by D. W. Brown
The most prevalent of these self-sabotaging mechanisms is when there’s tremendous pressure to excel and you lose faith in your ability to perform. Having your confidence erode by itself is not the problem. As I said, as long as you keep your head in the game you can constantly doubt your skills and still be fine. But your fear can prompt you to make a radical change in your natural approach to your craft and cause you to become self-conscious and overly deliberate about executing individual behaviors. You go from doing what you do unconsciously (implicitly), to consciously attending to the details (explicitly). As your concentration darts about, recollecting, isolating, and trying to exert control, it switches on the wrong part of the brain, and, in the antithesis of flow, your performance crashes.
It’s possible for this to happen as a result of the desire to do well alone, but it can also be triggered by the additional stress of being overloaded with directions you haven’t had the chance to rehearse and habituate. The best safeguard for this is to have been fanatical in your rehearsal beforehand, ingraining every anticipatable element of your performance, so you’ve made sufficient room for what’s not anticipatable on the day. Then, when acting, will yourself to project your focus on affecting the outside world, not your own functioning. Stay with what you’re doing, your Action, and don’t let your mind anticipate and visualize failure.
If you have the burden of performing behaviors you have not had an opportunity to habituate through rehearsal, execute each thing one at a time. Don’t allow yourself to look too far down the road at the daunting mountain of details and imagine them overwhelming you. Trust that one part of your brain can do this work of execution while another, perhaps largely below the level of your awareness, is capable of engaging with the imaginary and rendering a totally believable performance.
The other type of jamming up happens when something alarming occurs out of the blue and you flip into panic mode. When something like this takes place you have the danger of either lunging for relief with poor execution or, more likely, going blank and flat-footed out of fear of making the wrong decision about what to do next. This kind of choking can get you physically hurt if it happens during a stunt, but as an actor you’ll probably just botch what might have otherwise been an exciting take. The great director Sidney Lumet said that he would often do something startling during the audition process to see if the actor would stay in the scene or if they would lock up.
To prevent this condition you must, as with the other type of choking, refrain from thinking how awful it is that this is happening and restrain yourself from visualizing and connecting to the possibility of disaster ahead. You also need to commit to a technique that is absolute about the fact that neither lunging nor stalling is permissible, regardless of the situation. You have to have an essential grasp that reality is not going to alter its character because you get terrified and urgent, and you must be clear that in not making a decision, you’ve made one. Instill a certainty in yourself that the deer-in-the-headlights option is off the table and, no matter how lost you feel, percentages are going to be with your making an instinctive decision, even a reckless one, and staying with it.
The overall cure for choking and to return to flow is to remember to think when things go off the tracks: This is the adventure I’m supposed to be having, and, right now, I’m the lucky type.
AVOID “EGO DEPLETION”
Willpower, whether used to direct your concentration or deny gratification, is a resource like muscle strength that can be exhausted from continuous effort and requires replenishment to restore. This phenomenon, known as “ego depletion,” is an issue to be aware of so you can nurture your mental acuity and make the best creative adaptations on the day.
Willpower is depleted by these factors:
Holding focus on things not considered fun.
Exercising impulse control (refraining from eating sugar, scratching an itch, etc.)
Making choices (the more difficult and important, the more taxing).
Maintaining a social front.
Doing things thought deserving of a reward that go unrewarded.
Feeling shamed.
Low blood sugar, irritation, loneliness, and sleep deprivation (known in recovery circles as H.A.L.T., as in, “beware getting hungry, angry, lonely or tired.”)
You should avoid too much of any of this stuff too soon before you get to the set. Make all foreseeable decisions, butter up all those who need buttering up (always a smart investment when opportune), and basically clear the decks of potential distractions so these issues aren’t tapping energy you’ll want available for your immediate work. By the same token, implementing a discipline for quieting your mind, a meditation, will help restore this asset.
There’s a reason so many successful practitioners of their crafts settle on strict, solitary, pre-performance rituals. It frees them from the effort of making decisions and having to keep a social mask in place. It allows their willpower to rest and be at full capacity for their event. Having said this, not every performer has a ritual that involves solitude, because not everyone relates to socializing as work. This leads us to a very interesting aspect of ego depletion.
While this mechanism is still not fully understood, there does seem to be a connection between the supply of willpower and what each individual considers reward and punishment. The power used to concentrate seems to be provided by a primitive aspect of our natures, the “id,” and this aspect will deny its services unless it’s refreshed by what it considers proper payment. To ward off exhaustion of the will, you can make deals with yourself by dangling rewards so that your psyche generates enthusiasm for the tasks it associates with resulting pleasures. Remember, though, these rewards are what your inner child considers a reward (praise, sugar, toys, fun, etc.), not what your better judgment deems worthwhile. Coming up with healthy ways to ply yourself to further the purposes of your better judgment can be challenging.
Apart from ego depletion impairing your ability to problem solve and be polite with others, both of which are necessary survival skills in the film and television business, there’s also good, scientific evidence that being tapped out in this way inclines a person to be less empathetic. That’s a serious problem. It’s one thing to be prickly and unhelpful when issues need to be worked out on the set, but given compassion is a major component of good acting, now we’re talking about messing with your actual performance. (My overall directive to actors is: Be a tuned-in, vulnerable egomaniac with massive empathy.)
Even when portraying a villain, you need empathy. Your character may not be swayed by it, they might actually take masochistic pleasure from it, but they still generate those internal pangs. As for playing a psychopath, please don’t be fooled by movie versions of the condition that are rarely portrayed realistically with a total lack of empathy. If you are required to play that type, then you’re job as an antagonist is, more or less, like that of the shark and you’ll probably want to avoid playing this if possible because it’s very two-dimensional and, as actual people, the void we sense in them makes them extremely dull. It’s been called “the banality of evil.”
The best overall tactic when it comes to dealing with ego depletion is application of the proper mindset. Test subjects coached to think of a task as drudgery described it as agony and quit much earlier than those primed to think of it as fun. Anyone who’s raised kids knows this. The best way to handle children in many situations (and, remember, we’re dealing with your child-self here) is to frame the work that has to be done as a game. With acting this shouldn’t be that difficult. I mean, if you really look at it for more than two seconds, it’s a pretty silly thing to call an occupation.
Everybody else on the set may be feeling under the gun and acting deadly serious, but that doesn’t mean you should lose sight of how whacky it all is. On the other hand, working in an environment where people are intensely invested in their jobs is more fun than working some place where everyone’s walking around like zombies, right? In de
aling with my inner curmudgeon I find this quote very useful: “Even if the pessimist is right in the end, the optimist has a better time on the trip.” By having a better time you’ll likely increase your competence level, and you can invigorate your powers of concentration by maintaining a youthful sense of adventure.
BE HAPPY (IT LOOKS GOOD)
A character in the movie Broadcast News (written by James L. Brooks) has the line, “Wouldn’t this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?” Well, it isn’t that world, and it doesn’t. Not only will the tension that comes with fear cause you to execute less effectively in creative situations, but there’s an issue in acting of supreme importance that’s different from most professions: looking good while you’re doing it is part of the job.
The reason a dog puts its tail between its legs is to try and clamp down on the glands in its anus transmitting the smell of fear to other dogs (as opposed to wagging that confident smell around), and you, as you clamp down against your fear, not only are less available to do other things, but you telegraph it’s not safe to be around you. In other words, it makes you repelling.
There are things you can do that will improve your internal chemistry and give you a more positive frame of mind. This may seem nutty (or obvious common knowledge by the time you read this), but we know that simply willing oneself to do certain behaviors will result in more good mood hormones (endorphins) and less stress/unhappy hormones (cortisol) in the bloodstream.
Feeling that you are faking these behaviors is totally fine and will nevertheless generate feelings that then make them seem less counterfeit and help perpetuate the process. Do whatever it takes to push through the stagnation that is often, in truth, a defensive crouch. Overcome the internalized voices of cynicism so you can get those juices flowing that will encourage conditions that are better for your work.
Things you can do that will give you a better attitude bump:
•Physicalize happiness. – Laughing and smiling.
– Doing crazy/silly behaviors.
– Dancing wildly.
•Recite positive affirmations. – “I am super powerful!”
– “I am sexy as hell!”
– “I love to be challenged!”
•Listen to happy or thrilling music.
•Visualize yourself in positive situations. – Being embraced with love.
– In peaceful, soothing, or exotic surroundings.
– Doing something heroic.
•Hold physical postures of confidence. – Stand with your feet spread wide and your arms outstretched as if you’re having a big stretch.
– Sit with your legs stuck far out and your hands clasped behind your head.
– Stand with your feet planted wide and your fists placed proudly on your hips. This is called the “Wonder Woman.”
YOUR EMOTIONAL PREPARATION
I’m not saying you should be skipping around, chipper as a cricket if you’re in a fiction where your character is unhappy and frightened. I would never say that acting, whatever the nature of the part, should be fun. Joyous, yes, exhilarating, spirited, and gratifying, certainly . . . but not so trivial as to be called fun. In many cases, it’s entirely appropriate to maintain a kind of darkness, keeping mostly to yourself and maintaining an interior life on quiet simmer. But I do believe you should, regardless of the emotional demands of the role, build your performance on a predisposition that where you work is a sunny place. Your acting context will produce deeper, more connected work if the foundation is an emotional state that is relaxed and secure.
There are schools of acting that advocate getting yourself into the same genuinely miserable condition as your character. Thinking themselves purists (and I was one for years), they hold the Truth of the character’s situation is all that matters. But if you want to deal in Truth, the Truth is you’re an actor choosing to put yourself into these fictional realities and that’s undeniably a very different thing than living them in actuality. Do you really think you can get your deep psyche to go along with excluding that Truth? In my experience, actors tend to get deeper and do more effective work if, while still experiencing the emotions of fear, grief, and upset, they continue to connect to the joy of performing. It also reduces the wear and tear that risks limiting your output.
There’s no question every artist who wants to claim themselves as one must have a willingness to appreciate the extremes of the human experience in their full agony. This can require going into very dark, personal places in your homework. There are certain conditions an actor will represent that cannot be achieved without a great deal of rough emotional preparation. In these situations it will probably be necessary to put yourself into contact with unhappy circumstances over and over in order to, in a manner of speaking, break yourself down.
All this can be done, however, while remaining within the reassuring bounds of fantasy and allowing for intervals of rest, and simultaneously experiencing the overall joy of creation and a sense of your mission: the inspiring of others. The pain, acute and crushing as it may at times be, does not need to be a continuous, self-inflicted torment that causes severe life disruption. Someone on a high wire can commit with more abandon if they know they’re working with a net.
The confusion in this matter comes in part because we look at the many great artists who were unhappy and mistakenly think that if we were unhappy too it would improve our creativity. Oh, if only it were that easy. What you’re probably seeing are people who’ve had major traumas, usually in early childhood, and, for whatever reason, they didn’t adopt the normal coping mechanisms. And, so, without those filters, they suffer the brutalities of life more keenly and, yes, freely pour amazing stuff out into their art. Nevertheless, you won’t get the same effect if you intentionally traumatize yourself because your psyche knows it’s not a function of the tragedy of the human condition, it’s just you being a jerk.
Whatever coping mechanisms you have, they are set on automatic, so overloading them with current unhappiness won’t stop them from being operational and gumming up your output. By and large, that only aggravates them and creates distortions even worse for your art. What you have to do is—surgically and with all possible time and intensity—habituate removing those defense mechanisms while practicing the craft of acting, so you can then achieve better access to whatever deep stuff you’ve got.
There are indeed successful portrayals by actors willing to suffer continuously in the extreme for the sake of their acting, but I suggest this trauma has served a purpose probably better achieved through a different means. The value, if any, in self-inflicted torment is chiefly in its power as ritual, a pledge in blood the artist makes to their talent (and the Spirit?) that they will not shrink back from the fire on the day. This proof of one’s conviction, however, need not be attained only through demonstrations of a willingness to damage one’s life in sacrifice for a performance. It can be had with a simple, albeit profound, act of the heart.
Your entry into the imaginary ought to very much be taken on as a kind of sacred act, with an absolute commitment that, regardless of how disorienting or frightening what you encounter gets, the only way for you will be through it. You don’t fight the rapids, you surrender and keep your head above water.
And do use ritual. Human beings respond deeply to them and you should develop rituals for each time you act and individualize them for specific roles. I’m simply suggesting, overall, that you seek to enjoy acting while you’re acting because I believe celebrating your passion for playing pretend gives the audience a better experience. They are drawn to join with you in the ritual that is storytelling and you become more available to act as a vessel for that extra thing—call it what you will—inspiration, the Mystery, the Muse or, simply put, your talent.
Having said all this, it’s really up to you. It’s your private process and it’s your life. If mortifying your flesh is what you have to do to get a great moment or two captured, well, so as long as it’s yo
ur flesh and I’m getting to enjoy the show, have at it. If you want to stay in character and have people call you by your character’s name, that’s fine. You have to love Daniel Day Lewis who, when asked about his penchant for staying in character when he’s working on a movie, said something to the affect, “I don’t know that it makes my work any better, but it’s fun and I can get away with doing it.”
No one can tell you how to emotionally prepare. It might work for your instrument to recall actual events from your life, listen to evocative music, or look at a meaningful photograph or video. In my experience the most effective technique is for actors to daydream fictional events that generate “flashbulb memories” for their character. It’s your personal business to pursue what works best for you and what is best suited for each role you do. I have recently, however, started to especially recommend the use of odors and sensations for their tremendous value in the area of emotional preparation, both within the fantasies you use to emotionalize yourself and in actuality.
People being monitored in an MRI scan were asked to consider a morally repugnant scenario and, while contemplating this, the same part of their brains activated as if something rotten was being smelled. The same thing happens with other scenarios and primitive parts of the brain devoted to specific odors, tastes, and sensations. Tests have shown that if someone asks you to hold a warm object, as opposed to a cold object, you will later tend to consider that person as friendlier. You think of them as a “warmer” person. There is a direct correlation with how we use many words, such as “chilling,” “sweet,” “disgusting,” or “bitter,” and the emotions they describe. Unlike with information we receive through our hearing or sight that is routed through the higher brain functions and is subject to being censored, stimuli from odors, tastes, and skin sensations go directly to the deep, emotional part of the brain (the amygdalae).
