And that need for work is always counterbalanced by competition. There is this whispering subtext, he has often felt. It's not enough for you to succeed in Hollywood. Your friends have to fail too. And, therapists including Leduc agree, it is often an unavoidable extrapolation.
People continue to arrive, as they always have, with expectations that far exceed their talents.
But the logic that determines who succeeds seems capricious. But for others, there is a great letdown. In the decade of the 1990s, the Hollywood work ethic changed, said many people who experienced it, as the stakes rose and the atmosphere was cut through with a potent mixture of bottom-line ambition, cynicism and entitlement. Despite its mercenary atmosphere, the film business is still largely an industry of dreamers, people who want to shape not just thought but imagination.