True Emotions and the Actor

Take a look at that photograph, two of my students, deeply engaged in a break up scene. They are both feeling real feelings, no pretending, no faking.

There was also no attempt at all to squeeze those emotions out. They were not told to share the emotions their characters were feeling, they were not asked what their characters were feeling and told to reproduce it in an emotionally truthful way.

Instead, they were asked to pursue a simple achievable objective (we call it a task) from the other actor.

They were asked to understand what doing that task meant to them by imagining a situation in which they had to do that task. They were then asked to bring the stakes, tactics and urgency from that daydream into the scene, but none of the details of that daydream.

They were asked to be present and notice, to really ‘hear’ everything their partner is doing in the scene, not saying, but doing, what is emitted from them, beyond the deceptive words.

They were asked to see everything that they ‘heard’ through the lens of their task, to work with a perspective on their partner’s behaviour.

They were asked to commit to achieving their task with great urgency and as if they had something to lose.

The result was intense, beautiful, emotional performances, but there was no attempt to push those emotions out of the actor, they bubbled to the surface as a result of the present pursuit of their task.

The result was highly affecting, but the actors didn’t force themselves to feel something, they just accepted it when it happened and played through it.

Real, truthful emotion, without any attempt at all to produce it. That’s the magic of truthful acting.

COACH