I'd go for parts that didn't pay a dime, and there would be 300 to 400 actors there. It could be very discouraging. To make it in this business, you have to have a kind of dumb sense that you're really good. You have to believe that someone is going to recognize that.
I'm a professional non-fiction reader, that's what I do. But in my 20s we had our own vampire and witch moment, courtesy of Anne Rice, whose books I read and loved.
I tend to stay up late, not because I'm partying but because it's the only time of the day when I'm alone and don't have to be performing.