COURTNEY BUCHNER:
A SCENE FROM MY REEL GOT OVER 2 MILLION VIEWS

When a showreel I had written and performed in reached 2 million views on social media I refused to wash the dishes. Now that fame had touched me I didn’t need to wash pesto off my plate.

I’m joking, I obviously did the dishes. Pesto can be a bitch if you don’t wash it off straight away. As the views kept crawling up on my reel, a lot of people asked me why I thought this might have happened, what I did to make this happen and what about my specific showreel did I think worked so well that it attracted such an audience. The answer is…I’m not entirely sure.

A bit disappointing perhaps for those hoping to receive some tips or advice.

To be completely honest, I was in a bit of shock. I didn’t aim for the views or even think in any world that one of the first pieces I had written and dared to show someone who wasn’t my cat would ever gain traction online. I’ve wanted to be an actor since I can remember (writing came a bit later for me) and with this dream has come a lot of joy, pain and heartache. A lot of icky feelings mainly driven by this fear that I wasn’t achieving enough or that if I could just get x,y,z then I would finally know I was good enough, successful enough, talented enough.  That maybe I wasn’t just ordinary. (These thoughts have taken up a lot of my therapist’s time)

I used to/still do create posts, goals or signs of success in the hope of giving myself a sense of achievement in a career where we are often waiting for others to cast us, see us or read our work. The most common thing I have noticed is that when I achieved the goal I still wasn’t content. It still wasn’t enough. I had been actively working on this attitude by the time my showreel reached 2 million views.

I realised I needed to reassess my attitude to these goals when I listened to a podcast (Ew who am I) and Cheryl Strayed said “Don’t let your dreams ruin your life.” So much of my career I had spent holding on so tightly to my goals and it wasn’t making me entirely happy. When I started writing a lot of this tension slowly melted away. The goal was just to write and for some reason, finding a passion away from acting, helped me realise why I wanted to create and act in the first place. The joy of it all. I still have to remind myself of this often. So yes, while it was amazing to reach over 2 million views (and I did celebrate it like I celebrate every win in this industry because we absolutely must always celebrate the wins) it didn’t completely change my life, it didn’t vanish all the imposter syndrome I had felt. I knew it wouldn’t but a few years ago I would have been hoping that it would have.

I guess, what I am trying to say is, achieving the goal isn’t always the thing that is going to bring lifelong happiness or validation because those goals often don’t get rid of the critical voice that pops up soon after the celebration is over (did I just write this for my younger self…quite possibly). The next video I uploaded was practically only watched by my mother (number 1 fan). And that’s okay because both of those videos, the one with 5 views from my mum and the other with over 2 million, were both created with joy and that is what keeps me creating again and again and again.

I am aware that I don’t want this blog to sound like I have solved the problem and that I am not just a hugely joyful writer/actor skipping through the polluted streets of London…I write this…knowing full well that in a month, when I am crying over my computer, I will have to remind myself too to find the joy again.

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