In a recent interview with the FT Angelina Jolie likened acting to therapy. Until not so long ago I would have agreed with her. At drama school I sought out roles which mirrored the situations which I put myself in in every day life. I revelled in churning out public versions of inner turmoil. It was in many respects all about me, which -in spite of my fascinating personality- routinely grew tiresome and limiting. In addition, although I could 'feel' my audience -elicit tears or gasps if you prefer- while fully worked up about my real life, I lost them as soon as the trigger event had stopped having its effect. Predictably, as a consequence, I would seek out unhealthy situations just in order to be able to feed my performances, and shine on stage.
With time, and with an increasingly limited access to my most passionately loved form of expression, my experience of acting has changed completely. The more distance I have taken from myself and the immediacy of feeling, the better I have been able to convey deep and disturbing emotions. This has had nothing to do with gaining acting experience, but everything to do with life and an increasingly quiet, more peaceful acceptance of the imperfect nature of all things.
So what is acting about? Most people these days believe in acting methods. But I really don't believe acting can be taught. I just don't believe it is an acquired skill. You can improve certainly, but real actors are so by birth. The best actors I have come across have had a special something which just cannot be bought through classes, or coaxed into existence through time. I cannot explain the gift of being an actor in any other way than as an expression of grace. Some people are born with it, others are not. The gift is one of intuition, and empathy. Acting is an expression of unconditional love for Humanity, in its incessant struggles, fleeting contentment, and exquisite vulnerability. It is an energetic tribute to Man, a tenderness for the vainglorious, a celebration of the courageous, and the great. It has all to do with nobility of spirit, and nothing to do with the base qualities which inspire reality TV shows, and the other trash that we are programmed to accept as the sad expression of our dying culture.
There is nothing quite like acting, and the incredible communion that takes place between an audience and the cast. Yet again, it is not about tricks, technique or special effects. In my personal experience a good performance is achieved through creating space for something else to express itself through you. Indeed, acting is not about thinking and analyzing. It is about instinctively doing what the character would do, without knowing or even being conscious of the process. In a sense, it is switching off from yourself, and going into a state of meditation during which the appropriate energy transports you through the prescribed actions.
To claim that acting is something that 'just happens' is definitely an heretical view, especially for those who ascribe to method acting. The latter is used a lot in the United States, and is based on the work of Stanislavski, a Russian actor from the turn of the century. The technique basically instructs the actor to draw from his own experience to feed his performance. Predictably, a lot of people make a lot of money out of inventing new derivatives of his work. Almost every other year a new guru appears with a new, improved, guaranteed-to-work version.
But with acting as with love and all things fragile, nothing is ever guaranteed -except perhaps for suffering. Like many actors, acting always frustrates me. I hardly ever get it right. I don't feel talented enough. I don't feel worthy. I fear being a fraud. I constantly examine my motives for wanting to be involved in this ungrateful endeavour. I give up one thousand times, only to come crawling back, begging the Muses not to cut me off from Inspiration. All it takes is one positive audition, one instance in which I connect with the right energy, one person who walks up to me to express their appreciation, and I am deeply, deeply drawn back into the depths of unconditional love, the dark abyss of guaranteed suffering.
For the throes of love are inestimably dear to us all. We would give up on none of its intricate tortures. And yet, with age, with a growing wisdom which I have struggled to stifle and to ignore for so long, come the realization that love is a choice, and some loves are too unhealthy to choose to pursue. And so it is with my love of acting. I have deliberately shut my eyes to my beloved's reality, to the corruption and ravages it has endured at the hands of popular culture, in order that I may be able to retain my affection.
In truth, I have nothing to say as an actress in today's society. The acting I love no longer exists. There is no place for me on a stage which is now akin to a market place, where actors are no longer lovers of Humanity, but commercial instruments involved in its manipulation. It was reluctantly that I partook in the venture to be a modern actress, yet it was with hope that I entered into the market place. Hope that though agreeing to be branded as though a cow, my dignity would remain intact, my soul untouched.
Acting is my unrequited love. Whether or not I ever came close to knowing its true essence, I may never know. In my heart, I retain the ecstasy of unconditional affection, while nurturing the wisdom to move on.