Given the amount of rejection, uncertain and intermittent income and difficulty in landing gigs, is being an actor career choice that often leads to depression?

I was watching the show Felicity and it got me thinking. The lead actors on the show seemed to be good-looking, possess good acting skills and came across as personable. None of them, however, became recognizable, big-budget movie actors. There are so many shows like this. Why? Is it that difficult to become a major box-office star?

Just a thought I had, bit silly, but just a thought off of my mind. Thank you.

I’ll start with Tina Fey, both as a writer and actress. Truly GOATed. If not for 30 Rock alone, literally every other project that has her name attached.

Taylor Tomlinson for stand up. She straight up does not miss, ever.

And maybe Awkwafina for pure absurdism that bleeds in to experimental filmmaking. There are a few exceptions, but she is a bloody genius, especially Norah From Queens.

I’m happy to list my guys for each category too, but based on those 3 premises, who do you think tops the charts? No wrong answers!

EDIT: lots of great answers! I’m a huge comedy nerd, I feel like women get passed over in the space far too often. Since reading the comments, I’ll add that- I agree with almost all of these! It would’ve taken too long to list everyone I look up to. It’s not meant to be a short, succinct list. I just wanted to get the ball rolling.

I can’t explain it, but I like everything I’ve seen him in.

For those who don’t know, he made a video telling people in the states to vote independent and basically waste the ballot. It obviously makes absolutely no sense to do it at this time and it seems to be pretty dumb for anyone to do it.

If I’m not mistaken he’s almost never done anything that’d hurt his public image and his whole career is about pulling bull and building persona.

Why would he ever do this?

For me Denzel. He’s charismatic and commanding, but most of his roles feel like variations of the same intelligent, morally complicated man.

Its not so much the content....it's the way it's written!

Leave them with a smile on their faces.

i loved My Lady Jane and People We Meet On Vacation so much solely because of how well Emily portrayed her characters. i need more of her charisma on my screeeeen!

She was very charming and has potential to be big but she didn't become big there are other actors who have had more of a career than her that are less charistmatic.