It’s not on the paper. A writer writes a story and a director interprets the story and hopefully has a vision for the piece, what does the actor bring primarily to the story? Himself, this means that the first concern for the wise actor is not the lines or the circumstances, but himself. How is he going to activate himself in front of the camera, what parts of himself is he going to bring to the forefront of his behavior, what’s in the part for him to discover? Why this part? Without this all the lines and all the direction in the world wont amount to anything. He must have something of himself to activate the writers static lines and circumstances.
The actor doesn’t need to do the work of the writer, the writer already did it, his words are an outline for your behavior, he needs you to activate what has been written and if it was written well chances are that the relationships within the piece are the primary concern. That means that the only way a writer can see his piece come to life is if you invest yourself in the piece as much as the writer did. The big difference is that you need to bring it to life. The only thing that we have that the writer doesn’t is the ability to take action. If he had this ability chances are he wouldn’t have written the piece in the first place.
We need to bring all that we are to the set and layer on the circumstances and the lines onto us then into us. If we show up on a set and we are in our essence but don’t have our lines or know our circumstances we are still in good shape because the writer can hand us some lines and the director can give us the circumstances, but if our bodies show up on the set but for one reason or another we are not present, no words and no direction is going to save you, unless of course I happen to be directing you, but if I have to lead you to you other things in the performance will be compromised and I will not appreciate that. The point being, a good director may be able to trick you back to yourself but in the majority of cases you will be alone with this responsibility and knowledge so don’t expect anyone to understand your dilemma. Most people including writers and directors don’t have a clue what your true responsibilities are as an actor, so don’t bother explaining yourself just get busy making it work. By making it work I mean grounding yourself in the relationships present in the room with you, your fellow actors, maybe the director, be aware and use whatever comes your way, it will come, it always does, if your courageously patient.
Remember it’s film we can always get another take, we can always make adjustments, so relax connect and see what comes, get off on not knowing what might happen, anal actors are professional, meaning they have there lines down and know the other actors lines as well, has worked out everything down to the last syllable, which is all necessary in preparation but when action is called all must be released so we can see what’s really there. An anal actor is predictable, other forms of the medium needs this type of actor.
A planed result oriented approach to acting is appreciated by insecure producers and directors, that for the most part have no idea how to tell a story or even care, they are more concerned with keeping there jobs than with telling a story. Which is understandable given the astronomical amounts of money on the line. The more money at stake the more cliché the performances are. Results need to be known ahead of time, because of investors, so producers start having a say so, this is death to the artistic drive of a film. I would rather see the moment discovered again and again in a unique personal way, this guarantee’s strong interesting relationships, which in the end equal box office. All the finest autuers have this ability.
When humanity is captured on film, we have captured something of great value. A way the to do that is to discover basic truths about yourself while the camera is rolling, hence earning the title of actor/artist.
