ON ACTING: 'Interdependence'

To create reality in a scene, the actors must achieve true 'interdependence': that is, both actors must really listen to and look at each other in specific detail in their actual performances because each character must accept that the immediate goals or the objectives which they are striving to attain can only be achieved through the other person.

The other person is the most important person in your character's life AT THE MOMENT; if someone else were more important, your character would be with them! The other character has the key to your next doorway. The true reality in any scene cannot be achieved without this symbiotic, moment-to-moment negotiating with each other, through the audio/visual sensing of each other.

In life or a scene, reality is spontaneous; it is beyond planning. The future of any moment in any scene cannot be anticipated except in its general form; in specific detail--in the true minute reactions of the characters/actors to what is interdependently to heard, seen, said or done, whether verbal or non-verbal--must arise in reality on the quantity and quality of the prior thing said or done by the other character in the scene. As in the game of tennis, the real return on any shot depends on the players' instantaneous and immediate sensing of the actual speed, spin, height and force of the opponent's ball coming over the net. And so it is in acting. You may practice for a game (tennis, football acting or any other interdependent sport); but you can't practice the actual game itself. It has yet to happen; and it doesn't happen until the opposition has arrived; and you both start really playing.