How to…Make it Real
// November 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // How To..., acting
So, you got the script… someone deemed to think you were good enough, or close enough or like someone else enough or.. hate to say it, available and at the right price enough to cast you! So what next? Its the first day of rehearsals and you are looking forward to meeting everyone. Hand shakes done, air kisses launched, ‘do you know’s ‘ answered and future pending projects discussed, time to start the job properly, but there is just this underlying tension… and I have known tremendously gifted, seasoned and well known performers who will admit to this, the insecure thoughts that pop into the mind… you know the ones…
‘What if I don’t get it, the director may not like what I do, the cast may hate me, I may come across as unsubtle, I may be the biggest casting mistake since Mother Theresa when she played Ozzy Osbourne in the film ‘What f**kin hamster?’.
The thing to remind ourselves is this. All this comes from our personal psychological tensions, not the characters we play. So these wobbly moments of the ego really hold no place in the rehearsal room. If we have thought about our character prior to rehearsal, and I don’t mean learned the lines, done some research which I would presume most of us would have done ( she says trying not to teach granny to suck eggs!) I mean really closed our eyes and imagined their lives through their eyes. Even if through the rehearsal period, we discover that our characters main objectives have changed, these characters will feel more three dimensional and real to us and so the process of the rehearsal becomes a voyage of artistic discovery rather than a period of bedding down and getting on with everyone. Thus our initial apprehension released, allows us to be uncensored and uninhibited with one and other. Openness and vulnerability tend to lead to bonding and therefore the initial fear of just bedding down with a new cast becomes inconsequential.
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