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.