Patti Smith Tells You Why Acting Is 'the Worst F—ing Job in the World'

“Dirty Jobs'” Mike Rowe ain’t seen nothin’ yet, not until he braves the occupational horrors of Hollywood. At least, that’s how rock musician Patti Smith portrayed it in remarks at the Tribeca Film Festival. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Patti Smith always thought she’d become an actor before ever becoming a songwriter.

“I loved being onstage, but I couldn’t take the repetition of doing the same lines,” she told Ethan Hawke during a talk at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday. “I didn’t have the right discipline. Acting is so hard. God bless our actors. No one realizes what a rough gig it is, really. They think, ‘Movie stars, they get so much money.’ It’s the worst f—ing job in the world.

“Fourteen, 15 hours at a time, and a lot of times just sitting in seven hours of makeup, then there’s a technical problem and you have to do it all over again,” she continued. “You have to shoot the same scene from 40 different angles. Crappy food. … Acting is much harder than rock and roll.”

One can hope that Smith was engaged in a bit of casual hyperbole. She was comparing acting in films to performing in concerts. It’s all relative, we may suppose. Either way, those of us outside the Tribeca bubble could suggest a few other candidates for the worst job in the world.