South African Writer Launches Accidental Acting Career

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Greetings, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. Wherever you are in the world, whatever the appropriate greeting is, this is Side Hustle School. I am your host, Chris Guillebeau, bringing you a different story every day of someone who finds a way to make some extra money without quitting their job. Now, today's story is a little different. What about a side hustle as an actor? I don't mean a movie star kind of actor. I mean a

working actor who appears in commercials. Well, this story is about someone from South Africa who does that. He ends up earning a quarter of his income from commercials that have come from participating in auditions. Despite no real training, he ends up in ads for beer and soft drink brands. How does he do it? And could you possibly become a beverage

actor? Is that a thing? Well, stay tuned. Today's story comes from Eugene Yaga in Cape Town, South Africa. By day, he's a writer.

He's done journalism, blogging, copywriting, all kinds of different work across multiple industries. And his side hustle is television acting and voiceover work, which he stumbled into almost on accident. Eugene grew up surrounded by people from all over the world, so he's always had an accent that was difficult to place. People had also told him he had a voice for radio, so he decided to give voiceover work a try, in addition to seeing if he could get cast for commercials. He had never wanted to be an actor, he just figured, why not?

He bought a book on acting and took a couple of improv classes. Before long, he found an agent through a friend of a friend. Soon afterwards, he started going to casting auditions for TV commercials. So far so good, but learning to audition well was more of a learning process. After seven unsuccessful auditions in a row, Eugene got his first callback for a national beer commercial for Castle Logger. The director was impressed with his performance and also

surprised that he didn't have any formal training. A few days later, he got a call from his agent letting him know that he was selected to play a lead role. Eugene was nervous about his first time in front of the camera for a real gig, but it went well. Soon he was back for more auditions and he landed work for two other ads. One for Lunch Bar Chocolate and one for Sprite, the soft drink. Because of the terms of his contract, we can't disclose

his exact earnings. But we can say that this work accounted for a quarter of his income last year, which more than made up for his low startup costs of buying a book and taking improv classes. In fact, the extra money from his accidental acting career has helped him get a head start on paying off his mortgage early. One of the challenges of this work is constantly being available for audition requests. They usually arrive with less than 24 hours notice and sometimes as little as two. He also says it can be disappointing

and he does a good job with an audition but doesn't get chosen. Thankfully, his work as a writer has taught him not to take rejection personally and he tries to look at each experience as an opportunity to learn. Filming TV ads for major brands is a lot of fun. It helps him get in touch with the more dynamic and playful side of his personality than the more serious writing and journalism work he does. And yes, people have stopped him at the gym on the street because they recognized him from those Sprite commercials. He points out

that a lot of time and effort goes into these ads even if they end up being only 15 or 20 seconds long. If you want to get into acting and TV ads, you have to be flexible with your schedule because you may need to drop what you're doing to get to a last minute audition. Although Eugene doesn't like checking email on his phone because it's distracting, he can set up a Gmail alert so that a message from his agent triggers a push notification to his home screen. He's not sure he wants to be a full-time actor and that was never his intent but he's enjoying the opportunities this new world provides. If you're in South Africa or if you get a chance to visit what is one of my favorite countries, keep an eye on the TV and print ads. You just may encounter today's featured case study in the Starring

Roll. So this is a story about someone who does two different types of creative work, writing and acting. What if you're not a creative for your day job? What if you're a manager or an auditor or something else? Well, in that case, you especially may want to consider adding some kind of creative work for your side hustle or just something totally different from what you do during the day. Sometimes I tell the story of the managerial

accountant in Dubai who earns an extra $1,000 a month producing poetry workshops. We featured that story a while back. I actually met another accountant recently, Roger in Brisbane, Australia. He's an accountant who bought a butcher shop despite having no knowledge of the industry. So definitely a polar opposite approach there. Personally, I believe that everyone has some

kind of creative potential that they can unlock, whether it's writing, music, art, something else. And of course, there's nothing wrong with just unlocking that for yourself for fun for a hobby. But since this is side hustle school, I'm especially interested when people unlock it in a way that they get paid for. Just like you heard in today's story, this guy who's making a quarter of his income from this accidental acting career. What kind of project could you stumble on accidentally? What if people told you you're good at that

you haven't done anything about? In Eugene's case, people had always told him he had a voice for radio. So despite never considering it before, despite not having any training, he thought maybe I'll look into doing that. The opportunity costs are low. You're not really risking anything besides rejection. And nobody likes rejection, of course, but that's part

of something like this. If you can make your peace with it, your odds of success are going to go way up, because you'll be able to keep trying. And maybe being an actor in a beer commercial isn't for you. That's not your particular calling. But there's something out there for you. What is it? Have you found it yet? If not, keep searching. And let that

inspiration lead to doing something. Taking action. Because inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/391. If you have a comment or question for the show, give me a call on the Hustle Hotline 844-9 Hustle or 844-948-7853. I hope you have an awesome day. I'll be back with you tomorrow.

I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.