Actors Need To Be Aware Of Their Blocks, and Issues
I know I’ve talked about this before in this blog, but it’s important, so I am bringing it home, again.
As an actor, you will be called upon to handle all the different emotions. If you aren’t comfortable expressing emotions, you may be in the wrong business. All of us have some emotions that we feel are safe, or acceptable to express. We have others that don’t flow as easily. We may not even be aware of our inability to easily express these emotions. That’s called denial, by the way.
I suggest that you observe yourself, just keep a casual eye out, in your daily life. First, note if some of the socially-unacceptable emotions back you up. Like anger. Frustration.
What ones do you take pride in keeping inside, or under wraps, or under your control. In our culture, that’s called restraint.
Denial and restraint are toxic to acting.
I am not suggesting that all anger should be expressed by screaming and yelling. Often in acting, authentic anger breaking through restraint or delivered along with, and in sprite of , the shame of experiencing the anger; can make it more specific, and more poignant. More powerful.
But it must be something that the actor is aware of, in his own self, to be able to play. At all. Without faking. That kind of acting is very advanced, and it’s source is extreme-self-awareness.
If you have repressed emotions, you may not be able to define them as blocks–even if they are, in truth. Look over the beliefs of your cultural upbringing: Was it okay to cry? To express disappointment? What about an entitlement to happiness? (These are just some examples…)
What about in your own individual family? Were you given a “voice”? Respected? Which emotions were welcomed, and which were not? Which ones got attended to; and which emotions were you, perhaps, punished for? Belittled? Or ignored?
How did your parents express their emotions, to each other? To you? How did they model emotional-appropriateness? Often, inhibiting emotional expression is modeled. What attitudes did you subconsciously absorb?
Psychologists are finding that the outside world can have an even greater effect than your family. When you were growing up, what peers or teachers may have influenced the facility you have with emotion?
Often, those events that are prominent in your memory, from your childhood, hold a clue. Do you have a memory from your childhood which changed you in some way? What about the ones that must’ve had an emotional charge, or else you wouldn’t remember them so clearly. Can you define what decisions you may have made, from those experiences, way back when they occurred? Decisions about yourself? Decisions about your accuracy of emotion? Expressing emotion?
Permission To Act, With Authentic Emotion
Do you give yourself permission to act? Are you allowed to enjoy yourself, on stage; according to you? What about to feel emotions? To express emotions?
If you don’t, neither will the characters you play.
Is it okay to act without emotion?
I don’t think so.
Acting that comes from unconnected skill, or pretending, sucks. Acting that goes through “the motions” sucks. Acting that is one-dimensional sucks. Acting that isn’t authentic emotion, really sucks.
Experiencing And Expressing Authentic Emotion
…Is the most important thing that you must know how to do, as an actor.
If you are able to allow yourself to feel, and express, the gamut of human emotions, with those who you are intimate with, then you can channel it to your acting.
How do you do that, successfully? With your acting craft.
…More about this, later on…
