Melbourne
March 29-30, 2025
Melbourne Showgrounds
He may be jetting home after another epic visit to Supanova Comic Con & Gaming Melbourne and Gold Coast, but Supa-Star Alan Tudyk has left behind some wise words for those looking to follow in his footsteps as an actor.
You’d be hard-pressed to find an actor as prolific as Tudyk who, in the past few years alone, has starred in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Powerless, Con Man and more. Since his days as a fan favourite on Jess Whedon’s acclaimed Firefly series, Tudyk has conquered TV, film and gaming, both on the screen and as a voice actor.
Speaking with Supanova about that journey, he dished up some valuable advice for our Supa-Fans.
“There’s a lesson – and it’s a hard lesson to learn. I think you learn it and you forget it and have to relearn it: it’s don’t compare yourself to other actors,” Tudyk said.
“When you’re on the road to acting and having a career, do your best not to compare your career trajectory to other careers, because in acting, like a lot of arts, your artistry is different from everybody else’s.
A plumber can teach his son to do the same job he does and then he can pass it on to his son and they can keep working the same way. Everybody’s going to be their own artist and make their own things and excel in their own ways and do it all on their own timing.
It’s such a frustrating business for every actor, even the most successful actors feel they’ve gone through it. In those moments, you want to compare yourself, and it makes you bitter and nobody likes that. That makes it harder to make friends.
Acting is done with others, you can’t get much done on your own, you need another actor to play with, you need a writer to write it for you, you need directors to direct – you need other artists. So cultivate those relationships, find your commonality and look for inspiration in others as opposed to things to be jealous about.
I heard that advice from someone a long time ago. It was one of those things that I heard and went, ‘That’s so true.’ The guy who told me was an actor in a play. He was one of the smaller roles in the play and he’s gone on to play the lead in Broadway shows and he has a Tony and he just did that in his own time. He is a great example of what he was talking about that day.”
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Pic by Chris Fitzgerald
