Rami: Man, did I ever thought about giving up acting? Yes. Absolutely I thought of giving it up. A lot.
When was the most profound time when you thought about it?
Rami: Let me go through it. In New York I was waiting tables at a really dark, dark place that where people doing drugs at all night and I was staying, its becoming home and I was not doing them, I was just trying to collect a paycheck. You know, waking up and going to work at 5:00 p.m. and leaving at 5:00 a.m. and for a while there I was like: this is awful and this is what I’m doing to like support my acting career? Fine. And I got through that and after school I was working at a fast food restaurant after putting in 4 years at the theatre school and If I saw anyone who was looking like a producer I was putting my headshot and my resume into their to go bag.
And at times I thought: Oh man! What are you doing? This is what it’s come to after then you are a hundred thousand dollars in debt? And this is what you think is gonna pay off for you?
And one day I did tried to think about doing other than being in food service and I started looking into getting a real estate license. Would you believe that?
And that lasted for like three days and I go: No, definitely not. I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna be an actor.
There’s a part of my DNA that just knew. I just had to look at it and say that is definitely something I’m not cutting cut out for.
But yeah.
I don’t know what I did but… I think about it now because I’m of the belief that this comes and goes and I’m having a great wild ride right now but I could be back anywhere at any moment so I’m trying to really take this in.
I remember working with Christian Slater and the first year we didn’t know how MR. Robot was gonna do and it got a lot of love critically and he showed me some things reading the NYTimes, it was a good review, and he looked at me before we went on stage, one direction set, and he goes: “Take this in, man. Take this in, because this does not happen.“
And I have, ever since he did that, I’ve been trying to save every single moment because, I got to tell you, there where moments I did not want to get out of bed as an actor because, there where really nothing to get out of bed for. But it was pretty low moments as I know we’ve all had in any career that we’ve aspired to do-
Especially creative career’s.
Rami: Fair enough. It sucks the life out of you when it’s not going well and its difficult. But I think, just really save all those small gains because they collectively add up to you. Whatever it is. If it’s something small that just reignites your love for what you do, or your appreciation for what you can do. I mean, we all have this special gift in this talent and not everybody has that and I think that in and of itself it’s propelling enough to know that that exists in your fibre, in your DNA and you know it’s burning and it gets brighter and brighter and sometimes it’s not as bright but it has the power to really shine at any giving moment.
