The Rambling Actor's Blog /

I am now in LA, my future here much like the economy, is uncertain. But it is Los Angeles, the Mecca for actors on the lam from their respective hometowns forced to work hard to not defer their dreams. But as fate shall have its way, that’s the way it is and I’m not suffering for it. The full knowledge I had of this before I moved out here was the only proverbial brass pair I had to tug on in hopes that it would keep me confident. When I mean that I knew actors out in LA work hard, I mean I know actors who left Tinsel Town penniless and defeated, running back home with their tales so far up their asses they spit fur as they panted gaining speed towards mommy. But the working hard comes from a different place, a place that comes way before we are ever even ready to go meet with agents to one day hopefully book castings. Working hard means something different to everyone but I will attempt to clear the air as to what actually works for me as an actor.

So now that we have a few things in order: I’m an actor, I alluded to the body, mind and soul being the instrument we use as actors, and that the process comes from a very natural and untainted part of our psyche, I will continue. When starting off any piece of work (poem, play, film, story, etc) as a performer, one needs to know certain things in order to get the ball rolling. Facts, Information, Direction, and Intuition: These are just some but are certain to be on the list of any type of “work” one is attempting to immerse oneself in. First comes the writer’s words, then the story, then the character, then the facts, information, direction, and intuition come into focus for the envelopment of the craft to come to fruition. We assess feelings through the mind and then process through the body and in those precious few moments when we are throwing ourselves into the writing, we experience intuition. That intuition one feels in the gut from the writing we are experiencing and imagining at the moment almost always stems from a childhood desire to portray our minds eye. If the body, or the instrument of the actor, is fine tuned to feel what is there to be felt in the writing then the gut will speak to you from that place within your childhood curiosity, from the well of sincerity.

The process of the actor will always vary with the role, the director, and the writing itself same as any mundane job necessitates corresponding tools to get the job done. Yet, with this in mind, the process is always produced through the vessel of the actor, through the same feelings that come up initially when reading the role. So corresponding to that filter, one sees how one will portray any given role. Once the body has responded then one goes to the director with the idea, the notion, the instinct one had when first feeling the words leave the body. The action an actor delivers to any given line will need to be in accord with what the character wants or needs to do to get across a moment, a person, or a situation. Some call it motivation, a goal, an action, etc. they refer to the same thing: The life force, the pulse of the character that has a need, a want, and a role to play in the story.

The facts need to be organized, the questions need to be posed and answered, the pertinent information also needs to be gathered and seen from an objective viewpoint, only then will the director give your tools and your homework a qualifying grade. If you don’t do this important work then you’ll have nothing to bring to the table and what follows may be a bad review or worse, the loss of a job. A character only exists because of the story, the story is only there because of the writer, so the actor is there to serve both and what they offer is to make the actor’s tools work correctly and in unison with the vision of the director, this is enough to make a sincere performance golden. How can one play a character that is, let’s say, from a small town in Germany during the post-WW2 era that has returned to find his hometown ravaged and in shambles? Well, this character seems to have a whole hell of a lot of homework for the actor who booked the gig. There seem to be a limitless amount of questions the actor can begin to ask but if the intuition is present and the history of this small town exists then all the actor needs is the context of the story, the action, and the lines to build the character. What other characters say about you is as important as what the character says about themselves. Certain words that come up when reading a script or story are put there by the writer with deliberateness. In these instances one can choose to make light on said word to find a through line that the character just might need like a cue word to access an action.

Out of the many schools of acting I’ve actually studied or practiced, none has come even remotely close to delivering the feeling I get when I find my intuition doing most of the work for me. Whether reciting poetry, lines in a play, or a scene in a film, the truth comes from the soul of the actor, and at the very seat of being in the moment, one finds that what the instincts have to say to us usually end up being closer to the truth than what the schools of thought that designed your practice in the craft have to say.

When it comes to building a character it’s not about the sensibilities of the actor so much as it is about the charms one acquires after years of playing the clown or the bookworm in the public arena. In either case the result is clean and fresh and from a place of genuine expression. As a child many of us act upon our senses and direct urges whether fabricated, instilled, or conditioned. Therefore as adults we equally must find that simple directness to expression that we’ve so long ago forgotten, needless to say, the inner child must be stirred from naptime in order to allow that inner energetic sort of writhing that gets translated to life through one’s present age and character circumstance. You know when it feels normal and effortless and that is when things get real interesting in the playing out of a fictional character. We always start with the script, the words, and those first fleeting images that cross our minds as we give it a thorough first read. Then comes the analytical mind, the trained mind, the “let’s see what this means” kind of cerebral overload that can at any instant threaten the fresh child-like approach of the imagination. This all comes from the very first reading of a script. It’s the: Everything you know, Everything you don’t know, and the Everything you don’t know that you didn’t know.

Action and feelings, to some in the acting world, are enemies locked in a never-ending battle for superiority. The fact that one cannot perform a feeling, only an action, is I think a bit coerced and dualistic. The truth for me has always been in the putting, meaning that when I feel it, then the action becomes clearer to me then if I went at it from a purely cerebral place to begin with. In the end, only you and the scripts’ character can tell you what ‘the ring of truth’ and ‘reality’ is when it comes to your portrayal.