Welcome to my world!

Two-step authentication

Last night I started teaching acting classes to adults again. Often, my students are people who want to get some experience in presenting skills and to gain confidence speaking in English, but a lot of them also want to feel the spark of creativity and playfulness they lost somewhere in adulthood, as well as the joy of connecting to other people in a real, rather than virtual, room. (Some of them also secretly or not-so-secretly hope to become actors, to which I say amen! The more actors and artists the world has, the better it will be.)

Lots of things came up. My kids and I had all had ‘flu the week before and I was still feeling very low energy, which I told these fifteen strangers when we sat in our introduction circle. But very soon, I forgot all about my low energy because I was filled with the energy of all the hopeful people in the room. Before long, we were leaping around and being silly and I was definitely leaping and sillying just as much as everyone else. For a while, I used to deny that I was an extrovert, even to my family, who have obviously known me since childhood. But for the last ten years I really believed I wasn’t. I thought I was maybe an ambivert – a bit of both or possibly an ambivalent pervert – but since I started teaching, I realise I am definitely an extrovert, and possibly even an extraextrovert. One of the ways to tell if you’re an introvert or extravert is whether you feel drained or energised by being with other people. Of course, the trouble with this definition is that it doesn’t define the “other people”. Because there are definitely people who leave me feeling drained … But a roomful of strangers that I am there to connect with? That’s my happy place.

When people introduced themselves in the circle, I noticed that hardly anyone said what it was that they “do” as their day job. And that that was wonderful. They were all there to explore their other identities, so it made sense to come in as all their selves and not as the one, corporate or official version.

I have so often struggled with the answer to the question “what do you do?” and nearly always babble through whatever projects I am working on at the time, ending with some feeble joke about how I need to improve my narrative structure or pitch. I now realise that I had also been intimidated by the label of “actor” and was increasingly uncomfortable with using it. For one thing, a lot of people assume that actors want to be the centre of attention all the time. Of course, this is true of some, but a great many brilliant actors are introverts while many others are social and out-going but not desperate to be at the centre of everything all the time. When I was younger and used to tell people I was an actor, they’d often put on that big, hammy ‘actor’s’ voice and ask me stupid questions like “What have I seen you in?” (to which the only appropriate answer is, bog off.) I thought that actors were supposed to be comfortable with being on display and that you had to be a whole lot of other things, which I didn’t feel I was, to call yourself an actor. (I also discovered much later that I am dyspraxic, but that’s for another post.) I ended up pursuing acting in a way that wasn’t whole-hearted but apologetic and unfocussed. I felt that real actors can ONLY want to be actors – and nothing else. I now recognise that a core feature of actors is their endless curiosity. The kids who try on a thousand careers in their imagination are often going to be the ones who end up pursuing some kind of artistic endeavour when they grow older.

I love acting, obviously. But I also love a whole lot of other things, like writing and comedy and salt and vinegar crisps, and one of the things I especially love is to support other people in doing their thing. Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like not to get that support – and how transformational it can be when you do; when someone sees you and what you’re trying to do and helps you do it.

Some clever woman, whose name I don’t know, told Oprah that the way you can tell if you are on the right path is if you don’t feel like you are betraying yourself. And when I teach, I feel like I’m being true to the real me. I often tell my students about the root of the word authentic. It’s descended from the Greek authentikos “original, genuine,” which comes from authentes “one acting on one’s own authority,” from autos “self” and hentes “doer, being”. For me, authentic means “giving oneself permission to be” or perhaps “permission to be all your different beings”.

We are complicated and we do not always fit into the labels we are given or give ourselves. If I had to choose a label that sums up all the things I have ever wanted to do and now spend my time doing, I would say I am a communicator. But the reality is, no human being can fit into one word and nor should they try. One of the more positive developments of the 21^st century is that many people are now starting to recognise that.

Many of the students I have taught have blossomed just by giving themselves this permission to be all the things they are: the good, the bad and the ugly. In the clip below, Meisner alumnus, actor and teacher, Jim Jarrett talks about how freeing it is to be able to embrace our whole selves and quotes Sandy as saying, “the seed of every character you will play is already inside you.” This for me is the starting point. Know that you have multitudes inside you and that, as an actor, you must throw off the socially acceptable versions of you and allow the multitudes out to play.