If you’ve tried your hand at networking or been to a film-focused event, you’ve probably gotten that age-old question eventually. “What do you do?”
In the past, I’ve hemmed and hawed about how to answer this. Am I a writer? What do I actually do? It felt false when I hadn’t “done anything” to claim I was in film.
I needed to build my confidence.
Veteran character actor Larry Hankin once sat down with Film Courage to talk about those kinds of nerves.
Creative confidence is about moving forward despite self-doubt and in the face of frequent setbacks. Working in filmmaking involves creative input from all sides, and you’ll hear a lot of “nos.” It can be dehumanizing. So how do you keep going?
Hankin speaks from his experience, and recent psychological research backs up his perspective, showing confidence is a skill you can actually develop.
Check out that interview here.
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Trust Your Artistic Instincts
“I’ve always been right, artistically,” Hankin says.
Not by other people’s standards necessarily, but according to his own creative compass. Every successful person he’s observed shares this quality.
This lines up with research from psychologist and Stanford professor Albert Bandura on something called self-efficacy. According to studies on creative confidence and research on leadership and creativity, your belief in your own capabilities directly determines whether you succeed at challenges. When you trust your judgment, you’re more likely to finish projects and push through when things get hard.
Just Keep Swimming
Hankin references a metaphor for creative work. Think of yourself as Pac-Man, he says. You can’t go backward. You can only move forward, taking huge bites.
It makes me think of Finding Nemo and the mantra, “Just keep swimming.”
I’m guilty of doing the opposite. I’ll have a draft of a script that I won’t send out because it’s not exactly where I want it to be. If I say, “I’m still rewriting,” enough times, years can pass.
“Perfectionism can be a paralyzing force that stifles creativity, delays progress, and chips away at self-worth and a potential negative stigma,” a Boston University source writes.
When you hit a wall, don’t back up and second-guess everything. Pivot and keep going.
In an interview about Showing Up, Kelly Reichardt discussed how, in one location she chose for filming, “A highway loops around the school, so it’s not great for sound.” She wanted a specific soundscape, which she couldn’t get on that set.
“It was killing us. So you clean all of that out and then you recreate and go ‘make it on a loud corner.’ That’s how filmmaking goes.”
She kept the location, but built her own soundscape. She kept going.
If you can’t get the lighting right, try a different location.
If an actor isn’t connecting with the dialogue, let them improvise.
If a scene has you stymied as a writer, maybe it’s time for someone else to give you a fresh perspective. While you get someone else’s read, start work on another script in the meantime.
The goal can be motion, not perfection.
Finding Nemo Credit: Disney
Take Small Steps
If you’re not good enough for something right now, that’s fine—just keep getting better. Hankin points to this patient approach, which psychologists call “guided mastery.”
Research based on Bandura’s work shows that breaking challenges into small steps and building confidence through incremental wins helps creative professionals overcome fear. This approach has been used to help people overcome phobias, and it works just as well for creative anxiety.
Those subjects in guided mastery “tried harder, persevered longer, and had more resilience in the face of failure,” according to Harvard Business Review.
If you’re struggling with confidence, don’t try to write a whole feature right away. Start with one compelling scene. Instead of directing something that’s an hour long, nail one short film first. These small victories accumulate into skill and confidence.
Seek Out Psychological Safety
Studies on psychological safety and creativity show that it’s absolutely necessary for creative work. (Psychological safety is a state in which you feel able to express yourself and take risks.)
A good writers’ room only works with this in play. How are you supposed to freely pitch ideas if they’re constantly shut down?
If you’d like to build a creative space like this, encourage risk-taking by listening to and engaging with others’ ideas. Even if an idea isn’t quite right, validate it and use it as a jumping-off point.
If you’re working solo, you need to create that safety for yourself by curating whose opinions actually matter. Well-meaning people will sometimes offer advice that has nothing to do with your artistic vision.
Listen to feedback, sure. It’s always valuable, even if it doesn’t align with your vision. Learn to distinguish between constructive criticism from people who understand your vision and noise from those who don’t.
If you get feedback you don’t like, express your thanks, then try to get at the note behind the note.
Barbie Credit: Warner Bros.
Nervousness Is Noise
Nervousness doesn’t help you prepare or perform. It just gets in the way, Hankin says.
Research on anxiety and creativity shows that while fear can sometimes spark creative risk-taking, it often becomes a barrier that needs managing.
Nervousness isn’t necessarily bad. It’s human and normal. But it’s good to recognize when nervousness is productive versus when it’s spinning you in circles.
Before a pitch meeting or shoot day, channel that energy into preparation instead of worry. Run through your pitch out loud. Check your equipment. Review your shot list. These actions address the same concerns but actually move you forward.
Learn from Failure
Hankin admits people crushed him all the time.
Research on creativity and anxiety shows that creativity inherently involves the unknown and the new, which comes with threats of failure, rejection, and embarrassment. But creative professionals who keep moving forward despite these threats develop real resilience.
Multiple studies and research on creative confidence emphasize that confidence builds through a series of challenges, with failure reframed as feedback rather than final judgment. When a project doesn’t work, examine what went wrong without internalizing it as proof that you’re incapable.
Failed projects teach you what doesn’t work, which is valuable information. These failures don’t mean you should quit.
Keep Going
Maybe you haven’t yet developed the skills you need to accomplish what you want. That’s okay. Just keep going and keep getting better.
Research on creative professionals shows that people who are confident in their creative abilities naturally encourage creativity in those around them. As you build your confidence through consistent work, you inspire it in collaborators, actors, and crew members.
Commit to the long journey of skill development and trust that if you keep creating, learning, and moving forward like Pac-Man, you’ll eventually make work that matches your vision.
Filmmaking is full of people who will doubt you and tell you you’re doing it wrong. Prepare thoroughly, trust your instincts, learn from everything, and never back up. Just keep going.
