that’s what I learned. We all fail. We all screw up. We all lose out on opportunities. We all get knocked down. But we have to keep getting up. We have to keep believing. And we have to persevere.
But we also have to share our stories. We have to let others know about our struggles. We have to let them know that they can make it to. We have to inspire, motivate, create good will, extend a hand, show love, give a smile, share a meal, speak a word of confidence, and help people get a foot up in the world.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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