What sets successful actors apart from the rest? Is it their talent? Good looks? Luck? While all of these things may play a role, there is one frequently overlooked factor: self-awareness.
Knowing yourself involves discovering and understanding your values, beliefs, skills, flaws, gifts, and aspirations. For actors, self-discovery leads to authentic performances and can be a gateway to a multitude of experiences, personally and professionally, that will grow you as a person and an artist. When you know yourself well, you can tap into your emotions and experiences to shape almost any role and deliver performances that are believable and relatable. In addition, it is vital to know how you are like the character you will be portraying as well as how you are different.
This is also an important consideration when it comes to knowing what roles you could do, should do, might do, would never do, and roles you might never want to do, or be able to do. No actor can do everything.
There is not a class I teach that I don’t reinforce the idea that the way the actor might navigate, respond, behave, or negotiate a scene, might be a hundred and eighty degrees away from how the character would. When a character is extremely different from the performer, it is vital that the performer know exactly how and why and adjust accordingly.
Unfortunately, like most things of importance and value, this can be a very daunting task. It’s not something that happens overnight and it can often be very painful.
1. The Artist Within
I am certain, I did not have a clue who I was until I was in my mid-thirties. Most people, and their ideas of who they are, are often a poorly formed concept based on what others want them to be, or suggest they might be or a complete delusion or fantasy based on nothing truthful. To become who one truly is, is no small feat.
All of us are products of our childhood experiences, the society we grow up in, and what all of these influences suggest and often insist that we are. Often, these ideas are not based on anything real. Like I said, it can take a long time and it is often very difficult.
There are a number of ways a person can realize and become who they truly are. In fact, I read a quote recently, and I am paraphrasing “No one becomes an artist, they just discover the artist within.”
I think there is a lot of truth to this. Thus, the job is more about discovering than creating.
I think the quickest and most accessible way to start peeling away the layers is through journaling. Julia Cameron’s book “The Artist’s Way” has creatives doing “Morning Pages.” These are three pages done first thing in the morning of stream-of-consciousness writing. I started doing morning pages over thirty years ago and continue to this day.
Another invaluable tool is analysis with a certified analyst. Analysis is different from therapy in that it doesn’t aim to heal or fix anything, it is all about self-discovery. All analyst have their own way of leading their clients down the path of self-discovery. Much of this is done through conversation but a lot is done through dream interpretation, active imagination, and other tools. I have found keeping a dream journal to be incredibly enlightening.
2. The Authentic View of One’s Self
I’ve kept a dream journal for over thirty years and am still surprised and amazed at what my unconscious mind decides to share with me. This needs to be consistent! One or two dreams are not going to give you the keys to the kingdom, but if done on a continual basis, certain themes and archetypes will appear showing the dreamer what they need to know.
I can honestly say, without hesitation, the one thing that taught me more about myself than years of analysis or therapy was acting class. It was a very unexpected gift. I think having to analyze the different characters I was playing and making them authentic forced me to look at myself and all the things that formed me, and decide how I would use the people, places, events, and experiences I’ve known in service of creating the most believable character I could create.
Sometimes, my life and the events that formed it, and the woman I’ve become, were in alignment with the characters I played and everything flowed. Just as often, they were not, which presented an entire unexplored universe of what I might do to make a character, that was initially a complete mystery to me, believable. I often failed to make this work but I still learned volumes about myself.
The last item I will suggest is to ask others, especially people you trust, how they see you! I have an archetype workshop that I teach on occasion that is extremely helpful in this pursuit. Actors are asked how they see themselves, how others see them as well as how they want to be seen.
We work with the most common archetypes found in cinema and literature and knowing if you are a boss, swashbuckler, lost soul, seductress, librarian, waif, crusader or one of the other common archetypes, will help you to be laser-focused on the task at hand, and precise in the choices you might make to create the most interesting, evocative and truthful character you can possibly create.
3. Observing a Class
I see actors get into trouble when they see themselves as a superhero but the world sees them as a lost soul. There is a lot to unpack here and a completely different blog, but you get the idea.
To learn more about the studio or to observe a class, please go to www.tbellactorsstudio.com.