How To Say Goodbye To Your Acting Career, On Purpose
(Picture via The AP)
1. Gather the following items: a sharpie, hands (you can use your own), mild dyslexia.
2. Make fists with your hands and turn them towards you, the most important person in this, or any other world. Well, until you have an album to sell. Then other people will regain a degree of importance (but only if they like your music).
3. Use the sharpie to write the words "Good Bye!" across your knuckles, Cape Fear style.
4. Get pumped for your showy, "goodbye to acting, hello to music" red carpet stroll by not showering, shaving, changing your clothes, thinking clean thoughts, or looking in a mirror for a few days. This will give you the grizzled, intense, stylishly homeless look that being a musician is all about. (Besides, of course, the music which you'll totally figure out later.)
5. When the photographers start snapping pictures of you on the red carpet, punch through the air, and flash them the fists. Bam! It's like hitting your acting career, which was going really well, right in the face. Pow! Take that, chosen profession. Zot!
6. When people point out to you that your "Goodbye!" is backwards, and believe me they will point this out, just act like it's intentional. You could say, "Yeah, it's backwards. Like the whole acting business, which I'm leaving behind for music. Look for my album Bye! Good to drop in 6 months." Or you could say, "Actually, it's supposed to be that way. I'm saying, "Bye! Good." Because after I leave acting, everything will be so good. Especially my music, which you should pay attention to because I played Johnny Cash in Walk The Line."
I know what you're thinking: Didn't Joaquin Phoenix already announce that he's quitting acting to pursue a music career? Yes, he did. But he seems to enjoy making such announcements so apparently he's decided to continue making them. I can't wait till he shows up at a movie premiere a month from now wearing a sandwich board that reads: "Seriously. See ya later, acting." on the back and "$2.99 Sub Special" on the front.