How can an actor distinguish himself from the pack (and dying your hair blue, doesn’t count)?
How can we add value to a production?
How can we make ourselves indispensable within a production? How can we make it so that a director would haveto include us…
One time, I was on my way to an audition but I hadn’t provided myself with a drink for the journey. It was a hot day, I was riding the tube. I started feeling dizzy and decidedly nauseous, and I began to sweat heavily, so much so in fact, that the other…
You can go over and over a performance in your head, you can practice a scene at home trying to compensate for the fact that the other actor isn’t there, a million times. But does that help you? Or does it get you over-wrought, too keyed up, so that you…
Striving for excellence is a good thing, striving for greatness is even better. We all have a notion of what the perfect work we want to do is, and measure our own efforts against it. But perfectionism, tames us, it blocks us from ever going for it, and no matter how much preparation we do, it’s just never enough. We become like a diver, stuck on the diving board, never actually taking the plunge because some details are just never right. But the only way to ever get closer to the perfect dive is to take the plunge and learn from the results.
Sometimes in rehearsals, we organically create exquisite moments, they are neither scripted nor planned, but they are poetic and beautifully express the scene. We cherish them, and we don’t want to let them go. Some of those exquisite moments may not re-appear in performance. Fine. It’s not our job to worry about them. You certainly shouldn’t be monitoring yourself to ensure that they’re there, because if you’re doing that, you cannot be properly committed to your action nor paying attention to the other actor. It’s not our job to try and bend reality to fit what’s inside our heads, but rather to accept reality, deal with it, and get on with it. You don’t need to be sentimental about losing those exquisite moments, because new ones will be created each and every time you do the scene. No, the scene probably isn’t going to change radically each time, but if you’re working correctly then you will discover new things.
Perfectionism stops us from ever getting started, and if we do, it robs us of our audacity. Perfectionism kills creativity.
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There is a certain kind of actor who’ll do absolutely anything apart from actually act the scene. They are full of chatter about it, they ask too many questions about it, you can’t get through the scene in rehearsal without them breaking off to speak to the director about something. They’re never happy, they’re never comfortable,there’s a problem with the script, there’s a problem with the dialogue, their costume wasn’t how they imagined it, their character “just wouldn’t do that!”
All of the above are symptoms of fear. Fear of committing, fear of doing what they said they were going to do, fear of criticism, and most importantly, fear of facing up to the truth of the moment. Except, you cannot escape the truth of the moment, you cannot ignore it, you cannot sweep it under the carpet and pretend it isn’t there, no matter how hard you try, you can only attempt to. Why? Because your fear of facing the truth of the moment IS the truth of the moment. And if you fail to turn and face that moment, then you are a coward and you winced out of the work of the actor.
Dealing with the truth of the moment is the actor’s job. It’s scary, and requires courage and strength. That’s the glory of it.
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Achieve Something Extraordinary
For all the moaning and frustration, truth is, many actors are happy being mediocre, coasting along, auditioning occasionally, working every now and then. You can get by being mediocre, you probably won’t have a lot of fun doing it, but you can get by. Most employers don’t require great actors, they require competent actors (and it seems not even that a lot of the time), and that’s the secret attraction of “The Industry”: it removes the stress and pressure of striving to be anything more than mediocre, it removes the responsibility from the actor. Actors need only to look cute, show up and do what they’re told. This is all well and good, but it’s lead to a diminution in the actor’s contribution, the value of each individual actor is lower than it’s ever been, and actors feel it. The net result is that performance levels drop, and the audience stops looking to actors for nourishment, instead they turn to 3D, the internet and computer games.
The lesson here is that mediocrity is slowly killing the art of acting.
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Achieve Something Extraordinary
You work will only be what you are. What you are everyday is what you will be on stage or infront of camera. Actors don’t magically transform into somebody else when performing, and those who tell you that they do are taking liberties.
We cannot hide who we are.
We cannot hide our intentions.
Remember next time: the audience can see straight into your heart. What’s there?
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I was sitting on a step eating my sandwich, when a man approached me. He was clearly in distress, clutching his arm which had blood pouring from a gash. He asked me if I could spare any money to help him get a taxi to the hospital. Panicked by the sight of the blood and the man’s anguish, I shot to my feet, then reached into my pocket and pulled out a bunch of change, and gave it to him. After accepting the money, he relaxed his arm, smiled, and walked off as though he didn’t have a care in the world. There was nothing wrong with his arm. I had been tricked.
It took a moment to sink in, but once it did, I had a little chuckle to myself. I admired the guy. If you live in a city like London as I do, you are constantly being harassed for loose change, all day, every day. So much so infact, that it grinds you down, and you learn to tune it out, it’s just impossible to deal with everyone who crosses your path. So, for this man to not only get me to pay attention to him, but to actually get me to willingly give him money, was quite a considerable feat.
What can we learn from this? Well, firstly our work must not, and need not be a trick. It would be over egging the pudding to walk on stage with, say, blue hair. The actor already has the audiences attention, infact, that’s why they came to the theatre in the first place, so while feel the need to try and draw attention to yourself? If you did walk on stage with blue hair, it might be provocative at first, but the novelty would wear off pretty quickly, and then what? The crucial lesson from the man with the bloody arm, is for us actors to strive to deliver something extra, not the same old humdrum. And when the audience leaves the auditorium, they might chuckle and shake their heads at the provocative moments of our performances, and they might be strengthened and energised by our work, heck, they may even be moved to write about it.
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The British Film institute are currently screening a series of rarely seen films from from the heyday of the Japanese Nikkatsu Studio. I had the good fortune to catch Koreyoshi Kurahara’s The Woman From The Sea, about a young man in a fishing village, who meets a mysterious woman on the ocean and falls in love with her, much to the consternation of the other villagers. It is a wonderful film, shot in black and white, and beautifully acted. Visually it has a dream-like quality, and the scenes are constructed with cleanliness and precision – put it this way: any film which cuts from a medium shot of a man looking at his watch, to a close-up of the watch, gets my vote.
Despite the tumultuous conflicts in The Woman From The Sea (and there many), watching the film gave me a feeling of warmth, and a sense that the filmmakers respected the audience, they genuinely wanted to offer something meaningful, they really wanted to give something to the audience. This is very different to so many of today’s artists, who have no interest in the audience whatsoever, save how they can be leveraged, all that matters to them is their career and their status – it’s all me-me-me.
Don’t be a me-me-me artist. It’s better to be a log fire than a fluorescent light. View the audience as people coming in from the cold. Don’t ask them to admire you, but take care of them instead. If they tell others about your work, let it be out of exuberance for of what they have taken from it, not because you extorted a reaction from them.
Be generous with whatever skills and abilities you may have. Give something.
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“The Actor Is An Individual Creative Artist, Not An Employee”
We’re living in an extraordinary time. Technology and the internet have developed in such a way that people can achieve remarkable things without a budget, and without permission.
What does this mean?
Writers can publish an e-book, filmmakers can make and distribute their film, entrepreneurs can start an online shop, musicians can release music.
What can actors do?
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The Great Acting Blog: “The Actor Is An Individual Creative Artist, Not An Employee”
Welcome to The Great Acting Blog, dedicated to exploring the art and craft of acting, and Great Acting in particular. We encourage conversation on this blog, so please don't be shy in responding to any of the posts.loading tweets…
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