Why So Many Actors Are Waiters and So Many Waiters Are Actors

When I first started waiting tables, it was because I was an actor and it was the one career that allowed me to make decent money while having a flexible enough schedule to audition and do the occasional non-paying gig in a dilapidated theater held together by duct tape and hope. Even before I started auditioning, I got a job in a restaurant because I wanted to fulfill the stereotype of  the struggling actor who waited tables.

Plenty of A-list celebrities have taken food orders while waiting for their big break. Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, and Jennifer Aniston all spent time wearing an apron before hitting it big. Not all servers have their headshots and resumes tucked away in their order pads, but all of them are pretty fine actors, worthy of accolades. 

Acting is so crucial when waiting tables because you never want your customer to see you sweat. There could be an actual dumpster fire happening behind the swinging doors to the kitchen, but showing any stress can be the cue that some customers are looking for to tip less. Since servers depend on tips to make up most of their wages, that’s why acting is so important. We all know there’s no crying in baseball, but there’s no crying in restaurants either. A server has to appear professional while not being off-putting, confident without being cocky, friendly without being too personal, and always giving the appearance of a happy person even though they may be slowly dying inside. 

A bank teller who seems grumpy isn’t going to see their salary reduced, but a server certainly will. That waiter may not have a BFA in Theater or be a Juilliard or Yale graduate, but their acting chops are still on par with some of the greatest actors known to mankind. Marlon Brando was able to wail for Stella to come back to him with an intensity that jumped right off the screen, but have you ever seen a server who forgot to ring in an order explain to a customer why their food is taking so long? That is the kind of acting that even Konstantin Stanislavski simply could not teach. No amount of classes at the Actor’s Studio is going to prepare a server to react a certain way when a 15-top all asks for separate checks. 

The inner monologue is “I do not have time to do that and if I do separate these checks, I can’t leave the automatic gratuity on them anymore and now I might get stiffed oh my goodness, I cannot handle this” while the face and dialogue are saying, “It will be my pleasure. One moment, please.”

While Meryl Streep may be able to recite the daily specials as someone who grew up in the West Midlands of England and spent her summers in Boston which resulted in an odd mishmash of a Birmingham-Boston accent, it’s really no match to the waitress who’s in the weeds, but has to act like she has all the time in the world as a three-year old tries to order their chicken nuggets. Where’s her Academy Award, huh? 

When the restaurant closes at 10:00 and someone swoops in at 9:59, congratulating themselves on having made it “just in time,” something happens to most servers. Acting: activated. They dig deep into their emotional well to conjure up a sense memory that helps them convey the feeling that staying at work is something they truly want to do, even though staying an hour longer could result in no tip whatsoever. Displaying any hint of frustration or disappointment can only jeopardize the potential gratuity. These are the people who deserves SAG awards. 

This doesn’t mean that every server is constantly hitting their mark and turning out an award worthy performance. There are plenty of times servers are genuinely happy, grateful, cheerful, empathetic, and a slew of other emotions. In fact, I would say most of the time they are sincere with their feelings, but if they need to, they can turn it on like a light switch and put Daniel Day-Lewis to shame.