Bonnie Wright’s Eight Top Tips for Creatives
At the end of last month, actress and director Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) took part in a Q&A session with OKREAL in New York. During the session, Bonnie talked about working as a director and how she coped after Potter. While talking about her own experiences, Bonnie shared plenty of helpful advice for aspiring creatives, so we’ve gathered together some of those tips here for you.
- Have belief and confidence in yourself and your work.
About a year ago, I changed my email signature to say: Bonnie Wright, Director. It was a small moment, but there was something celebratory about saying it out loud. I think it takes a lot of courage for anyone to say out loud: ‘this is what I want to do.’ My main doubts were that I wouldn’t be taken seriously. That I’d be this actress turned director or whatever. You can think of a million ways you might be pulled apart, but at the same time does anyone really care?
- Don’t worry about your critics.
In terms of the work I do, the only people I really care about are my family and my friends—the people [whom] I love. If they respect what I do, then I’ve done my job.
- Allow your different passions to influence one another.
I’ve also come to understand that you can have several interests that inform one another. I realized that my other creative experience has informed so much of my directing work, that just because I might call myself a director, doesn’t mean those other creative outputs aren’t still a part of me.
- Focus on your work rather than your social media profile and presence.
In the era of social media, you can spend so much energy on crafting how you want to be seen. In the end you risk having nothing to show because you’ve been too focused on how you’re going to project yourself instead of actually doing the work.
- Try not to panic about your work and what people think of you or where you want to be.
Things take time. I very much panicked when Harry Potter finished. I thought—oh my [G]od, I now have to do some other acting job so people will realize it’s what I want to do, rather than something I fell into. That panic was so shortsighted because I was about to throw my energy out there for the sole purpose of what people thought about me, which is not a productive way of working
- Enjoy the process of creating!
You need to be able to enjoy the process of each experience, rather than the outcome of what the project looks like or what people think about it. Often, I’ll get so excited to finish a film, and I’ll build up this big moment to screening it. But the reality is never as great as the process.
- Don’t wait for permission or approval from others.
Often people are just projecting their own insecurities, and it has nothing to do with you at all. In terms of looking for approval, I’ve definitely wasted many an hour waiting for someone to say, ‘That was a good job’ or ‘You can do this’. That permission that we constantly search for… I literally have no idea who we’re expecting it from.
- And finally – love what you make.
I think it all boils down to the fact that I just love watching films. I love telling stories. And I’m really pleased and lucky that at this moment I enjoy telling stories through the medium of film. The fact that I genuinely love that process is what keeps me going.
You can catch up with more highlights from the interview here.
What did you think of the interview? Did you find Bonnie’s advice helpful? Let us know in the comments!