Being/Doing

My head is a clutter, a clusterfuck if you will, and I need to let my thoughts breathe. I need to put them on paper or at least get them out so that I can fill it up with more necessary information, and at the same time take pride in both writing them and expressing and sharing an opinion. Also, I do believe that every time anyone sits down to actually write, we exercise, both our mind and our ability.

I've had so many interesting conversations with people of all colors and creeds, and I've been taught lessons by masters and superiors, but also by people who perhaps unknowingly didn't understand the impact of what they say. One tidbit of this, which I always remember, which I happened to bring up in a conversation just a little over a month ago was something that I've been told ever since I started acting professionally, by almost all my teachers, no matter where in the world.

"If you can see yourself being something else than an actor, then do it."

It's a statement that has been a thorn in my side, every time I've heard it. The simplicity of the statement masks the complexity of what it's actually saying.

"If you can see yourself being something else than an actor, then do it."

Look. I consider acting a passion, and a job, a vocation that you have to have a hell of a lot of perseverance and also talent to succeed in, but I never consider myself BEING an actor. I've never identified with any of my jobs like that, "I am a waiter at a café", no, I work as one. It's a profession as well as being a taxi driver, a doctor or a painter.

"If you can see yourself being something else than an actor, then do it."

One of the more interesting aspects of WORKING as an actor, and I believe it's a skill that's required for wanting to enter in this profession, is the extreme curiosity I take in other people. It's a constant anthropological study where behaviors, patterns, roles and so much are constantly analyzed and recorded for the future. If we, as working actors, don't do that, how do we prepare and study for roles? I believe that the "being" part of above statement, well actually I believe the entire statement to be false, but the "being" part of that statement should only refer to roles. Because that's our job. To become, to be someone else as truthfully as possible. Everything else in my opinion is our work, it's what we do, not who we are.

It's precisely because I can see myself "being something else" that I want to keep working with what I do. I want to explore what other people feel, think and do, and what better way to study humanity than to explore what other people ARE?

Do I want to work with something else? Absolutely not at this point in my life and career.

Don't be a stranger! Loves