Move over, traditional career guides. For the next generation navigating a world of limitless career possibilities, the well-meaning advice to “follow your passion” can feel overwhelming without a map. Now, a wave of adults with truly fascinating jobs is throwing that map wide open. They’re stepping out of their labs, studios, and field sites to share the real, unfiltered career advice they wish they’d had – not just about how to land the job, but how to build a life of curiosity, resilience, and purpose. This is more than career day; it’s a mentorship movement designed to inspire the innovators, problem-solvers, and dreamers of tomorrow.
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What’s your name, and give us the Elevator Pitch about your job.
My name is AJ Donnelly. I’m an actor working in film and television in China. I love my job. I get to tell stories about other people, places, and times by becoming those people in those places at those times. I don’t think there are many other jobs that let you experience and understand other points of view
in quite the same way.
Could you walk me through a typical day or week in your role? What are your primary responsibilities?
For as long as I’ve been doing this job (more than a decade professionally) I don’t think there has ever really been a ‘typical’ day! No two projects are ever the same.
Generally speaking, though, when I’m filming, days can start very early. I’ll arrive on set, go through hair and makeup, rehearse scenes, and then shoot the same few minutes of the story from lots of different angles, until the director feels he has everything he needs for that scene. Then we’ll reset and move on to whatever the next scene is on that day’s filming schedule. It sounds simple on paper, but with up to 100 people working on each scene, both in front of and behind the camera, it can get quite complicated and take
a long time.
As said by icon Spencer Tracy, as an actor, my primary responsibility is to remember my lines and not bump into the furniture! Of course, there’s more to it than that, but not that much. Personally, though, I believe my main responsibility as an actor is to convince the audience that what they are watching is real. Whether I’m on stage, in a horror movie, or a TV show courtroom drama, I have to make sure I’m so authentic in my performance that people no longer see AJ the Actor, but see the character I’m playing in whatever circumstances the character is in. And that’s what I think all the best storytellers do. They allow their audiences to suspend their disbelief, forget everything else around them, and only focus on the story being told.
Of course, a lot of people think acting is just stepping in front of a camera. In reality, most of my job happens alone and long before anyone says “Action!”
When I’m not filming, I’m preparing. Reading scripts. Studying characters. Training physically. Watching old and new movies. Basically, making sure I’m always improving and always ‘camera ready’. Whether I’m actively on a project or not, there is very little downtime!
What is the most rewarding or fulfilling part of your work? What problems do you get to solve? On the flip side, what are the most significant challenges or stressful aspects of your job?
Every actor has their own reason to get into the industry, and what they find most fulfilling or rewarding about the job. For me, it’s probably the storyteller aspect I mentioned earlier, and what I can achieve through the stories I tell. I’ve had people reach out to me after seeing a movie I was in, such as Detective Chinatown 1900, telling me how grateful they were for my performance, because it helped them learn more about a time period and attitudes at that time, that they weren’t previously aware of. So I love being
able to be part of that process with audiences.
Similarly, the exposure I get to times and places I knew little about before studying them for a role. We often hear the phrase “If only you could walk in someone else’s shoes, you’d get to understand them much better.” Well, as an actor, I get the opportunity to do something like that. I have to think about my character’s words and choices, both good and bad, and understand why they might feel that way, or do that thing, and what has led them to be in the situation they currently find themselves in. And that’s a fascinating and extremely rewarding experience for me, no matter if I’m playing a hero or a villain. I think both are equally important and both open up a world of learning and understanding in a way I feel traditional research doesn’t really do.
As for problems solved through my work, I think it comes back to helping people access a world or life or even just a feeling they might not otherwise have had access to. If I make someone laugh, that’s a huge success. If I make someone breathe a sigh of relief after a dramatic moment on screen, that catharsis my performance proves is a success for me. If my performance causes someone to go away and ask more questions, or think more deeply about the situation they have just seen me in, again, that’s a win in my opinion.
It’s very easy to be swept along with prevailing opinions in our society, via idle chat or social media influence, so if my performances and the stories I tell help people to stop, for even a moment, to ask a question they didn’t have before, that’s definitely helping solve a problem.
The biggest challenges? Where do I start?! I live with Type 1 diabetes, asthma, and am also autistic. So that means I have to manage my energy and physical and mental health carefully, which is never easy on a chaotic and constantly moving movie set. Long filming days and unpredictable schedules can be demanding. But dealing with those things also taught me discipline, preparation, and self-awareness. In a way, the very things that make life more complex have made me better at my job.
More generally, the biggest challenge 99.9% of actors face is probably the uncertainty. As an actor, you can work very hard and still hear “no” far more often than “yes.” Projects fall through. Plans change. You need resilience. In fact, in this industry, resilience and a thick skin are probably just as, if not more important than having talent. You could apply for 10 acting jobs, but only get auditions for 5, only get callbacks for 2, and maybe, if you’re lucky, score one role!
And then, even if you do get that role, it might be the only role you get in 6 months. People think all actors are paid like stars, and while some jobs might pay well, if that’s your only role for 6 months, or even a year, that one payday has to last a long time!
Some people might think that you have to be crazy to be an actor, and they are probably right – from a stability point of view. But even with the uncertainty, the multiple uncontrollable variables, the potential for chaos and who-knows-what-will-happen-today nature of the job, I do still think it’s the greatest job in the world, and if it’s something people have a burning passion for (people know when they feel it) it’s something you have to commit to fully and be prepared to work hard for.
How did you get to where you are today? You can talk about your educational route, pivotal moments, unplanned detours, and any other decisions that you find important.
Not in a straight line, that’s for sure! My first acting performance was when I was seven, playing Daddy Bear in a school performance of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I didn’t have an easy school life, and dealt with a lot both at home and at school, but when I was performing in that play, I can clearly remember all these years later, how I felt. No doubts, no worries, no shyness. For those brief moments on stage, I became a bulletproof superhero!
And from that one role, I got involved in each and every production I could, both in school and community groups. It didn’t make me any different as a person, and it didn’t alleviate the stresses I faced in other aspects of my life, but whenever I was performing, I was able to escape and become someone completely different. Nothing else gave me that same sense of confidence. It was a feeling I wished could last forever.
Of course, no matter how passionate we are, adult life often has a way of getting in the way of our dreams. As I got older, I felt the pressure of finding a ‘real job’, and there weren’t many resources at that time to help young people follow artistic careers. So I gave up on the idea of becoming an actor, and decided to move to China instead…
Moving to China was obviously a pivotal moment in my life. In hindsight, that was a huge leap for someone who didn’t yet understand they were autistic! It forced me out of my comfort zone and into a much bigger world than the cosy small town in the UK I grew up in. I had to adapt quickly, build relationships, and take risks. I started as a kindergarten teacher, then business consultant, then risk analyst, then journalist, before finally starting my own company. In fact, it was only by chance that I got back involved with acting at all!
My wife knew I had had childhood dreams of being an actor, and saw that Beijing Playhouse, a now defunct English language community theatre, was holding open auditions for their upcoming show. She encouraged me to attend, much to my protest. I had no chance of getting cast, seeing as I hadn’t acted in almost 20 years. In fact, I was cast as the lead in that show, and everything in my life changed from that moment, a moment I almost didn’t make the effort to even go for!
From that one community show, my passion and, some would say, talent for acting was reignited. I started making connections, hearing about onscreen acting opportunities, and getting invited to take small background roles in tiny TV shows. And I lapped it up, taking every chance offered if I thought it would
get me bigger and better opportunities.
Looking back, none of it was glamorous at the time. It was just consistent effort over the years. That’s the part people don’t see. Five minutes on screen can take 5 days to film, but 5 years of consistent hard work to earn. But I definitely think it’s worth it, if you are passionate about performance and storytelling. For me it paid off and eventually led to being cast in the film Snipers, directed by Zhang Yimou and Zhang Mo. More than any other role I’ve had, before or since, that’s the role that has had the biggest influence on me as a person and as an actor, because in the years prior I had let my ego get the better of me. I had come to believe I was an amazing actor and a rising star. But working with directors as down-to-earth and genuine as Zhang Yimou and Zhang Mo showed me how little I knew about the true skill of acting, or in fact, storytelling. It was an eye-opening experience and one I will never forget.
Since then, I like to think (hopefully correctly!) that I’ve become much more humble as a person and more authentic as a storyteller. For better or for worse, I’m no longer satisfied with any performance I give and am always looking for new ways to improve. Both those things have allowed me to feel much more rewarded by my work, and always give me something new to aim for, so it has added so much to my day-to-day experience and the way I live my life, both on screen and off.
I still have goals and a lot I want to achieve in my career. So much I still want to learn, to understand, roles I want to play, people I’d love to work with. And I know there are countless ways and opportunities to achieve those goals (no matter what happens with AI!) So no matter if it’s in a Hollywood movie, BBC TV show, community theatre in Beijing or on my sofa with a mobile phone, I’ll never run out of ways to act and ways to improve and learn as an actor. And that gives me something to wake up for every day.
Knowing what you know now, if you could go back and give one piece of advice to your teenage self about work and life, what would it be?
Don’t be who you think you should be, just be who you are. I grew up worrying daily about being ‘different’, how other people would view me, whether I’d have friends, or work, or a relationship, because of how different I was to everyone else (or at least, what I thought everyone else was like!). And I still did this until quite recently!
But if I’ve learnt anything in my life, it’s that being different isn’t something to hide. It’s often your truly unique selling point in life. The things that made me feel out of place when I was younger are now the things that make my work more precise and empathetic, more genuine.
Oh, and I’d also tell teenage me to take care of my health! You only get one body, and your career depends on it more than you think. It’s easy when you’re young to think you have forever to get a better diet or get in shape, but ‘forever’ really isn’t as long as you think it is. So if you know what you want in the future, start planning for it and making choices towards it today. Even small things now can have huge payoffs later in life.
Image: AJ Donnelly
