Acting and Me

As many of you know, I personally love acting.  I enjoy the ecstasy that comes along with playing someone else.  Ecstasy as in the standing outside of oneself.  Basically meaning that when you play a role you forget yourself and become someone else.  The imagination and creativity of it all gives me a rush and I have never had too much of an issue with becoming someone else and filling my head full of their past, present, and future.  Again, this is what I love most about acting.

However, there is one thing that has been growing stronger as an issue as I continue to grow as an actor.  This issue being the tiny residual piece of the character that lodges itself within me.  I come away each night of playing someone else with a fragment of the character's psyche.  This fragment may linger for only a day or may even last much longer.  I think I am beginning to make a connection with the life of the fragment to the strength of the emotion brought out through the character.  Funny thing is that I don't even have to be that character for very long if the emotion is intense enough.  I am still trying to push out a fragment that came away from callbacks recently.  In a way, I am thankful I was not cast as the lead role.  I can only imagine how strong the residual character would have been had I devoted myself completely to performing the role in its entirety.  I also was worried that I would be cast as the main role.  I had a hard time sleeping that night because I knew it was between me and one other guy.  Luckily he got the part as did the girl that was just as connected to her role as I.  The funny part about our audition was that after her and I performed together the director wanted to take a moment to let everyone calm down.  I know my heart was pretty much pounding through my chest as I struggled between my psyche and the character's.

Although I did not get the lead role I decided to stick with the play as a smaller role.  I am excited to be a part of this show and watch it all come to life.  More over, I am really excited to watch the two main actors since I knew a bit about their earlier acting and am able to see how much they have grown.

I think I may have to avoid any really emotionally connected plays for a while.  Anger I can handle pretty easy but it is the other side of strong emotion that is tougher to erase.