ON ACTING: Imagining the Unimaginable
In order for an actor to be exciting, and therefore wildly popular (that is, after all, what we all want), they must take the audience on an emotional trip beyond the everyday. Just as audiences enjoy outer space movies, they also demand inner space movies.
Great performances demand actors take themselves beyond the conventional explorations of their own inner emotions, to travel beyond the known universe of feelings, beyond the superficial and conventional, to universal feelings they (both the actor and audience) have rarely experienced.
They say there are as many molecules in the human form as there are stars in the universe. Well, exciting actors take the audience beyond the know inner stars, beyond the known inner solar system, to far unimagined inner places.
To prepare for that exciting emotional journey, the actor must prepare herself: by first imagining the personal unimaginable; the sudden death of a favorite child, the murdering of a colleague, the death of oneself. To play Oedipus, who slept with his mother, killed his father and tore his own eyes out, the actor must first imagine such seeming unimaginable deeds, and be prepared to feel the deep. complex emotions which precipitate such actions.
Is it possible? Yes. Is it easy? No. Must it be done? Most certainly. In order to deeply touch many hearts, one must first deeply touch one's own.
Great performances demand actors take themselves beyond the conventional explorations of their own inner emotions, to travel beyond the known universe of feelings, beyond the superficial and conventional, to universal feelings they (both the actor and audience) have rarely experienced.
They say there are as many molecules in the human form as there are stars in the universe. Well, exciting actors take the audience beyond the know inner stars, beyond the known inner solar system, to far unimagined inner places.
To prepare for that exciting emotional journey, the actor must prepare herself: by first imagining the personal unimaginable; the sudden death of a favorite child, the murdering of a colleague, the death of oneself. To play Oedipus, who slept with his mother, killed his father and tore his own eyes out, the actor must first imagine such seeming unimaginable deeds, and be prepared to feel the deep. complex emotions which precipitate such actions.
Is it possible? Yes. Is it easy? No. Must it be done? Most certainly. In order to deeply touch many hearts, one must first deeply touch one's own.
posted by Cliff Osmond at 11:01 PM
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