What’s the problem?/A little method.

So recently my family got some pretty bad news, on top of a whole lot of other stuff going on in and around mine, my families, and those closest to my life. At times, and anyone reading this will understand, you get to a point on days when you can’t react because you don’t know exactly how you will, or you react simply because you don’t know how you will and you have to say something or you might spontaneously combust. It seems when you’re in a state of fear, worry, any of that kinda thing you lose an aspect of control of your inhibitions. It’s why people lash out, shout, cry, any of the things they wouldn’t normally react with.

I work in a Co-op, we’re a customer facing business, so I get to see a lot of people. I’m also an actor (getting there at least), I think in a way that attempts to go past the face value of people, to look for the hidden tension to understand why they are the way they are (here’s the important bit) in that moment.

Everyone has a personality, and part of that is having an ideal side, the side of you you like and want people to see, and a reactionary side, the part of you that responds to the events and people around you in the moment. Sometimes, in differing amounts for different people, your ideal side is the one in control. You react well to anything that comes your way and no matter what you’re calm, level headed, understanding and generally react well to unfolding events. If you aren’t you ideal, or normal, self, you’re react differently. Patience becomes irritation, calmness becomes volatility and understanding becomes judgement. Everyone does this, no matter who you are. Those days where you want to shout about the little things people around you do, they nag at your mind and you have to let people know. One thing I will say is we all need those days, they’re important.

What I’m getting at though is how we react to people having those days. It’s easy to ignore whats in front of you, call the person a t!&t cos they’re acting that way, and let what they did then affect you in a way that can mimic exactly how they were acting, and yes that can then make you start acting like a t!&t too, it’s too easy to a lot of the time. Working in the Co-op there are loads of times I’ve done this, oh the hypocrisy. When confronted with, in the words of the’ judge’, misery, ignorance, anger, arrogance and anything like it, we instantly put a barrier up and inside our heads call the other person out for their fault, ignore any other reasoning and react accordingly. I think though, and try to do, we shouldn’t be using what’s in front of us to make judgement. Don’t get me wrong, if someone is acting like this, don’t adhere to it. Call them out if you can, but do it with reason, and understand that they’re probably like that because they have a life beyond that moment. We believe they’re acting up and we’re just reacting in the only way feasible with such an ignorant attitude, when really we are just empowering any ignorance or stupidity by basically responding to them in the exact way we are condemning them for acting like in the first place. We can end up so consumed by the moment and we forget there’s a whole other life in the background that we have no idea what’s going on in.

When you walk down the street what do you see? People going places? What about everywhere they’ve just been and why they’ve been there. Isn’t that a more poignant thing to understand (or at least try to)? We can never know what someone is REALLY going through, we don’t know their circumstances, and as importantly we don’t know how their ideal self views the world. Ask yourself, who is that person, where are they going and why are they doing it? Even if you make up every aspect, because you don’t know them, it’ll lead you naturally to considering the fact they have a life and a reason. Such a simple thought, but one in my experience that means you can’t not appreciate there’s probably something else going on and that maybe if you allow your ideal self to react instead of other side, you might not only get a good response from them, but you will enrich both of your days and possibly anyone else’s who are linked to either you or that person because of the good affect that you made.

 

For the sake of any actors reading, and more importantly myself as I want to use this blog to explore my thoughts on acting, thinking this way is just like considering tactics and objectives. Something I was introduced to recently in my training, and have then gone on to read about when researching Stanislavski. When you do anything like what I’ve been talking about, you’re looking for the objectives and tactics in those around you. The reasons for why they say things the way they do. You’re opening up your own thoughts and considering the bigger unseen picture of a person, the exact same thing we’re trying to recreate when we form characters. When you act, you want to be as realistic as possible, even when you’re in a fantasy, that is our goal. So use the tools that are sat in front of you, the lives of every person you come across is another character to consider and more reasons to use when creating your own tactics and objectives for a character you’re going to play. Everyone IS different, which also means everyone has a new way of seeing things, and this is something you can utilise everyday, you don’t have to be reading from a script to practice.

Make some waves.