Career & Money
Sometimes, our careers require us to radically pivot, and it’s a skill the best of the best learn to hone in their own unique way. It’s a skill that indeed keeps you not only relevant in your industry but fulfilled, especially when you’re a creative.
I know all too well, especially as someone whose livelihood and purposeful development depend on knowing when to shift. You might be great at one thing but crave the chance to do another, and you’re often giving in to that pull to see your greatest creative potential come alive across various mediums and opportunities.
Actress Naomi Ackie recently touched on this in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, stating, “When I look back on the work that I’ve done, there’s an elasticity about it, there’s a real contrast—and I’m proud of that."
She continued, “Maybe the whole theme of this whole thing is just trust. When it comes to my career, I’m like, it will be what it will be. I will find my way, whatever the way is, because it’s meant to be there. I’m in a space now where I’m like, I don’t change for the work, the work changes for me. I’m happy with that.”
Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage via Getty Images
The actress infamously played iconic superstar Whitney Houston in the family-approved biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, reportedly losing 30 pounds for the role and considering getting rid of her gap for the role.
She recently starred in the hit dark comedic thriller Blink Twiceas Frida, a brash waitress who’s seeking more purpose and meaning in her life, showcasing her own range and “desire to level up.” Harper's Bazaar alsoreports that “while she wants to be in a place where she doesn’t have to fight for every job, the lack of privacy and scrutiny that comes with that status, especially as a Black woman, is a double-edged sword.”
“When you’re determined and ambitious, you go, ‘I want to touch the stars,’” she added. “The biggest way of being told, ‘Well done’ as an actor is by being famous. But at the same time, I go, ‘Do I want that kind of fame?’ I don’t envy anyone who has that. I really don’t.”
With a background in theater, she appeared in her first feature film in 2016 in the British period drama Lady Macbeth. She was also cast in Idris Elba’s directorial debut, Yardie, a drama that shifts from gritty London to the Caribbean drama of Jamaica. She’d then play a warrior named Jannah in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
“[Right before getting that role] I was near to quitting acting,” Naomi said. She’d worked as a hot dog vendor and barmaid before quitting to pursue acting full-time.
As creatives seeking to simply do the work we love, we all can relate to having to take on odd jobs in order to fund that in-between time, and we’ve all had that final breakthrough before we’d given up on the creative pursuit altogether. And once you’ve tasted that sweet victory—that powerful freedom after realizing that you can indeed live out the dream—there’s really no looking back.
“I feel entitled to a variety of characters. I deserve that," she powerfully asserted. "And anyone who tries to typecast me or put me into a box, I’m like, ‘Well, fuck you. That’s not going to happen.”
We all feel that, sis. And you do deserve. We all deserve.
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Featured image by Lia Toby / Stringer
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