I’m known by students and by actors I’ve directed onstage to display contempt for the notion of “the character”. I often find myself saying: “How would you behave if this were really happening? Is this you? Or is it someone you’re imagining yourself to be?” If you’re trying to be someone else, that could account for most of why the behavior looks false. False can mean fake, but it can also mean too thin, incomplete, lacking the behavioral complexities of listening, processing, and responding that are present in life.

In life we wear masks. Every day. Some, we know we wear, and others have become so much a part of who we are that we’re no longer willing or even able to remove them. And we don’t always swap them out either, trading A for B. Often we go ahead and keep wearing A, and then we put B on top of that. And then C on top of the other two. Are these masks part of our character, part of who we are? They sure are. What we pretend, or hide, or avoid in our lives, becomes part of what choices we make in each moment, and then, what behavior results from these choices.

What separates an actor from a regular Joe or Sue is that the actor is equally interested in nobility and depravity. Whatever judgment he or she may have of any human experience must be secondary to a hunger to understand it. And the depth of that understanding, when and if it is reached, determines the specificity of the behavior, and the power of the portrayal.

The reason I state so unequivocally that there is no character is that actors tend to think of a character as putting something on, putting on a series of masks. No! Great actors do exactly the opposite. They ask themselves: What masks do I have to remove to be this other person? When I know an actor thinks and works that way, I have no problem with the idea of a character at all.

If you are playing Richard III, for example, you have to remove the “I don’t wish my enemies ill” mask that we all wear. The “I could be king (or the hottest actor, producer, director, writer, gofer, etc. in Hollywood) if only he or she were dead” mask. If you don’t have those kinds of fantasies, those wildly inappropriate daydreams, you’re not an actor.

Or perhaps you do have them, but you’ve become used to suppressing them. Used to living in the real world instead of the world of your imagination. Cut it out. Those wild thoughts and feelings are good for you. (Even if you’re an accountant really, though much less useful in that profession.)

Watch Helen Mirren in The Queen. She’s playing a character we all know. The imperious monarch of England, Elizabeth II, with a very entitled view of the world, a giant stick up her royal ass, and a truly bad wardrobe. Then watch Ms. Mirren in an interview with Charley Rose, being “herself”. You can see much more of who the actress, the person Helen Mirren really is by watching The Queen.

Is there such a thing as “the character”? Of course there is. Of course it’s not you. Just because you’re an actor doesn’t mean you have to be nuts.

Elizabeth II is the queen of fucking England. You’re not. And all the acting you can do won’t make it so. But if you let the audience see, as Ms. Mirren did, her own passion for order, her own terror of what chaos can ensue from lack of propriety, her own regret at having been less kind to someone than she might have wished to be after the person’s sudden death, and her own sensible desire for sensible shoes, and, provided  you’re dressed and made up just like Liz, then the audience may just believe you are Liz.

What differentiates the actor from the character, (besides the clothes, the pitch of the voice, the spine, or, all the physical things that are much more, ultimately, about mimicry than good acting) and what can eventually bring the two together, is what they care about. Elizabeth II doesn’t give a crap about the film director Taylor Hackford. He’s Ms. Mirren’s husband. So if you are going to play Helen Mirren, what are your concerns? Mr. Hackford’s well being, what great script may next be coming your way, a wardrobe fitting you have today for a film you’re shooting next month, keeping in shape, world peace, etc. If Liz wants to play Helen, then she has to care about those things too, and spiff up her wardrobe.

Well OK, it’s a little more complicated than that, but intense suffering is as much a staple of great comedy as great drama. Comedy thrives on serious conflict, and conflict results in pain. But how do you invite an audience to laugh at your pain? Your pain; that’s the key. First you make it authentic, and very, very personal, so the foundation of the work is the same as if you’re playing Hamlet. And then, it depends on the right attitude, the right rhythm, and hopefully some great, witty dialogue to ride on both.

In Midnight Run, Charles Grodin, hurt and frustrated with Robert DeNiro’s callous treatment, and indulging his own impulse to psychoanalyze, pointedly offers: “You know, you only have two emotions: silence and rage.” DeNiro, fuming, snaps back: “I’ve got two words for you. Shut the fuck up.”

These are some of my very favorite comedy performances in no particular order. Some of the very best, funniest moments in each happen when the character is in the most pain, caught between a rock and a really hard place, struggling in vain for deliverance:

1.  Bette Davis, All About Eve

2.  Cary Grant, Arsenic and Old Lace

3.  Diane Weist, Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway

4.  Madeline Kahn, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Paper Moon

5.  Dustin Hoffman, Tootsie, The Graduate

6.  Gene Wilder and Cloris Leachman, Young Frankenstein

7.  Gary Shandling, The Larry Sanders Show

8.  Jim Carrey, Liar, Liar

9.  Judy Holiday, Born Yesterday

10. Dick Van Dyke, The Dick Van Dyke Show

11. Vivian Vance, I Love Lucy

12. Jackie Gleason, The Honeymooners

13. Diane Keaton, Manhattan, Annie Hall

14. Maggie Smith, A Room With A View, California Suite

15. Jennifer Tilly, Bullets Over Broadway

16. Penelope Cruz, Vicki Christina Barcelona

17. Margaret Rutheford, The Importance of Being Earnest, The V.I.P.s

18. Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night

19. Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson, Terms of Endearment

20. Leslie Ann Warren, Victor/Victoria 

Note on 11: Watch Vivian Vance in the episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy picks a birthday present for her because Fred isn’t up to the task, and gets her a pair of diamond-patterned hostess pants instead of the toaster Ethel badly, badly wanted. Thinking Fred picked out the hideous garment, her crushing disappointment quickly turns to incredulity, then to outrage, and then to absolute intolerance in a truly flawless bit of comic acting. Ms. Vance often makes Ms. Ball look like a hack, because everything she does is not only perfectly precise, but also honest, and organic. Unlike Lucy, she never makes faces to go for the cheap laugh.

[Oh! And by the way, I can’t believe I left James Gandolfini and Edie Falco in The Sopranos off my list of great drama performances. Continuing off the subject a moment: Here are a few Hideous Full of Shit Fakers, or My Very Least Favorite Actors Ever: 1.Julie Andrews 2.Kevin Kline 3.Kathleen Turner 4.Christopher Plummer 5.Helen Hayes 6. Kenneth Brannaugh]

Why do you have to break your own heart to be a great comic actor? Charlie Chaplin started the ball rolling. In order to get an audience to laugh at you, you have to make yourself truly vulnerable, which invariably means an acceptance of pain and loss. We almost certainly know the happy ending is coming (we’ve seen the previews), so we can laugh at the very same things that would not be in the least funny if death or disfiguration were the outcome instead of (99 times out of 100) love and marriage.

In addition to breaking your heart, you have to be willing to look like the fool as well. It’s impossible to play comedy without a willingness to reveal all the human foibles that we may want to try and hide from ourselves and others in our lives: vanity, selfishness, inappropriate lust, parsimony, greed, jealousy, arrogance —the list goes on and on and on (and on). Comedy especially requires a look at all the little, embarrassing, unattractive insecurities that really make us tick.

But again, as in drama, the audience is impressed by our bravery as actors, our willingness to reveal ourselves as the terribly flawed creatures we really are, risking humiliation while we seek to illuminate want and need, all the while having not just the audacity but the courage to ask for laughter as a kind of forgiveness for all of us, for being human. 

Charlotte’s sister died of breast cancer a year ago this coming August. She was at her sister’s bedside holding her hand when she died.

Tim’s mother caught him masturbating when he was twelve.  She told him never to do it again and to go to confession and to ask forgiveness from the priest, who represents God, or Tim’s penis would fall off, and then, when he died, he would go to hell.

Charlotte believes that “everything happens for a reason”. Tim is an Atheist who believes his mother’s religion is nonsense.

Though she has truly struggled mightily, Charlotte can find no reason for breast cancer.

Tim’s mother died after a long bout with Alzheimer’s and at her wake he could hear his own voice in his head, furiously shouting at her carefully arranged corpse, “If what you believed is true, you’re in hell you bitch!”

Charlotte began taking a popular anti-depressant about six months ago, after she saw a commercial for it on TV where a woman wearing an absolutely lovely corsage danced happily at her daughter’s wedding, and then asked her doctor to prescribe it for her.

On the way home from the funeral, Tim punched, in the face, a man who rear-ended him while he was waiting at a stoplight.

Charlotte’s husband complains often that the anti-depressant Charlotte takes is killing her interest in sex.

The man Tim punched is suing him for battery.

Charlotte’s doctor recently increased her dosage because she’s getting more and more depressed by suspicions that her husband is cheating on her.

Tim freaked out at work yesterday and hit himself over the head repeatedly with a heavy glass paperweight he received 7 years ago as “employee of the month”. Charlotte took every pill in her anti-depressant pill bottle one night last week after her husband came home at 3 am drunk and smelling of another woman.

Tim was rushed to the hospital with a concussion. Charlotte was hospitalized and is currently on “suicide watch” which, in part, means that her arms are strapped to the bed.

Two weeks after Tim was released from the hospital, his wife left him, and took Frenchie, his old English sheepdog, with her. Tim loved that dog.

Charlotte is haunted by waking dreams of her sister on her deathbed.  Her sleep is also haunted by dreams of her sister, mostly as a child, forcibly cutting her hair, and stealing her underwear.

Tim’s ex-wife is also named Charlotte.

These dreams are particularly disturbing because Charlotte wants to remember only kind things about her sister, not bad things.

Tim feels lingering guilt whenever he masturbates, even though he is now forty-seven years old.  He pretends to himself that the guilt is a result of what he thought about his mother in her coffin, but the guilt is really about his inability to have ever given Charlotte an orgasm in their 13 years of marriage.

Charlotte is dreaming right now. She is looking into a mirror, but instead of seeing herself, she is seeing an old sheepdog with a bad haircut.

Tim is dreaming too. His ex-wife is standing over him as if longing for him to give her oral sex, but Tim’s mouth is taped shut and his hands are strapped to the bed.

Charlotte is half-asleep, and playing with herself. It feels good. Surprisingly good. She is dreaming that an old sheepdog is lapping at her labia. She didn’t think she liked dogs, but she does, she does.

*     *     *     *     *

If you could play any character in the story, were it to be made into a major motion picture directed by Gus Van Sant, which character would you choose, and why?

Charlotte 1? Tim? Charlotte 2? Tim’s mother? The man who rear-ended Tim? Charlotte’s sister? Charlotte’s doctor? The woman in the anti-anxiety commercial who dances at her daughter’s wedding in a beautiful corsage? Charlotte’s husband? Charlotte’s husband’s mistress? The paramedics who rushed Tim and/or Charlotte to Emergency? The sheepdog?

Which character do you feel the most empathy for? Which character do you feel the most contempt for? Can you identify why?

Is it helpful to have less, or more information when judging these characters? Does detail tend to make you more or less sympathetic? Does any part of the story Anger you? Please you? Arouse you?

Can you identify only with the characters of your own gender, or do you see yourself as having an equal shot at any of the roles?

Are you wondering or worrying about my mental health? Or are you quite sure this is just a silly romp through familiar acting class imaginative improvisational territory designed for my own self-amusement?

After hearing the story of Charlotte and Tim, do you feel more or less satisfied with your own life?

The Artist must QUESTION and EXPOSE the fallacies and hypocrisies of the world in which she/he lives.  We take so much for granted, and so much in our culture is, when objectively examined, truly and deeply INSANE.  When we drink our daily dose of this Twenty-First Century American Kool-Aid, especially without understanding how and why it came to be poured for us into a pretty glass, it deadens us to so many of the issues that can and should, as artists, spark Outrage, Passion, and ultimately, our Creative Impulses.  Help to explode these erroneous truths, don’t embrace them. Rather than looking to your own limited emotional life as the spark for your actor self, try exploring your relationship to the world and find passion in that connection.  If there aren’t a hundred things about this world that ENRAGE you, how can you possibly act?

You can’t be more on a stage or in front of a camera than you are in life.  It just doesn’t happen.  If you think you still have things to learn as an actor, look to the corresponding life lessons. I’ve worked with so many actors over the years who have really believed that whatever their personal limitations, they would suddenly be free of them when playing A Character.  On the contrary, The Character becomes a burden.  JOY IN PERFORMANCE is a thrill of self-revelation that thrives on the pretense of the imaginary circumstance, because it is precisely that, a pretense, and both you and the audience know it, designed to aid in revealing one’s TRUE SELF.  They’re watching YOU.  You’re not really telling me (C’MON already!!) that it’s a useful part of your process to actually try to believe you’re somebody else? That the impediments to listening, feeling, and communicating that we all struggle with every day will all just melt away if we’re pretending to be somebody else??  (It’s NUTS, and I’m also saying btw, that there’s no Easter Bunny.)

CHALLENGE the paradigms in our world that seek to defeat your natural impulses.  Find the ones that drive you mad and explore how they came to be, why they continue to be, and what role fear plays in our acceptance that they’re true. Get mad about some real stuff.  (I always stress the importance of anger [red] because sadness [blue] and joy [yellow], the other two primaries that are essential to the palate, are acceptable in polite company.  Anger is crucial to honest self-expression and universally frowned upon at polite gatherings.)

Here are some of my own personal favorite False Paradigms, the ones that drive me personally right up my own personal proverbial fucking wall (but enjoy making your own list).

One.  Having an abortion is LESS shameful than giving up a child for adoption. (“How could any woman be so heartless, so lacking in feeling as to part with her own baby?”)

Two.  Religion equals morality. (“How else is one to teach children right from wrong if not with religion?”  Well, how about just teaching them right from wrong?)

Three.  The longer a relationship lasts, the more successful it is. (So The Golden Anniversary is The Brass Ring then?  For me The Brass Ring has always been dynamism, not longevity.)

Four.  Sexual Orientation is NOT immutable, like Race and Gender  (Yes, it IS.)

Five.  Empathy is an important attribute for women. (Yes, obviously true, but much more important FOR MEN.  In fact, the most important of ALL for men, since testosterone fosters competition, not inclusion. How can a man truly love another person (other than sexually) without some willingness to walk in their shoes?  To be able to See another person, whose view of the world is different from one’s own, as Complete and Fully Developed as one’s own self, capable of Joy, Love, Loss, Sorrow, is the only real path to loving.  When I teach acting (which can’t be taught of course) I’m often trying to teach the skill of identifying with another, rather than objectifying them.  When we objectify another person, we break the connection with them that already exists, which is the humanity we already have in common, and have had since birth, whether we see it and acknowledge it or not. 

An Actor/Artist is a person who values EXPERIENCE over Safety, Comfort, and Familiarity. 

Experience: “Knowledge or skill obtained from doing, seeing or feeling things.” 

Filter: “A device that removes something from whatever passes through it.” 

Filters, ESPECIALLY the ones we are NOT aware of having been installed, either by ourselves, (which could have happened anytime), or by someone else, (most often parents or other authority figures during one’s childhood) will invariably cause— 

An Opportunity To Understand  

—to become— 

A Reason to JUDGE.  

Ironically, The Filter creates The Illusion of A Shortage of Information that IS, in fact, available as a result of Doing, Seeing, and Feeling.  

Fear and Ignorance are the main ingredients used in the construction of new filters. 

Listening and Seeing are the chief tools available for removing and destroying existing filters. 

“Filter” is really just a more interesting word/concept than “Judgment”, but they amount to essentially the same thing.  It is always easier TO JUDGE than it is TO SEE. 

Some Examples of Filters that can limit one’s ability to see the Truth of Another’s Experience (which is often tough to see anyway, let alone with filters on):

Artists are narcissistic people.  *  People who love animals are more spiritual than people who don’t.  *  Artists are more insightful and interesting than regular people.  *  People who love animals are needy and should get a life.  *  If your height/weight ratio is greater than (fill in the blank) then you need to lose weight.  *  If your bathroom is dirty, you’re gross.  *  People who collect or save things are weird and fucked up.  *  A women who doesn’t want children is not really a woman.  *  A man who can’t make a living and support his family is not really a man.  *  People who prefer TV to books are morons.  *  Women who never masturbate are sad.  *  Women who never masturbate are not sad, they’re just not whores.  *  Men who can’t commit are pathetic losers.

Some of these may seem, in part or wholly, true to you, some may not, but all of them help to prevent one from understanding the life experience of certain other people. Now, if you are not in the least interested in understanding another’s experience, there’s no point in reading further.  Forgive me for assuming and/or trying to push you to value that ability (aka empathy) and just enjoy your membership in the Republican Party.

The Key to Change: RISK. 

An EXERCISE for the Actor, Artist, or just any plain old Human Being who'd like to shake things up a bit:

Step One: Identify a filter that you wear everyday which prevents fully understanding SOMEONE ABOUT WHOM YOU CARE DEEPLY. Identify the particular fears you have that keep this filter in place. 

Step Two: Recall when this filter was installed. If it was installed by someone other than yourself, identify who that was, why you think they installed it in you, and the reasons you choose to continue wearing it.  (If you installed it yourself, do the same.) Identify what role fear plays in each step. 

Step Three: Close your eyes and Fantasize about what a deeper level of Understanding and Intimacy would look like with this person if you permanently remove this particular filter.  By “fantasize” I mean Allow Yourself To Imagine the BEHAVIOR that might result between the two of you if this filter were gone. 

Step Four: Identify the Feelings that result from your Fantasy of the New Behavior.  Is the experience pleasant or unpleasant, or a combination of the two, and WHY?  Be specific in your identification of these feelings, especially the unpleasant ones, and also identify whether they seem unpleasant in relation only to this particular person, or to others as well, and if there are others, do they belong to any identifiable group such as Women I’ve Dated, or American Indians or Relatives Whom I've Punched At Holiday Dinners, etc. 

Step Five:  Make a decision to remove the filter if your INSTINCTS tell you that a deeper level of intimacy with this person is what you actually desire.  Make a decision to keep wearing the filter if you decide you do not desire more intimacy with this person. 

Step Six:  If you decided to remove it, go back to step one tomorrow and begin the process again with a different filter, and perhaps a different person.  If you decided to keep it on, start noticing specifically how it works the next time you’re with that person, what it protects you from, what it protects them from, and why you prefer to stay closer to the Surface with them. 

For Extra Credit:  Tell the person about the filter you have been wearing, share your Fantasy about the New Behavior, and Invite them to Help you remove/destroy the filter.   

Important Note: DO NOT say anything about filters THEY may be wearing UNLESS ASKED. (This exercise is for YOU, not for them.) Enjoy!

Five Reasons Why Great Acting Is Like Great Sex.   

One.  Your attention is fully on the other person, and the more you focus on them, the better it feels for you. 

Two.  Although it requires enormous energy, it feels effortless. 

Three.  For a little while up to and including the climactic moment, nothing else, absolutely nothing else in the world matters in the slightest. 

Four.  When it’s over, it’s kind of a blur, and shortly after it’s over you want to do it some more. 

Five.  When it’s over you feel exhilarated, but also relaxed (a lovely, mystical pairing of opposites).  

Five Reasons Why Horrible Acting Is Like Horrible Sex.   

One.  It’s of the absolute utmost importance to you how you look before it begins, how you look the whole time you’re doing it, and sometimes, how you look even after it’s done. 

Two.  You’re self-conscious throughout, and not just about how you look. 

Three.  At the climactic moment you’re faking your ass off, and fully aware of that, and hoping the other person won’t notice. 

Four.  When it’s over you feel really tired, but also restless (a really awful, predictable pairing of opposites.) 

Five.  When it’s over you remember every single fucking moment of it with crystal fucking clarity.        

I’ve never understood TMI.  How could there possibly be Too Much Information about anything?  (If the subject is dull, then it would be TMBI: Too Much Boring Information, and that makes sense to me.) But people who exclaim TMI! are usually expressing embarrassment and discomfort. I love feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable.  Especially when those feelings result from detailed intimacies.  One thing I KNOW is true about the TRUTH—it’s always SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING than the pretense that covers it up. Truth has a deep, expansive root system anchored to EXPERIENCE while pretense (or THE LIE) is just kind of propped up on its stumpy little end and can topple over quite easily.

American history (I’ll leave the rest of the world for somebody else to bitch about) is jam-packed with stories of folks who grew up believing that an aunt or a grandmother or a sister was actually their mother.  It’s full of stories about parents, siblings, neighbors, priests, who molested and abused children and then, on the surface, behaved as if everything was just fine. (The pope knew children were being abused by American priests, and that it was widespread.  He admitted that publicly.  But to bring it up in our American dialogue?  It’s considered a FAR-left-wing OPINION, though it’s a FACT, and facts are now facing extinction.) We all see long marriages where the behavior clearly reveals contempt or disinterest just beneath the surface.  My mom used to say “There are none so blind as those who will not see” but it took me a few years before I got that she was quoting.

Why do we cling to THE SURFACE?  What is it about the surface that fascinates and seduces us into staying there?  Why don’t our instincts lead us TO WANT TO KNOW the truth of our lives and of those we love?  To strap on a pair of goggles and dive down as deep as we can with our lungs full of fresh, myth-busting air?  Be patient with me if you can (if not, bail now), I’m just following a thread that’s really tugged hard in me as far back as I can remember. 

Of course my homosexuality created my intolerance for self-deceit, as I hated being in the closet. At age five I was very excited indeed by some shirtless actors bathing in a river on Wagon Train, a TV western my dad and I watched together circa 1962.  I knew on instinct to keep my kindergarten-sized arousal a secret.  In high school, I was beating off like a madman to pictures of Mark Spitz in Life Magazine in his tiny (for the 70’s) swimsuit, and then taking Patty Plude out for a date later that night.  She never even seemed to wonder why I didn’t ever try to kiss her. 

Sometime later I started fucking a new girl in my parent’s car, (she seduced me pretty aggressively for a 17-year old female virgin in 1973; she must have had the POV I was hot in my closeted clueless way) and she quickly became a slave to the thick eight and one half inches I was lucky enough to inherit from my Italian Papa Vittorio and never had a clue until 10 years later when I came out in NYC that it was a gift from heaven in a gay community of men for god sake!  I started developing a frame of reference.  (Women, I know you are all too aware of how cruel men can be if you don’t have the right sized, or right-shaped body part of their choosing.  It has nothing to do with being gay. Let me know you hear it girls!)  Anyway, my first-place finish in the penis-sweepstakes was an amazing karmic gift I somehow managed to receive as compensation for the truly rotten disadvantage of growing up gay in America.

(By the way, this is not anything close to the “stunning revelation” I promised I would share at some point.  This is just a little inappropriate tidbit of fleshy truth designed to delight or disgust you, depending on your inclination).  I came to understand in my gut that Sue Naked In Person would never have the zinging knockout punch of even a photo of JFK Jr.  The deception I perpetrated on everyone (everyone who was flat-out blind anyway) was reflex.  I was partly honest with only myself, rationalizing that I was just in my “homosexual phase” which was (and may still be) a popular, soul-crushingly destructive American myth for young kids who are gay, perpetrated by heterosexual adults who don’t want to face up to the truth about their adolescent kids’ obvious homo tendencies.  (“It’s just a phase, all boys go through it—it’ll pass!”) I couldn’t face the feelings that a look at the truth would bring to the surface, so I continued on my path of self-imposed incarceration and torture, involving a few more terrific, smart, sexy women.  The ladies loved me.

At 26, living in NYC, I reasoned that “the phase” had gone on long enough, and that sucking cock might be more fun than pretending not to want to, so I came out, fell in love with a sweetheart named Kevin, and started becoming really curious about why my acting sucked so bad.  (Could it have had something to do with the fact that I had been repressing my very LIFE FORCE? I was the star of anything I wanted to be at NU, and had had lots of parts in NYC in my early 20s, (in small venues of course) and my acting was false and utterly self-conscious.  I had very little impulse to be in denial about this.  Instead, I was eager to fix it.

But back to The Surface and it’s properties.  Here’s what I found in the online thesaurus: 

 Surface: The extended two-dimensional outer boundary of a three-dimensional object.  A superficial aspect as opposed to the real nature of something; "It was not what it appeared to be on the surface."  Information that has become public; "All the reports were out in the open, the facts had been brought to the surface." 

So the immutable properties of The Surface are inextricably linked with deception and secrecy.  Interesting.  I’ve never liked mystery novels, but isn’t the kick for readers who love them that at the end the truth is finally revealed?  Will we allow ourselves only to get down to the bottom of the well and feel what IS as we approach death? Whether we want to or not?  Will the truth come bursting through the surface for all of us like it did when the Alien burst through the thin flesh wall of John Hurt’s heaving stomach?  I keep coming back to Act III of Our Town, which is still the best-ever American play. 

If you’re an artist, cultivate your impatience with The Surface.  (If you don't, your punishment will be built-in: you'll languish there forever.) If you feel timid about looking below, don’t ponder your fear too long, just take a deep breath and then seize any handy sharp object of your choosing and slash that thin (or stubbornly thick) membrane of surface nonsense.  Puncture it, tear it open, tear it off.  Good stuff awaits you underneath.  “Good” meaning real, honest, scary, adrenaline-pumping, uncontrolled, unrehearsed, authentic stuff.  Go for it.  (Or consider accounting.  Trust me, the world does not need timid artists.)  

Life is NOT too short, as we always hear, it’s too much lived on the surface for too long. 

(Before I start my ramble, I want to encourage you to reply publicly.  I’ve gotten a bunch of email responses to the first 5, but few public posts.  FYI, at the end of each blog, you can click on “comments” and reply to the readership.  You won’t see it posted right away, as I have the option to delete or post, and I’ll post. Please tell me I’m utterly full of shit, or that I’m right about everything, or that my dull gibbering is not worth your time and that’s why you’re not going to read it anymore, but tell the truth and be specific, the more frank the better. I want this blog to become more dialogue than monologue. My very own little unconscious mind has revealed to me something I knew in my gut when I put up this website to broaden beyond word-of-mouth my services as an acting coach. I’m actually on a path (partly under the cover of talking about acting) to revealing a stunning personal revelation that will certainly thrill and enthrall some of you and shock and repulse some others with its intimacy and intensity.  I’m not sure how many more blogs it will take me to get there (2-25?) but if I can hold your interest until I do, you’ll become engaged in a way that you absolutely wouldn’t have been able to predict.  How many things can you say that about?  So stay tuned.)

In 52 years I’ve carefully observed a giant range of human behavior, both in my life and as a teacher in class.  My ability to see has grown with time, though what has now become reflex is not always a pleasure, and regardless of whether I’m looking at some one else or at myself, my gut POV now seems informed by the third act of Our Town, aka, a retrospective view). Teaching the Meisner work for 20 years has been a peculiarly intense ride.  I figured out in my first year or two that if I got stuck in my head JUDGING what an actor was feeling and expressing, that it killed my ability to see and understand the Point Of View, as well as my ability to connect to their experience.  And I felt that was, at least in part, what I was being paid to do in class. The only useful judgment/question seemed to be—Is the behavior AUTHENTIC? 

You can always, and will always, on instinct, make a judgment in the next moment.  But if you make it BEFORE you connect to what’s happening, you can’t live in the moment.  It’s like a swimmer not wanting to get wet. Here’s an example to exaggerate my point. (The following is a common scenario in both life and in acting classes.)

Joe meets Angelina.  Joe is married, committed to his monogamous relationship, and Angelina is single and thinks Joe is too.  There’s a physical attraction between them, which they can both feel.  Joe represses the feelings to whatever degree allows him to stay in his comfort zone (aka his ability to control his own behavior).  If he allows himself to feel his desire fully, he knows it will stir up guilt, frustration, and self-directed anger. He also knows (from years of sometimes letting his fantasies run wild in his head while he masturbates or has sex with his wife) that these feelings can threaten his sense of self-control.  If he FEELS fully, he’s likelier to EXPRESS fully, and if he expresses fully, he’s likelier to BEHAVE truthfully on instinct, in a way that reflects his ACCEPTANCE of those feelings, so he tries to squash them down to escape the possibility of actual fucking, or, from Joe’s POV, adultery.  He knows the guilt will be crippling if he acts out his feelings, even though he’s (acutely or vaguely) aware of a deep yearning deep inside himself, and he also knows that Charlotte, his wife, may be able to detect traces of those feelings IN HIS BEHAVIOR later on, so he shoves the feelings down.  His behavior will most likely reflect some flirtation; such is the nature of truth to behavior.  It usually finds its way in there somehow.

Joe is a good guy, a moral man, you may be thinking, (especially if you’re female, or a married man).  He’s admirable and mature.  He’s made a promise and he’s keeping it.  (If you’re a guy who cheats on his wife, you’re likelier to have the POV that Joe is a fool.)  But the problem FOR JOE, in this case, is that Joe is an ACTOR.  If he were an accountant, what would really be the harm?  He would handle his unexpressed longings like we all do, and lead his little life of repression and accommodation.  Maybe some day some wonderful writer will write a lovely, poetic short story about him and his unrequited longings.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not suggesting that because Joe is an actor, that in order to be a good one, he has to fuck Angelina. You don’t have to molest a child to brilliantly portray a child molester, but you DO have to UNDERSTAND AS YOURSELF and then ACCEPT AS YOURSELF, a deep, burning shame. I’m suggesting that Joe must figure out a way to stop repressing, regardless of whether or not he chooses to honor his marriage vow.  Because I’ll bet you 100 to 1 that Joe is lying to Charlotte about his impulses towards other woman, and lying to himself to some degree as well. (So? What else is new you say?) Either way he loses, see?  He’s either investing in self-deception, or carefully and constantly monitoring his own behavior with his wife. 

Remember this is not a story about sex, it’s about repression, so it could be about the repression of anything-- anger, joy, loss/sadness—I chose desire because it’s more fun to write about sex (you get to say fuck and suck and stuff) and it’s also likelier to push some buttons. Once you get into a PATTERN of self-repression, it becomes part of you, that impulse to repress becomes PART OF WHO YOU ARE, and therefore a reflex part of your acting, and every “character” you play.  And when you don’t know the experience, you Act to fill the void that should be filled with an authentic response—yours.

Great artists transcend societal conventions and strictures and find a way to experience. The reason that so much of the work we see onstage or TV is so mediocre/dreadful, is because Authenticity and Courage, the two greatest attributes/priorities an artist can have, often take a back seat to Politeness, Comfort, Accommodation, Money, Political Correctness, Fame, and on and on. 

As a culture we’ve become addicted to self-deception.  Denial.  It’s like fucking mass self-hypnosis. Our economy is crashing.  CRASHING.  It took decades of denial, self-induced distraction, and outright unconsciousness to get where we are.  How many people do you know who are on anti-depressants?  Folks eat them like candy now, but self-delusion actually takes a lot of effort, and causes a lot of anxiety and stress. 

What is the commonest cause of self-repression?  Fear of The Truth.  And the commonest fear of the truth is Fear of Death.

One more story before I relent, this time from my own experience.  In my real life, I had an Aunt Mary and Uncle Frank (names changed to protect the departed).  Frank died a very long time ago and Mary died maybe 10 years ago? They had a kind of Archie and Edith Bunker relationship, (but without as much fondness underneath from the husband).  Even as a kid, it really bothered me that Uncle Frank treated Aunt Mary like shit, and she responded like he was being funny.  Mostly under the guise of teasing, he called her demeaning names, called her fat, called her stupid, ordered her around, and it genuinely never seemed to bother her.  I could never understand it.  When I questioned my mom about it (Mary was her sister) or any other adult, the answer was pretty much—“Oh that’s just the way he is, he loves her, they’re just joking.”  Well, at the end of his life Frank got incredibly belligerent with her.  He was so ill he had lost his speech, and in the hospital room he wrote and held up a sign that said FUCK YOU MARY while she dithered and procrastinated, full of fear, about signing a paper that would have allowed the hospital to remove him from life support, and end his suffering. (Prior to this she had been in denial for some time about how close to death he was.) Apparently my mother convinced her to sign and he died quickly.  Later, Aunt Mary got stomach cancer and soon after the diagnosis just happened to be the last time I saw her. My lord, that woman, on fire with resentment, ripped Uncle Frank a new, bleeding asshole.  My paradigm was Auntie behaving as if she adored Uncle, always.  He was a real war hero, Battle of the Bulge, and could do no wrong. Well, that night she told me in no uncertain terms what a selfish bastard he was, how dishonorable, how without regard for her, how cruel: a bitter, fully expressed rant. Rather than shock, I felt comforted, kind of thrilled actually.  It finally made sense, and her voice finally had the ring of truth after 40 years. Sad that it couldn’t have happened when he was alive and she was 30, or 40, or 50, or 60, but I was so glad and so impressed that she got it all out before she took off.  She lived her whole life with the guy, so it’s not that tough to understand why she clung to accommodation.  But why were all the family and friends in denial about Frank and Mary? Because if they’d look honestly at her, it would be harder to maintain denial about themselves.  We accommodate denial with more denial.  It’s a fucking epidemic in this culture of ours.

Hey!

See Vicky Christina Barcelona.  Penelope Cruz gives a great, alive, and subtle performance that epitomizes the kind of work I’m talking about.  You can see to the very core of who Penelope Cruz is in each moment.  You never think about a “character” she’s playing, (unlike the other actors in it, who have good and bad moments, which reminds us that they are giving “performances”). But Ms. Cruz remains fully herself, and with the kind of depth that an audience can only see when you allow them to see YOU.  The “character” is fighting like an animal to stay alive for another hour, and then another, in the desperate imaginary circumstance of the script, but Cruz is unabashedly herself and she’s also playing comedy all over the reality, so it’s genius work, you won’t see better acting anywhere in film this year.

I go over the top with my analogies sometimes, I know.  And I don’t even always follow them through or argue them properly. Oh well. I’m claiming passion in the moment as my defense. That’s a lovely thing about blogging. You can dash it off and send it out, and feel better after a bit of venting against the things that really steam your socks off, and then reaffirm that it’s a ritual born of futility. As I struggle to get a clearer view of the invisible speck that I am in the ungraspable expanse of existence, and see most of my fellow Homo-sapiens doing the same, I wonder at our collective ability to keep repeating the rituals we’ve created over the course of our lives, some helpful, some not. 

These rituals, these behaviors that are often comforting because they’re familiar, reflect our values, beliefs, and emotional responses to the world in which we live.  They tell the truth about who we are in a way that we can never tell in words.  Some of these  repetitious behaviors of ours make us proud, some ashamed, but regardless, they comprise for each of us, our Character.  Who we are. 

Why is a bad acting teacher like the Antichrist?  Well, to answer without an attempt at cleverness, it seems just downright destructive to me to lead a person, (especially a young person full of hope about the future—my target audience in these jags in case you didn’t guess), who seeks an outlet for creative expression, away from the truth of the moment, no matter what the reason. Mike Nichols is famous for saying to actors “How would you behave if this were really happening?”  It’s a fantastic question, fantastic in it’s simplicity, a great way of cutting through the bullshit “choices” and over-intellectualization of the moment, to return to the foundation of authentic work.

Why does the abuse of children outrage us?  Because the victims are innocents who need our protection.  The It Takes A Village mentality is born of a belief that we are all responsible for the protection of the young and helpless because we ourselves are neither  young nor helpless any longer. And we know better now.

You don’t need to study acting with me.  (That’s not sarcasm—you just don’t.) It’s important to me that you understand I’m not warning against the charlatans who unwittingly whittle away your sense of truth in order to get more students for myself.  I don’t really care much about that at all. I’m warning against it because it truly breaks my heart to see real talent damaged by prolonged exposure to mediocrity.  I know what damage was done to me as a young actor, and how long it took me to recognize it, and then, once done, how tough to undo, so I’m advocating that anyone starting on the path of discovery be vigilant about those folks who want to prove to you that they can help you.  Especially by being “popular”. 

Sometimes things are popular because they work (scotch tape comes to mind), and sometimes precisely because they don’t.  “Fat-free” was very popular in the 80’s.  It was complete bullshit of course, but it made people believe what they wanted to believe, namely that they could eat any carbohydrate they desired and still lose weight.  There were people at the time who were trying to get out the message that it was nonsense, but they were drowned out by the popularity of the idea. 

There is no easy way to “grow” your talent.  Removing the blocks that keep you from a full expression of your awareness of the moment is a tough, arduous procedure. It’s not a secret why we worship great actors like Sean Penn and Helen Mirren.  We understand instinctively how incredibly difficult it is to be able to connect deeply as ourselves, while relating to a set of circumstances that are imaginary.  It’s an outrageous thing to aspire to.  And even more outrageous to try and make a living at it.

Your talent is a precious thing. That I know to be true.  And even though I don’t have a neat way to tie up all these loose ends, they are Food for Thought, I hope.

I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of The Antichrist, even though I’m not a believer in God or in Christ as his son.  The teachings of Christ however I think are amazing, beautiful, loving, and wise, and our planet (certainly our country, or what’s left of it) would be better off if more of those who come in Christ’s name had any clue as to what he actually meant by “love”.  

The Antichrist is of course the sworn enemy of those teachings (or he will be when he finally arrives).  The Antichrist comes to spread hate, ignorance, fear.  All the things that are the polar opposite of the things Christ taught.  The AC is evil to the core.  What’s fascinating about him though is not that he’s evil, it’s that he comes disguised as The Christ.  And what makes him really scary, what makes him such a genuine threat to goodness and Christ’s message of love, is that he’s very, very, very good at fooling people into thinking that he’s The Original, and not The Evil Doppelganger.  If folks could see right through him, then he wouldn’t be dangerous at all.  We’d all have a good laugh at the silliness and arrogance of his poor impersonation of one of the greatest human beings who ever lived.   

But we want to believe so badly, because the struggle is so tough, so genuinely tough, that we don’t always see what’s in front of us.  Denial isn’t no river in Egypt.  Or ain’t, either. 

Acting teachers are not un-like those who devote themselves to spreading the word of God.  A few are genuine, most are clueless, and some are intentionally deceptive and after your money.  But instead of advocating Love we acting teachers advocate Truth.  And like the AC, many of us come in disguise as the very thing we seek to destroy.  Does it matter if we are deluded creatures who think we really believe in Truth, or if we know ourselves to be deceivers?   

Does it matter if George W. Bush knew he was a moron, a liar, and a war criminal (read: murderer)?  It sure doesn’t matter to the lives of those who were deceived by him.  Or made homeless.  Or killed.  His intent became moot.  He made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and killed (both literally and economically) thousands upon thousands of people in the name of Goodness, Rightness, Democracy, and Freedom. 

Beware, Actor, Beware!  Beware the Anti-Acting Teacher! You must be the guardian of your own sense of Truth.  No one will do that for you. I repeat—NO ONE will do that for you.  I’m sorry to be the Unpopular Prophet of an Inconvenient Truth. (Actually that’s a lie, I relish playing this role as you might have guessed by now.)  

Three Tell-Tale Signs of the Anti-Acting Class  OR  How To Spot The Teeny-Weeny Peeny Under The Emperor’s Invisible Clothes: 

One:  If you are not working in EVERY class, the Emperor is almost certainly naked.  (If you pay only for the classes in which you work, he may be wearing pastel boxers.)  Acting is physical and you can’t learn or grow by watching.  Can you learn to surf by watching someone else do it?  Sure, a tiny bit.  There’s some value in a good analysis, but it will never be a substitute for doing. You have to get ON the board and ride the wave, fall off, get back on etc, in every class.  Would you take a surfing class where you get in the water one in every two, three, four classes? 

Two:  If the class consists mainly of the presentation of prepared material (and if the teacher didn’t even help you choose it that’s a sign that she/he doesn’t know who you are or how to choose material to challenge your weaknesses and bolster your strengths), and she/he comments on it, talks about it, and that’s pretty much it, even if the actors “run” it again, then it’s an Anti-Class.  

Three:  Regardless of what kind of a class it is, (whether you’re working with a scene partner or with another actor on an improvisatory exercise), if you don’t feel your awareness of the other person is growing from class to class, then your attention is too inwardly focused, and it’s an A-C.  How and why you are encouraged to look outside of yourself and focus on another person is a crucial indicator of the value of the teacher’s values.  If you are not regularly surprised by the quality and depth of the communication with the other person being fostered by the class or the instructor, you’re missing the opportunity to learn the secret of how to stay on the board, or the real joy of being an actor. 

The two best teachers I ever had seemed to me back then to be complete opposites.  (All the others but those two were idiots or well-intentioned know-nothings)  

When I look back now, I see that Number One Real Deal was Meisner all the way--listen and respond, and Number Two Real Deal was a classically trained Champion of the Character, the Play, and the Playwright.  But both were absolutely focused on getting me to listen to the behavior of the other, and to communicate honestly in the service of what they considered to be the priorities of great work.  Because what both of them ultimately valued was authenticity and a desire to help me learn to fool an audience into believing that what they were watching me do was really happening.  As a result, I saw growth in myself first as a person, and then I noticed that my acting was improving too.