On Cool

I was working with some kids who think I am completely full of it a couple of weeks ago. They desperately needed some relaxation because they were twitchy as hell and passing their twitchiness to one another, making it impossible to concentrate. So I took them through some stretches and repetitive motion and a little chair relaxation. These particular kids have trouble with any activity that asks them to look inside themselves which means acting is a pretty tough choice for them. During the relaxation one of the boys got snarky. "I'll bet Tom Cruise doesn't have to do this."

Involuntarily, I laughed and said, "He should. His forehead could use a break." Oh boy. They all turned on me. Did our teacher just dis Tom Cruise? For real? Yup. I guess I kinda did. But it brought up a real discussion about what professional actors do. Most kids get into acting because of a hero in the movies. Girls pattern themselves after beautiful women who are either spunky tough or extremely elegant. Boys idolize men that move a lot and seem to have a lot of grit and there is a fine line in attitude. There's a big difference between Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. Guys would like to hang out with Jackie Chan (as would I, he seems a fun fellow) but would like to BE Bruce Lee. A lot of kids get into acting to escape themselves. Oh, they are in for a terrible shock. Especially if you end up working with me.

I hate cool. Cool is the antithesis of the actor's job. Cool means detatched, unaffected, impervious to influence by the outside world. An actor- especially a "cool" actor- must be the exact opposite. They must be receptive and responsive. If they are not, there's no story, no conflict and no need. No one is that self reliant. Nor should they be.

We love the idea of a "Super Person" who can live by his/her own wits and relies on no one else. We all wish we could be this person and that others could point to us as examples of greatness. But this is a fallacy. Even in myth humans have hardwired weaknesses into gods and goddesses and fears into superheroes. These are things that we, as humans, cannot escape. So our art must not try to escape them either.

With the younger kids I often play a game making up a character as a group exercise. Each character has a name, age, important person(s), a wish and a fear. Kids always resist the fear. "He's not afraid of anything!". Oh yes he is. Superman is afraid of losing Lois Lane and he is afraid of Kryptonite. Spiderman is afraid of being exposed and of endangering the people he loves. Everyone is afraid of something, even if that something is "nothing" as in "I am afraid of everything disappearing and then there will be a horrible, horrible nothing." Nothing is a very powerful concept and, on some level, I'd say we were all afraid of nothing. Once the kid accepts that every character has a fear thing soar. They have fun laughing at fears. Once a kid created a character that was afraid of food. When I looked her in the eye and said, "Wow. That must make dinnertime and birthday parties and trips to the grocery store very interesting." Her eyes flew open and she immediately set to work solving problems for this character whose mother had to sneak her vitamins while she slept. She had a good time playing with this character and placing her in circumstantial mine fields. It also opened a window for this little girl, her teachers and her parents into her own behavior. The first step in dealing with a fear is by looking it dead in the eye.

Fears get more complex the longer we try to deny them. This is how fear hides from us. Sometimes fear is so convuluted that we don't even recognize it as fear. We mistake it for anger or sadness. We clothe it in self righteousness and even bigotry. Fear is not going anywhere and we would do well to acknowledge it or else it grows in the dark corners of our collective psyche like poisonous mushrooms. There is no courage in the absence of fear. Fear is a necessary componant of our growth as humans and everyone has it to some degree or another. The key to greatness is not the denial of fear, but the acceptance of it and the strength to move through it.

So. What are you afraid of?