Chazz and what's out of our control
During COVID, I became obsessed with a podcast by one of my favorite storytellers at the time, Chazz Palminteri.
If you’ve never seen A Bronx Tale, I highly recommend you go watch it.
Not only did Chazz write it, but it’s a beautiful coming-of-age story about a kid growing up with two very different role models: his father and the neighborhood mob boss.
What makes it even more interesting is that the story is almost entirely autobiographical.
It’s the story of Chazz’s own childhood, growing up in an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, New York City. As a young boy, he became close to some of the neighborhood wiseguys and was eventually taken under the wing of the local boss, Sonny.
So he grew up between these two men.
His father on one side.
The neighborhood boss on the other.
Two completely different worlds, both teaching him their own version of right and wrong.
Years later, Chazz was an aspiring actor trying to make it in Hollywood.
He had written this story, but nobody was interested in buying it.
So instead of waiting for someone to give him permission, he turned it into a one-man show.
He would go on stage and play every single character himself.
He played the kid.
The father.
The neighborhood boss.
The gangsters.
Everyone.
One night, Robert De Niro happened to be in the audience.
He was so impressed by the performance that he approached Chazz about turning it into a movie.
That movie became A Bronx Tale.
And Chazz’s life changed completely.
But that’s not actually the story I want to tell you today.
The story I want to tell you is something Chazz shared on his podcast, which I heard during those strange months of COVID confinement in 2021.
He talked about his early years in Hollywood, long before A Bronx Tale, when he was still struggling to make it as an actor.
One day, he got called in for an audition.
And he wanted this role badly.
He prepared for weeks.
He cut his hair the way he imagined the character would wear it.
He chose the clothes.
He studied the movements, the body language, the accent.
Every little detail.
He was ready.
And he believed in himself.
The day of the audition came.
He was nervous, obviously, but he walked into the room and gave what he believed was an incredible performance.
Maybe the best audition of his life.
And then...
Nothing.
He didn’t get the part.
As happens so often in that industry — and I’ve been through it myself — there wasn’t much of an explanation.
He was devastated.
He had prepared for weeks. He thought he had nailed it. He genuinely believed this could be the role that changed his life.
And for a moment, he even considered giving up.
"The stories we tell ourselves about who we are — our self concept — are often built on evidence we never fully understood."
Years passed.
Eventually, as I told you, Robert De Niro saw A Bronx Tale, believed in him, and Chazz finally got his break.
His career took off.
The rest is history.
Then, years later, Chazz found himself at one of those classic Hollywood parties.
Actors.
Directors.
Producers.
Agents.
People from every corner of the industry.
And across the room, he recognized someone.
It was the casting director from that audition all those years earlier.
Chazz couldn’t resist.
He walked over, introduced himself politely, and said something like:
“You probably don’t remember me, but many years ago I auditioned for you.”
The man looked at him.
“Of course I remember you.”
Chazz was surprised.
The casting director continued:
“It was an incredible audition. One of the best.”
Now Chazz was even more confused.
All those years later, the question was apparently still somewhere inside him.
So he asked:
“Then why the hell didn’t you cast me?”
The man looked at him.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Of course I do.”
The casting director paused.
“At the time, I was separating from my wife. She was the love of my life, but she had cheated on me with another man.”
Chazz looked at him, confused.
“I’m sorry. But what did that have to do with me?”
And the man said:
“Because the guy she cheated on me with looked exactly like you.”
Chazz stared at him.
The casting director continued.
“I couldn’t have someone who looked so fucking much like the man who stole my wife working with me eight hours a day on set. I would have lost my mind.”
And that’s how Chazz ended the story.
Now...
What’s the point of all this?
Think about what Chazz could have told himself after that audition.
Maybe I’m not good enough.
Maybe I wasn’t prepared enough.
Maybe I don’t have what it takes.
Maybe I’m not as talented as I thought I was.
Maybe I should give up.
He could have spent years replaying that audition in his head, trying to understand what he had done wrong.
And the entire time, the real reason had absolutely nothing to do with his talent.
He just happened to look like the guy who fucked the casting director’s wife.
That’s it.
And I think we do this to ourselves constantly.
Something doesn’t go our way and we immediately start looking inward for an explanation.
We don’t get the job.
Someone else gets the promotion.
The person we like suddenly disappears.
A client chooses somebody else.
Someone doesn’t answer our message.
A project we’ve worked on for months goes nowhere.
We get rejected.
And our mind immediately starts filling in the blanks.
Maybe I wasn’t good enough.
Maybe I said the wrong thing.
Maybe I’m not attractive enough.
Maybe I’m not talented enough.
Maybe I’m not ready.
Maybe I’m simply not meant for this.
And sometimes, of course, that’s exactly what we need to hear.
Sometimes we weren’t good enough.
Sometimes we weren’t prepared enough.
Sometimes somebody else simply did a better job.
And we need enough humility to recognize that, learn from it, and improve.
But sometimes...
You just look like the guy who fucked the casting director’s wife.
The problem is that we almost never have access to all the variables behind what happens to us.
We only see the outcome.
The door closed.
The rejection.
The silence.
The failure.
And then we create the explanation ourselves.
That’s the dangerous part.
Because an event is not a verdict.
Something not working out does not automatically mean that there is something wrong with you.
There are thousands of variables moving around us that we know absolutely nothing about.
Timing.
Other people’s fears.
Their insecurities.
Their relationships.
Their preferences.
Their prejudices.
Their circumstances.
Pure fucking randomness.
So when something doesn’t go your way, there is one question worth asking:
What part of this was actually under my control?
Look at that part.
Be brutally honest about it.
Learn from it.
Improve it.
Take responsibility for it.
And then let the rest go.
Because you will probably never know how many doors in your life were closed for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with you.
Don’t turn an outcome whose causes you don’t understand into a verdict about who you are.
PS: If this resonated — share it with one person who needs to read it
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