ON ACTING: Whining, Complaining, Pouting, etc.

The most unappealing emotions and attitudes in acting are: whining, complaining, pouting, self-pity, etc. The are the sounds of self-accepted defeat. Characters who exhibit more than a little of these traits are generally rejected by an audience (as they are in everyday life). Why? Because those attitudes are the feelings and sounds of 'cowardly' disengagement. Attractive acting (and its audience appeal) is based on watching onstage and onscreen human behavior that is positive, unrelenting, goal-oriented, unafraid to "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" in the pursuit of objectives.