Blog 700: Skinlessness
“Toughen up! You’re going to need a thick skin if you’re going to work in this business young man/lady.”
Bullshit.
But as actors, your thin skin – your skinlessness - as my friends, authors Jeff and Julie Crabtree have termed it, is one of the biggest advantages you have.
Skinlessness means that you are raw to how things affect you, you feel things deeply, and when you feel things, it affects how you work as a creative or artist. This is the same whether you are visual artist, an animator, a writer, actor, director, choreographer, musician – any role with creative elements.
In your every day life, your skinlessness can get in the way. I know, I am skinless too. I feel things far too strongly, some would call it ‘over-reacting’ but I’ve done some of my best work when my skinlessness has caused it. I feel disappointment particularly strongly. I mean even the slightest disappointment, like arriving in a cafe and finding there’s no diet coke, I can feel like it I’ve been personally betrayed. Yes, it’s ridiculous, I know, I live with it. But when it comes to applying it to creativity, it means that my feelings allow me to ‘paint’ (in the broadest sense of the word) with a very intense palette. I feel a lot and I can channel those feelings towards my writing, blogging, teaching, directing etc.
As actors, you should be skinless. I know that taking rejecting is hard, sometimes unbearably. Criticism is also particularly difficult for the skinless, we feel like our heart is torn out by the slightest comment. BUT, as an actor, when you can FEEL, when you can be affected, even under imaginary circumstances, when the camera can see that you have taken it all personally, that’s your strength, that’s when skinlessness is not this horrible thing in your life, your kryptonite, it’s your superpower!
One of the upsides is that with skinlessness, you feel the good things even stronger too. So when something wonderful happens, you feel it even more intensely. That can make certain experiences easily addicted, but you learn to live with that too.
Living with skinlessness can be horrible, and Jeff and Julie have a chapter in their book which deals with helping with that. But I wanted to tell you, from personal experience, you would not want to live life without it. Because when you need it as an artist, as a creative, it is your best friend, your most powerful ally.
Jeff and Julie Crabtree are the authors of Living with a Creative Mind – a wonderful book about understanding our own and others’ creativity. Outside of Australia, it’s available as an eBook, they will be visiting the UK soon if you wish to meet them get in touch with them.