Find Your Happy Place
My kids Derek and Jackie hugging before he left to go back to the USA. (Photo by Erik Steen)
That can be difficult in these times. Have you seen the news from Minnesota? Is the COVID-19 still here? Have you gotten any auditions lately? That’s what exists and we have to face it. So let’s face it and then carry on and use this time to strike back and be better than ever. As a Person, as an Actor.
Listen to some new music, read some new books, take some online classes, be mindful - PREPARE yourself for when the calls from your agent start coming in again, or when you want to do a new project. Make your own content — that will be an eye-opener… WHICH IS WHAT YOU NEED. Eyes wide open. Life to learn, life to be experienced — life. That’s your “draw card” when you need to tune in to a character or feel the "feels". It’s very clear that the world can’t survive without entertainment. We won’t let it.
So “you’re welcome”, world. Gotta get people to their Happy Places - and/or - Deep and Meaningfuls! Work on that.
Motivation
Suzie at a “NAFA Chat” by Bruce Beresford on Micromanaging.
When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, ‘It’s in the script.’ If he says, ‘But what’s my motivation?’ I say, ‘Your salary.’
Actors seem to need to know the right questions to ask and are required to do a lot of their own character and script analysis. It’s our job (as actors) and we study for this: to figure out the character’s ‘objective’, the ‘super objective’, the character’s goal, etc., etc. — whomever you listen to or with whom you study. Then the Director has his say — ideally before the actor has read his mind!
This is a full-time job and one must research and become the character and not over-intellectualize. Oh dear, ‘the intellectual actor’. You may think this is a compliment, but it’s not! You must come from the gut and above all — truth.