Teddy Sears Teases More 'Brilliant Minds' and Talks the Actor's Journey
The actor shared his thoughts on how he approaches the ups and downs of any actor's career.
In the second part of my conversation with actor Teddy Sears (if you missed the first part of our chat which talks in depth about the Nichols-Wolf relationship on NBC’s freshman medical drama Brilliant Minds and Sears’ looking back at whether his American Horror Story connection to star Zachary Quinto helped him land this role, watch the video here), I wanted to talk to him about the ups and downs of an actor’s career.
Teddy had reached out to me when he read my recent Substack about a time in my career when I was stuck in some depression over my writing career when a job went away and there was nothing waiting to take its place. Actors deal with that throughout their career since whether it’s a movie or television show, nothing lasts forever (except maybe Law & Order: SVU) so how has he dealt with that over the years.
And, he also gave his take on the remaining episodes in Brilliant Minds’ first season (new episodes of the drama start up again in January on NBC and next day on Peacock).
There’s also a portion of the conversation where I shared a personal story where I had to set my ego aside and I chose not to go down a negative path once my TV writing career was on the downslide. Teddy was going to add to that with his perspective and, as you’ll see, it momentarily left his head but, thankfully, he remembered later and sent me an audio message with his thoughts, which are below the video:
Teddy Sears: In this business is at least I found, not assured like you found when you got to that level of staff writer and it was your name only your name on that 90210 episode that like, you're like, okay, I'm here, I got here, I did it. All right, so the show's over, but it's fine because I rose to this level. And so that assures me a spot in, you know, in another writer's room or, you know, sort of like I've, I've risen above where I was and that's now going to help me get the next job. And I found that for me like that this definitely doesn't necessarily translate. It'll get me auditions, it'll get me seen for something or in a conversation.
But just because I was in this series or that series and I've done 10 pilots, I've been a series regular on five different shows, like it doesn't translate directly for me. It hasn't to the next thing. There's so like, I have sort of a weird lack of trust with the business and that I continue to work. I feel really good about the work. I know that I will work.
But just because I was on this show or that show as a series regular, it doesn't mean that I'm now no longer gonna be doing one off guest stars, you know, or something of that equivalent. For me, that's just not how it's worked. And maybe for other actors, once they reach that level, they stay there. For me, it hasn't happened. So, you know, my relationship with getting on a great show or a show in general is I do good work, I try to do good work.
I just don't have any faith that it's going to equal anything after that. I would hope that that would change. I have a family, you know, I'm older now. It's nice to have more certainty or clarity. But yeah, that's one thing I wanted to add is that just because one rises to a specific sort of station in this field, it doesn't mean that that's where you stay. At least it hasn't been for me.
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Make sure to watch Brilliant Minds every Monday at 10/9c on NBC. New episodes start January 6, 2025!
Until next time…