DON’T MAKE A CHOICE, BUT ALLOW A CHOICE TO HAPPEN

This chapter specifically deals with how to approach acting for movies and hour-long dramas.

In the past, I had always felt uncomfortable with dramatic acting.

My sitcom work was fine, but when I was hired to do an hour-long TV show or a movie, both of which have many close-ups and demand a very real-life approach, I was never happy with the results of my performances.

I just never seemed as real and honest as the dramatic actors that I admired. To me, my performance always seemed subtly preplanned and false. I felt I could see myself “acting”.

What I felt I was missing was a truly “spontaneous” approach.

Spontaneous: “Performed or occurring as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus”.

You see, with broad comedies, such as sitcoms, I had been able to get away with my controlling tricks and preplanned bits, because the genre supported that approach.

However, with hour-long TV shows and movies, the close-ups revealed the lack of true living-in-the-moment that my preplanning created.

Many actors have a desire to emulate the great performances they see in dramas.

They watch, for instance, an episode of “ER” and notice the actors seem to be doing very little. They appear very still. That may be the result you want, but you must be sure to get there in a healthy way.

If you give yourself the direction to “be still” or lay an overall QUALITY of smallness over your performance, then you will be unable to connect to the moment-to-moment truth of the scene. It will be controlled and dead.

Remember, your character certainly isn’t thinking “I must be very still while I talk”, so neither should you!

One day I got an audition for an hour-long dramatic series on HBO. My friend was an assistant writer on the show, and he gave me one piece of advice before I went in for my audition:

He said, “Don’t make any choices.”

He explained to me that the producers of the show didn’t want the actors to “make” any choices. If they saw even a hint of that, then they would not be interested in hiring me.

What are “choices”?

A “choice” is a moment of behavior. It can be anything from how you say a line, to how you move your body. A scene is made up of countless choices.

So, what did my friend mean by “making” choices?

In this context, I believe he meant when an actor makes up his mind beforehand how a certain line will sound, or what a certain moment will look like, and then recreates that in the performance.

You don’t even have to have preplanned it, because it can also be the quality in which you deliver your lines. “Making” a choice is when you “muscle” a moment. You “Act” with a capital “A”. You choose to do something and then you do it, as opposed to life where you do things simultaneously with the impulse.

In life, you rarely stop, even for a millisecond, to measure the appropriateness of your thoughts, actions, and responses.

When you see an actor “making” choices, it’s the same thing as seeing that actor “Acting”.

In my opinion, the acting should be invisible. It should seem that the actor is simply living in the moment, reacting to what is happening to him. When an actor makes a preconceived choice and then follows through on his execution of it, the whole thing comes off a bit planned.

Well, I had always understood this concept, but had never been able to fully let go of my preplanning of choices. They seemed like just a bit of a life preserver that I could hold onto in order to make sure my performance was “correct”.

I thought to myself, “I know I’m not supposed to plan, but surely I can plan just this little bit, just to make sure I don’t look bad.”

But my friend putting it so bluntly as to say, “If they see you make a choice they will not hire you”, finally gave me permission to truly let go of this perceived life raft, and just BE.

I had always thought that if I didn’t “make” a choice then my performance would be dull. Nothing would happen.

But to say don’t “make” a choice, doesn’t mean you can’t “allow” a choice to happen.

Don’t make a choice, but allow a choice to happen.

Don’t make the mistake of only focusing on “not making choices”.

Giving yourself the direction to “NOT DO ANYTHING” is still a choice. You are choosing to lay a general quality of non-movement and blankness.

The second half of the phrase is where your focus should be – on allowing things to happen.

You must want choices to happen! Happen TO you! Lots of ‘em!

So the day of the HBO audition came, and I had read the material and completely understood the situation therein. I found that by not “making” any choices in my audition, everything that happened in the scene was organic and honest. I was finally not controlling my performance at all. All sorts of interesting things happened because I was allowing them to happen. And I finally felt that my performance was completely appropriate for the genre.

I truly believe that this concept is the key to my performing in hour-long TV and film.

And, yes, I booked the job.

The sensation should be that you are “allowing things to happen” ON THE MOMENT instead of “making a choice” a millisecond before.

It’s as if there is a “magic moment” wherein a genuine reaction or impulse can occur. It is the authentic place where a choice should occur. You should want to act directly on the “magic moment”.

But many actors make the mistake of acting a millisecond BEFORE the “magic moment”. As they feel the “magic moment” approaching, they will panic and want to “control” the outcome of that moment. So they will make a choice in the spot right before. I call that spot the “panic make-a-choice” spot.

You must ignore that urge to make a choice before the “magic moment”, and let that false spot go by. By doing this, you will allow the choice to happen directly ON THE MOMENT.

TIMELINE --------------------------------l-------------------------------n---

The “Panic Make-a-Choice” Spot The “Magic Moment”

Your acting will feel so much more exciting (and easy) this way. It is this kind of “jumping out into darkness and trusting the net will catch you” that makes great acting.

Actors, who are afraid to let the “make-a-choice” spot go by, feel a panic that nothing will happen (or at least nothing that they would consider to be “entertaining”) in the “magic moment”. They fear being left with a BLANK SPACE on the “magic moment”.

The sad thing is that these actors are stuck in a “catch-22” (self-defeating) situation.

They are afraid that nothing interesting and real will fill the “magic moment”, so they make a false and dead choice a moment before, and stick that onto the “magic moment”.

If you don’t leave the “magic moment” open, then nothing real and interesting can come and fill it.

Here’s some good news:

If the worst thing that can happen when you let the “make-a-choice” spot go by, is that you’ll be left with a blank space on the “magic moment”, then… that’s fine!

The audience PROJECTS upon a blank space what they think the character would be thinking in the moment! They fill in the holes based upon what they know about the story.

Even if you just stared out into space, the audience would project upon you their own impressions and fantasies about the character.

So it’s not the fact that you have a blank moment that’s the problem. It is your negative reaction to that which can mess you up.

There is a famous story about the unforgettable final shot of the film “Queen Christina”. The enormous close-up of Greta Garbo is one of the most celebrated images in all of cinema. As her ship set sails, Garbo, her lover dead, stares out into nothingness…

According to the director, he told Garbo to think of absolutely nothing, to have her face be a mask. He told her, “I want your face to be a blank sheet of paper. I want the writing to be done by every member of the audience.”

Garbo was doing NOTHING, and it may be the most awe-inspiring close-up ever recorded on film!

YOU are more interesting than the choices you “make” in order to entertain and impress us. An audience simply wants to see a human, standing before them, experiencing life. You don’t need to worry about SHOWING us anything. The audience sees every thought that passes behind your eyes. The camera picks all this up without you having to DO anything.

Often what keeps us from simply “allowing” choices to happen is the thought that we are “not enough”. The fear is that if you don’t DO anything, then the audience will be bored, you won’t entertain, and you won’t be perceived as an actor.

However, you must understand that you are enough.

YOU ARE ENOUGH.

Actors should understand that as human beings you are incredibly interesting mechanisms, full of specific details.

Simply because you are human, and an artist, and have lived as long as you’ve lived, you are an incredibly multi-textured vessel. You’re like an English muffin, full of nooks and crannies. Therefore, the scene being funneled through your mechanism will be interesting enough without your embellishment. It will be different than everyone else, because it is being funneled through YOU.

One of my students describes it like this:

“My idea of what I used to do was to use a lot of decorating when I did my work. I felt like I needed a lot of frosting and pretty pictures. Now I realize I am the cake and I'm enough. It sure makes it a lot more fun!”

You are infinitely detailed and idiosyncratic. Therefore, the way that you react to a scene and the opinions you have during a scene will be plenty different from the actor who auditions after you. Release your need to STAND OUT with creative choices. The creative choice is always the real and honest choice.

And the only way for those real and honest moments to happen is if you leave space for them to, by not overcrowding your scene with a bunch of preplanned choices. Leave the space and have faith that it will be filled with honest and interesting moments. That is the “leap of faith”, the “stepping out into darkness”, the “jump and the net will catch you” excitement and magic of acting.

Once you stop busying yourself with those preplanned shallow choices, the deeper, more spontaneous and subtler choices can come through.

As actors, we are just so sure that everyone else is performing brilliant choices in the audition room, so we start trying to pull tricks out of our hat. We start trying to prove that we are the better actor by “making” up even more brilliant choices.

But the truth is most of the actors going in are also doing just that. So much so, that it is a breath of fresh air to the casting person when an actor comes in with a different energy. An energy of simply “allowing”. Not being “showy” or needy, but just “being”.

You should feel sympathy for the actors who don’t know this. When you see them in the waiting room, anxiously mouthing their lines, practicing how they are going to perform the scene, say to yourself, “There but for the grace of God.” For you know the truth. Sadly, they are going down the wrong path.

Sometimes, once an actor has freed himself from “making” choices in a controlling way, he finds that he is left with a blank slate. His performances are bland and void of detail. He wants to allow choices to happen…but they’re not coming, so the scene feels boring. The answer as to how to correct that can be found in the next chapter: “PUT THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN YOUR STOMACH.”

Now, please don’t let the following bewilder you, but in spite of the title of this chapter, there is definitely a place for “making” choices.

Sometimes you have to. (For instance: During the filming of a scene, you must maintain your general body positions in each take, for continuity.)

And sometimes you want to “make” choices.

But, you must make sure that you are doing it in a healthy way for yourself.

So, how can you know if you are making a choice in a “healthy” way?

Just ask yourself these questions:

· Am I making this choice for ‘them’ or me? (Am I just trying to “get it right” for the audience?)

· Am I making this choice in order to exert some control onto the scene? (Is this choice coming from a fearful place?)

Often, the work on my site is about letting go of old habits, so we can return to them later in a healthier way. Only you can define for yourself how to “make” a choice without losing the spontaneity, freedom, and fun.

As far as auditions are concerned, I like to use the days leading up to it to simply take in and absorb the scene, understand the situation therein, and memorize my lines. I try to refrain from making any choices or performance decisions.

I find that in the moments shortly before my audition, when my heart rate is up because I am excited and am therefore more in commune with my higher power, I will occasionally “make” some choices concerning the scene. For instance, I might think:

· “It would be fun to start the scene standing, and then sit down on this line.”

· “I will fully enact this stage direction, but skip this one.”

· “I think it would be humorous if I…”

You see, then the choice is an exciting thing to try, to see how it plays out in the room. As opposed to something I’ve rehearsed and am just recreating in a stale way in order to try to impress the casting person.

For years I had wanted to find a spontaneous approach to film work.

Other words you could use to describe it are:

Unplanned

Unpremeditated

Unrehearsed

Impulsive

Unstudied

Impromptu

These words illustrate how we actually live life.

Strive to approach your dramatic acting in the same way.