by Paul Barry
As promised in my 10 Things For Actors To Stop Saying post….
“Let’s try it”
It takes half an hour to argue over the relative merits of any given direction, but it only takes a minute to try one. If it works, great. It not, no problem. Doing it is a much quicker way to test an idea than talking about why it may fail. Frequently I have asked an actor to try a particular exercise or direction, only to be met with half an hour of resistance, in which time it could have performed fourteen different ways. As a teacher and director in this situation I obviously try another angle, but remember that it’s a two-way street. Just because you ‘don’t feel it’ doesn’t mean it won’t work. Repeating the action may provide the inspiration you need, but also counter-intuition quite often provides exactly the response the moment itself requires, and who better to guide you through that than your teacher or director?
“Congratulations”
When you finally realise that you can’t get every role, you begin to see the great work of those you formerly saw as competitors. I have witnessed countless actors pulling supportive friends and colleagues up to their level of success, but those who step on others on the way up are always kicked on the way down. Examine your network of actors. Who are the people you know that you feel most likely to succeed? Forget for a moment their haphazard or lazy ways and look at them as a person. Do you have some kind of respect for them and the work they produce? Are they a good person, deep down. You may just be looking at someone who desperately wants everyone to succeed and they think of you as someone they’d love to support. If you are negative towards them though, you’ll never be on their list of beneficiaries. Trust me, even the self-absorbed need friends, and people will do anything for their friends. In your fight for global domination, don’t ignore the benefits of genuinely complimenting the person who scored the job you missed out on, they may just be looking at you as someone they’d love in their entourage.
“I have more to learn”
It is very easy in this business to feel the need to project a persona of accomplishment, but the only problem with that is, you may not be as accomplished as you say you are. What ever happened to ‘being discovered’? Even child actors these days seem to need to be experts. Where are the wonderfully naïve actors of yesteryear; actors so unpolished that they could work with anyone, listen to any advice, and grow, on every job they scored? It is difficult to work with actors who believe they have nothing to learn, when of course everyone does. They say: “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. He who doesn’t ask is a fool for a lifetime.” Become a ‘born-again noob’ and watch your career begin to grow in directions you never anticipated.
“Acting comes second”
This is a direct quote from Johnny Depp years ago. Acting comes second. It always does. Will you really die if you don’t do it? Of course not. But if you neglect every other aspect of your life you will certainly notice your acting suffer as well. Family comes first. Or love. Or living life. Or health. Or charity. Or faith. Or eradicating poverty and famine. Or ending factory farming. Or curing cancer. Or any number of other wonderful gifts life has given us, or challenges our world presents us with, but acting always comes – at best – a close second. Far from feeling robbed by this suggestion, seeing acting as second-place actually gives you something to draw on in your work. There is nothing more boring than an actor who has nothing to discuss, look forward to, or dream about than fame and fortune. Or even an Oscar.
“I am not my character”
Until science presents you with a way to change your DNA, you will always be you. You may make people believe that you are someone else for a period of time and you may even absorb countless traits and mannerisms of another person, but you will never ‘become’ the character. I believe this impossible goal creates more frustration in actors than almost any other. Accept that you are you and that this fact will never change. Develop a fascination with the similarities and differences between you and Hamlet, physically, vocally, emotionally, psychologically, rhythmically, but do not attempt to convince yourself that you are the character. You are not. You are acting, and acting is a game of make-believe. Even Sandford Meisner said that acting is ‘living truthfully in imagined circumstances’. Let go of the pie-in-the-sky notion that some magical transformation happens moments before your height changes and your chromosomes rearrange. It is a destructive fantasy.
“I am enough”
After attending all the classes, hearing countless anecdotes of success, and comparing yourself to the competition, it is easy to conclude that you can’t possibly make it in this business. You aren’t young enough, old enough, beautiful enough, talented enough, or connected enough to get where you want to be. What you need to realise though is that most of your idols felt – or feel – exactly the same way. The difference is, they didn’t let it derail them. People are successful for many different reasons and only one of them is hard work. Though it is true one cannot succeed for long without hard work, motivational speaker Jim Rohn once said: ‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with’, and his lesson is an important one to learn. Look around you, are the five people you spend most of your time with productive, supportive, passionate people? You may already have everything you need, but the support network you have created is anything but supportive. It is no surprise that successful people gravitate towards other successful people, even if they are in completely different fields. Even if they are a stay-at-home mother of sixteen kids. Surround yourself with loving but lazy and unambitious people and the results you receive will be exactly what you created. Generate a creative, supportive and unstoppable network around yourself and it will foster you to reach whichever height you aim for.
“There’s no rush”
It is easy to believe that you have a shelf life. A time comes, when you are no longer marketable and your talent has clearly amounted to nothing. It’s too late, no-one will hire you now, you are too old, too fat, and have been unemployed for too long. Wrong. You must remember that if you are getting older and haven’t succeeded yet, many others are thinking the same thing. The difference being that they are actually giving up. Those who haven’t given up are now experiencing their own success and likely won’t be going for the roles you are. As such, you are now more experienced, more patient, more available, and more likely to be cast than those starting out below you or constantly working above you. Everything takes time. Everything. Though luck and chance and nepotism may aid some actors around you, if it isn’t happening for you, it’s not your lot in life. Your way is another way. Joseph Campbell wrote, effectively, that when you come across a path in the forest, it’s not yours. You must cut your own way through. There are countless examples of actresses and actors who began their careers later in life. There are just as many stories of extraordinary comebacks, just look at John Travolta’s career before Tarantino resurrected him for Pulp Fiction. There is no rush and it is never too late. The only time it is definitively over is when you say so, and give up.
“Thank you”
Every single day we learn something new. Every class you attend or blog you read offers you new insight into the industry you have chosen to follow. It is incredibly easy to take these things for granted and move onto the next one, but it is just as easy to say: ‘Thank you’. Like a post on Facebook, share it with a friend, or shock horror, write a comment. Whether it is a personal breakthrough experienced in an acting class or something you read online, the power of giving thanks can never be underestimated. We do not get anywhere alone. When you are on set and consumed with your own perfectionism or self doubt, are you aware that a focus puller, gaffer, or costume designer is making you look amazing? Did you take the time to thank them for it? Thank the writer, thank your reader in a casting, thank your agent, thank a fellow actor for drawing your attention to a misread line. In our blinkered pursuit of brilliance and success, it is incredibly easy to overlook the countless members of our team, without whom we would be mute and naked, standing in the dark.
“What can I do for you?”
Many scenes fail because we’re so consumed with our own concerns. The other actor isn’t giving us enough, the writing isn’t good enough, or I don’t have what I need to make this scene believable. Take the time to turn it around and ask if everyone else has what he or she needs. You may just find that the act of giving creates an opportunity to receive. If your fellow actor is a plank of wood, ask them how you can help them in the scene, whether it be picking up the cues or fighting them harder in the scene. If the dialogue isn’t popping, ask the writer what he or she was trying to get across when they penned it, perhaps they need a little extra zing from you to get their point across. If you feel you are standing in a void on set, ask the set dresser or props guy if there’s something he brought along that he’d like to introduce into the scene. Remember that you are a part of a team. Not a team that works for you or the director, but a team that works for the story. Though there is an element of truth to the saying: ‘What goes around comes around’, it is far more pragmatic to adhere to the concept that ‘many hands make light work’. Because they do. It also makes any experience a far more social one, because seriously, who got into acting to work alone?
“I’m happy”
There is an insidious trend in our business that centres on the need to be perpetually dissatisfied with one’s own work. Do not buy into it, for it will only drag you down. Far from advocating complacency or mediocrity, it is entirely possible to be simultaneously happy with your work and know you could have done more. If the script takes time to absorb, or the reader just picked up the script, or you didn’t get sleep because the cat was sick all night, rest assured that you did everything you can. Be happy with that. If you could have done more, than why didn’t you do it? I had a client in class once who was clearly the most natural, experienced and competent at the scene everyone was given. After each take I would ask how they felt about it out of a hundred. The less experienced admitted that they had reached about sixty or seventy, but this student claimed she had peaked at five! She lamented that she was a perfectionist, to which I enquired: ‘how many times have you ever achieved perfection’. ‘Never’, she said. Then you, I sagely advised, are an imperfectionist. Honestly, let’s call it like it is. If you have never reached the dizzying heights of perfection, then you have no right to label yourself as such. Would you call yourself a gold medalist if you only ever came in bronze? Of course not. Perfectionism is an excuse, and a poor one at that. It is your way of telling the world they cannot possibly judge your performance because it’s not the one you were planning to do. If you have something in mind, do it. If you can’t, then learn how. A life of continual disappointment is not only sad for you, it is a millstone around the necks of everyone you work with. This student had created a beautiful, nuanced, layered performance, and I told her so. Quite aside from being counter-productive, her refusal to accept my compliment was deeply insulting. Be dissatisfied if you fail to reach your goal, by all means, but be happy that you did everything in your power to get there. Then move on.
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10 Things For Actors To Stop Saying
Paul Barry is an actor, director, writer, teacher and blogger. He co-owns Acting 4 Camera and Showreels Australia. He lives in LA, but regularly teaches via Skype, all around the world.
(The blogs you see on www.acting4camera.com are free, but they don’t write themselves. If you find the information useful, feel free to donate below to keep them coming. Your contribution of any amount is graciously welcomed!)
Thank you.
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Pleasure!
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