I've been in this business for a long time. Probably longer than I should given that I'm of reasonably sound mind.
When I started, it was in junior college attending classes to find out how to write a script. Of course, no one could teach me that - I tell my students all the time you need to teach yourself. But the teacher many times provides the inspiration for the seeking of that knowledge.
As I teach, continue to work in this industry, and run the Orange County Screenwriters Association, I find a lot of posers - a term that came straight out of Hollywood about 15 years ago. Perhaps it was used before that but it's never been more appropriately applied to people who "want" to do something in Hollywood.
Directing, editing, writing, acting - anything in this business - is hard effing work; perhaps the hardest work you will ever do. There is so much casual success and rewarding of mediocrity under mysterious circumstances (relatives, sex partners, college buddies) that you sometimes think you never have a chance. It's not like professional sports where you're almost sure to be rewarded for being good - in film you can do everything right and better than everyone else and still fail. Now that's harsh.
So to succeed, even briefly and even marginally you have to really, really want
this; more than that hot blond cheerleader in high school; more than winning the lottery; more than that classic Shelby Mustang - more than almost anything you can imagine.
And most don't. Want it, I mean. They only like the idea of wanting it.
I've seen hundreds of students, colleagues, friends, acquaintances throw themselves at the Hollywood Hills and fall back down bruised and battered. Most quit. The tough ones get up, dust off and run up that hill again pushing that Sisyphusic boulder before them. The really tough ones do it more than once or twice. The few who succeed though, don't do it over and over again because that concept never occurs to them - they just never stop - they never see the bottom of the hill because they don't allow themselves to be pushed back in the first place. They dig their heels in, scream invective at the gods, bleed from their eyes but they do not budge. They demand a hearing. They demand to be heard.
All of this is to say that since those junior college days where one of my instructors provided me with the passion to want to teach myself how to write, I just don't see the level of commitment in most people that it takes to succeed in this business. Not that I necessarily have an inside track but I know that I am ten times tougher than anyone I've met because the people who run things, the gate keepers, demand it.
I've been rejected at every level imaginable, insulted, fired, abused, ignored, marginalized, laughed at and just 
about any other demeaning thing you can imagine. Most of the time it's not personal - it's just the business. But it is exactly the nature of this business. You are rejected at every level before you are accepted at any level.
Big rewards demand big risks and an inability to hear the laughter, or the abuse - to ignore the rejection and the disdain. To have such a complete utter faith in yourself that you don't care what happens negatively because you reject the rejection.
Donald Trump, for all that we laugh at him, has heard it all, failed grandly, and now has seven billion dollars in the bank, is running for President and has his name on everything. He's even so secure that he makes fun of himself. He might be the punchline to a joke to you or me but he is laughing in luxury and basking in the glow of his success. How? Why? It isn't all his father's fortune - he went bankrupt at least once and lost that. He simply wanted it more than the other guys and refused to consider failure.
You can't be a half-stepper in this world of film, of show business. You need to want it; to love the game and the failures as much as the success. You cannot be a poser because to do it, you just have to do it - to bastardize a Nike slogan.
They had it right in the musical "Annie Get Your Gun" and the song "There's No Business Like Show Business."
"The headaches, the heartaches, the backaches, the flops,
The sheriff who escorts you out of town..."
There's a great conversation that actually describes what I'm saying exactly because it tells what's necessary to win against all odds - the commitment that cannot be compromised.
It's from the film "The Untouchables" written by David Mamet who certainly knows about achievement and what it takes to succeed against all odds. It's when Jimmy Malone played by Sean Connery, as a no-nonsense Chicago cop tells the naive Federal agent Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) what it takes to get his goal of taking down the power that is Al Capone.
Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?
Ness: Anything and everything in my power.
Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they're not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.
Ness: How do you do it then?
Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?
Ness: I have sworn to capture this man with all legal powers at my disposal and I will do so.
Malone: Well, the Lord hates a coward. Do you know what a blood oath is, Mr. Ness?
Ness: Yes.
Malone: Good, 'cause you just took one.
Yeah. That's what it takes, you posers.
People tell me all the time to relax, to take it easy. But I don't know how to do that - I'm focused on one thing and one thing only - I want this business, this career. I have sold 25 scripts, made 19 films and I want more. And that desire, good or ill, infects everything I do, everything I am. If that's not you then so be it. That's fine. But if it is you, if you want it as badly as I do you need to stop talking about it, making half-hearted swipes at it, and make it bleed.
Because you can bet your ass that I will. And I will push that rock right over you if you hesitate. I will pull a gun when you pull a knife.
I want it all and I'm willing to do whatever it takes.
