Well, OK.
Thank you, Courtney, for that generous introduction.
Thank you, class of 2016 graduation
committee for inviting me.
Thank you, President Teresa Sullivan and most especially,
class of 2016.
I am so honored to be here with you today.
So glad to be back home in Charlottesville.
This view is pretty overwhelming.
My memories of this place are still so vivid,
lunch dates at Newcomb Hall, late nights
at the drama department, 3:00 AM trips
to the Waffle House, Bodo's bagels,
chicken salad with lettuce and tomato and everything,
thank you very much.
I distinctly remember an unhealthy obsession
with all things acapella, especially
the Virginia Gentleman.
Hello.
What can I say?
I am a super fan.
I got married in the chapel.
[INAUDIBLE] not of [? UG, ?] but he would have been
if you'd gone here.
My man can sing.
We had our reception at the Colonnade Club
over in pad seven.
I streaked this lawn.
Yeah, did that, not at my wedding.
Although, several members of our wedding party
couldn't resist after the rehearsal dinner.
That was charge was led by a U guide, FYI.
Thankfully, all of this happened before the advent
of social media.
I just need a minute here.
This is crazy.
I have to be totally honest.
I have no idea what I'm doing here.
And when I think about who you've
had up here before, Peyton Manning, Ed Helms, Stephen
Colbert, what am I doing here?
Honestly, when I got that letter four months ago from Jasmine
Chu of the class of 2016 graduation committee,
I was shocked.
Of course, I said yes, and then I
panicked for four straight months.
I tried to stave off the panic by plunging into preparation.
I started binge watching Ted Talks
and commencement speeches, which were super inspiring but also
totally depressing, because how could I
compete with those people?
I started a dozen different documents on my laptop.
I wrote 45 pages single-spaced to make use of like,
a 2 and 1/2 hour address.
So buckle in.
It's going to be a long afternoon.
Just kidding.
I actually didn't end up using any of that stuff.
I spent hundreds of hours preparing
to fall flat on my face.
I so wanted to impress you, to inspire you,
to step onto the stage and be the star of this show.
But then it struck me, this is not my show.
This is yours.
It's not about me at all.
And that recognition called to mind a defining moment
from early in my career, where I received a piece of advice
that I have been trying to take every day since.
A few months after my graduation,
I found myself on the set of major movie.
It was my first time in front of a camera.
And I was working with some of my absolute idols, Ed Harris,
Debra Winger, Cuba Gooding Jr, between a lot of them,
they had accumulated a hefty number of awards, Oscars,
Golden Globes, Emmy's.
I did not want to screw up.
So I remember this one scene that we
had that was super emotionally charged.
I was supposed to break down in tears.
So I arrived at morning with my Walkman
blaring my saddest mix-tape.
Kidding, I'm not that old.
It was a CD and a disk man.
I was pumped.
I was ready to cry.
I was going to cry.
It was going to be awesome.
So during our first shot, camera wasn't even on me.
It was on Ed, but it didn't matter.
When the director said action, I let her rip.
There were tears and fireworks, and it was all
coming out of me all at once.
And the director yelled cut.
And then there is this sort of like awkward silence
as I was trying to compose myself.
I felt like everyone was trying to look like they
weren't looking at me.
And then I'd hear someone say, honey, save it for the camera.
You're going to run out of tears before anyone even sees them.
Got it.
Thanks, I said, bracing myself for another take,
grabbing a tissue to stanch the flow of my now completely
unnecessary tears.
I felt so humiliated.
But before the cameras started rolling again,
Ed Harris leans over to me and he says this, that's bullshit.
I do my best work off camera.
If you are not giving 110%, even when you're off camera,
you're not doing your job and in the worst way, because you're
failing your scene partner.
You just gave me exactly what I needed
to do what I needed to do.
Good work, kid.
When I recalled that moment with Ed,
I knew exactly what I wanted to share with you guys today,
and it starts with a question.
What do you do when the camera isn't on you?
Who are you then?
I believe that the way we answer that question will either
set us on a path to freedom, joy, and impact
or will catch us in the grip of a never
ending chase for recognition, the driving desire
to impress the tyranny of achievement.
I know the stakes are high for this question,
because I have felt the consequences of getting
it wrong more often than I'd like to admit.
And I've also experienced the joy of getting it right.
When the camera isn't on you, what do you do?
In real time, in real life when people really
need you in order to do what they
need to do, how do you show up?
And I mean the real you, not the carefully curated social media
version of you.
Because let's be clear, all that world is a stage.
And when we step onto it, we are players
performing for our audience.
Who are we out of the spotlight when we're not
performing for an audience?
Are we 110% present, even when it's just
us and one other person?
When the camera pans away from me,
do I immediately feel invisible or irrelevant?
Do I power down and tune out?
Do I wait, and plot, and obsess about my next moment
in the sun, or do I get out of my own head
and notice the scene that's unfolding around me?
Do I see myself as a valuable and essential part
of a bigger story?
Do I recognize that it's not my moment, but it's your moment,
and if I don't show up for, you miss.
I miss.
We all miss that greater thing that is only possible when
we are all in for each other.
I chase the spotlight all the time.
I am constantly looking for recognition.
And even though I know it's a trap,
I am still drawn to the chase like a moth to a flame.
Every step of my journey, from your seat to this stage,
this has been my struggle.
And when I find myself drawing too close to that flame,
I try to remember Ed's advice.
And I try to take it.
I try to stop obsessing about the camera, and my career,
the critics, whatever they're saying about me
or when they're not saying anything at all about me.
And I try to focus, instead, on being present,
giving 110% to whomever I'm with on or off the set,
on or off camera, because here's the thing.
Most of the time, there are no cameras rolling,
but life is always rolling.
And if you're paying attention, in your spirit,
you will hear the words and action all the time,
every day, with all of the people in your life,
whether you are the intern or the CEO,
whether you are running your household or running a company,
living in a basement or living in a penthouse,
whether you are doing the grunt work or getting the glory,
life is always rolling.
So the question then is, how will you show up?
Over the years I discovered that when I get that wrong, when
I miss the moment, because I'm so focused on the spotlight,
it's usually for one or both of two reasons.
I want to matter, and I want to belong.
Somehow, I believe that if I'm noticed enough,
important enough, celebrated enough,
that validation will give me value.
And it will secure a place for me at the cool kids table.
I'll be in the club inside the inner circle.
Above all else, I want to be seen, to be known,
and to be loved.
The people that I work with are so amazing.
I track them all in Instagram and Twitter.
And when I see them posting from award shows, fancy parties
in Hollywood, dinners with the Obama's in the White House,
I would like to say that I feel happy
for them, proud to know them, excited to see them shine.
And sometimes I do, truly.
But more often than not, I don't.
Instead, I get jealous and insecure.
I focus on myself being on the outside, not important enough
to get that invite, even though I
have had plenty of other moments in the spotlight.
Even though, they're my friends, and I know them,
and I love them, and they know me,
my first reaction is to feel left out.
Because in this moment, they are up front and center,
and I am at home in my yoga pants covered in toddler snot.
Because that's the thing about the spotlight.
No matter how much it shines on you,
it will never be enough, ever.
There will always be fancier people
than you doing fancier things than you, always.
The only freedom is to stop living for that recognition,
for those fleeting moments on camera.
Freedom only comes when you stop needing to be seen and instead
when you let yourself truly see and be
present to the people in your life,
whether they're your best friends, or your coworkers,
or even the strangers you encounter on a daily basis.
And sometimes the camera turns to you
when you are present in this way.
Sometimes the camera catches value,
but it doesn't create value.
Over these 14 years, in my journey through my career,
there have been several extended periods of time
when the camera didn't catch me at all, when
I stopped working completely, not by choice, six months here,
three months there, nine months, when
I didn't book a single job.
These seasons were pretty discouraging.
And during them, I had a really hard time taking Ed's advice.
One of these long periods was after Everwood was canceled
and before I found my way to Grey's.
There was this one winter where I tested
for seven different pilots.
I got to the final rounds for seven different TV series,
and I didn't book a single one.
The only part I did get during that period,
I didn't even audition for it.
I just got it.
I still have it actually.
You haven't seen it.
No one has.
It wasn't in a movie or in a play.
It won't ever be on TV.
No, the part I was given was that
of an honorary member of a gang of little kids on my street.
Yes, I was a grown-ass woman.
And yes, I played with the kids on my block.
Don't judge me.
These kids are the freaking coolest.
When their parents told them to go out of and play,
their first stop was at my door so they could drag me out.
They showed me all the secret fairy hideouts
that regular adults weren't privy to.
They had special names for each other, flower pa, rain spirit,
feather stuck.
They had given a new one too, lionheart.
I have a vivid memory of the day I returned home
from my seventh pilot screen test.
Over the course of two weeks, I had been called back, and back,
and back, casting directors, then producers, and studio
execs, and now network execs.
Man, I was feeling so good about this one.
I was killing it at every callback,
hitting all the right beats, loving every minute of it.
I truly believed that this part was meant for me.
I had spent my morning at ABC studios
signing a contract tying me to the project in case
they chose me over the other girl,
looking, staring at the salary I'd be making if I got
the role.
Everything I wanted was just within reach.
I could feel that camera coming to find me.
As I pulled into our driveway, my phone rang.
It was my agent.
Did I get it?
No.
I hung up and crumpled, banged my head on the steering wheel.
But then I heard this tap, tap, tap, on the window.
My head was still glued to the steering wheel in self-pity.
So before I could see who was tapping,
I heard this little voice talking a mile a minute.
Sarah, Sarah, we are going to fill the entire sidewalk.
Come on.
Come see.
We need help.
So I put myself up.
I looked to my left.
And I matched the voice to the bouncing, grinning,
incandescent face of Eloise and beyond her the gang, Miranda,
Iris, Ethan, Penelope, Mara, Dean, and Zane.
They were creating an epic sidewalk chalk
drawing that had already spanned the length of four houses.
Lionheart, let's go.
We need you.
She threw open my car door, her whole body
humming with excitement.
I took a deep breath, stepped out of my car, took her hand
and walked, then skipped and ran over.
I picked up a piece of chalk, and I started drawing.
For the next two hours, I sat on the sidewalk drawing dragons,
and fairies, and suns, and moons, and stars,
talking to those kids, laughing with them,
and making art together, my disappointment transforming
into delight.
I so often let myself think that if I am doing the fancy things
with the fancy people in the cool kids club, I will matter,
and I will belong.
And here I am pulling onto my street.
And these kids who couldn't care less what I do for a living
are now leaping out of their skin,
because they are so excited to be with their lionheart.
I belong to this club, this club of
creative, playful, adventurous, present, kind-hearted kids
who love me effortlessly.
I matter to them simply because I'm a member of their tribe,
their community .
And it is my larger community that
has held me at every point when my career has let me down
or when life has gotten harder than I was ready for.
When my marriage was in a dark place,
our community spoke bold and hard truth to us
and lifted us up out of the depths.
When our daughter Hannah was born almost a month early,
she was so small and vulnerable.
She had issues breathing.
She'd start to get better and grow stronger,
but then she'd regress and just stop breathing altogether.
So it was oxygen, and feeding tubes,
and medications, and constant vigilance and stress
in the NICU.
But our community brought us meals, and prayed for us,
and left us love notes, and let us sob go all over them,
and celebrated with us when we were finally
able to bring her home.
All of this done for me, for us, off camera.
Our community seeing me, seeing us,
being present 110% in exactly the way we
needed to put the next foot forward.
I will tell you that I live the truest most wholehearted, most
joyful version of myself when I ignore the camera,
when I am oblivious to the spotlight,
and when I stop waiting for recognition or approval.
I am most alive when I do my work simply
for the joy of doing my work and when
I am present in my community looking for ways to celebrate
them, to show up for them, and to bring something gorgeous out
in them.
When I'm in that space, I know that I matter,
and I know that I belong.
And although this is still a struggle for me
to remember this, with the help of my tribe, my community,
I find my way back to the truth a hell of a lot
faster than I did 14 years ago.
And here we are today.
This is one of the greatest gatherings
of your tribe you will ever experience, here
on our sacred tribal grounds, your classmates, your friends,
your family, your tribe, everyone who believes in you
and loves you more deeply than anyone else, oftentimes
more deeply even than you love yourself.
What Ed taught me a few months after graduation and what I
continue to learn is that I cannot do this life thing
on my own.
We are not meant to live on our own private islands.
We are a tribal species.
We are built for community, and it is only in community
where we uncover our true value and our deepest worth.
On that theme, let me close with the words of one
of the greatest leaders and teachers of all time
on the subject of true community,
what he called beloved community, Martin Luther King
Jr. He knew that in the end when all things are measured,
what matters most is not your resume, not
your impressive achievements, but who you are
and what you do when the camera isn't even on you.
Here's how he put it.
A few months before he was assassinated,
King actually wrote about his funeral
with guidance for how the service should go
and the eulogy.
"If any of you are around when I have to meet my day--
he said-- I don't want a long funeral.
And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy,
tell him not to talk too long.
Tell him not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize.
It's not important.
Tell him not to mention that I have 300 or 400 other awards.
That's not important.
Tell him not to mention where I went to school.
I would like someone to mention that day that Martin Luther
King Jr tried to love somebody.
I won't have any money to leave behind,
but if I can help somebody as I pass along,
if I can cheer somebody with a well song,
then my living will not be in vain."
In the end, the most important question is not,
did I impress, but did I love?
As you set off from these sacred grounds,
you will need your tribe.
Your tribe will need you 110%.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I love you UVA.
Congratulations.