October 30, 2014
When Sally Field won an OSCAR for Best Actress for her work in 1984's Places In The Heart we were all happy for her. It was an exceptionally, heartbreaking performance in a powerful film.
And then she opened her mouth and made her acceptance speech and uttered those words which have become fodder for countless jokes and at least one blog entry-ever since.
I have no doubt the message she wanted to convey was sincere, but somewhere along the line, in the excitement of the moment, it came out a little awkward, and everyone was left feeling a little uncomfortable.
http://youtu.be/MWtUVDG5M1w
This is a crazy business.
Crazy.
Jack Nicholson crazy. And not "Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Crazy." Just every day, Jack Nicholson going to the grocery store or laundromat crazy.
It's a business based on fantasy and illusion where we pay the people in it, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to dress up in tights and stand in front of a green screen and act like there's a giant worm about to devour New York City.
If that's not crazy, then I don't know what is.
As a result of working in a crazy business, we've all gone a little crazy ourselves.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Shia LaBeouf.
I mean even Jack is looking at this guy like 'Are you fucking kidding me?!"
I'm not fluent in French but I'm pretty sure 'LaBeouf' means 'mashugana' which I'm pretty sure means 'crazy as a shithouse rat.'
Sadly, for every Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts there is a Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes. Sometimes, when you are put under the magnifying glass of celebrity, you get burned.
This post is more about actors though and not the phenomenon of celebrity.
Actors.
We are a neurotic bunch aren't we?
Don't deny it. You know we are.
That's why a lot of us end up in therapy and rehab.
That's why some of us, sadly, die way too young.
If you are a broken person, working as an actor is not going to fix you. In many ways, it is going to break you a little bit more.
This business can leave you with more questions than answers.
Pondering those questions and the possible answers sometimes takes us to dark and scary places.
As actors we spend a lot of our time wondering if we are good enough.
We obsess over that question and others.
Did I nail my audition?
Does the casting director like me?
Am I too old? Am I too fat?
Does the casting director like me?
Is the phone going to ring?
Are there any emails in my inbox?
DOES THE CASTING DIRECTOR LIKE ME?
The questions never stop. Not even after we get work.
Does the director like me?
Does the director like what I just did? Could I have done it better?
Do the hair people like me? Do the makeup people like me?
Do the grips like me? Do the background artists? The teamsters?
Strike that!
Fuck the teamsters! They don't like anybody who isn't a Teamster.
Then, if the stars align and lightning strikes and you become the actor you wanted to become and have some aura of celebrity about you, the questions multiply by a thousand.
Does the public like me?
Do the critics like me?
Does my agent really like me?
DOES THE CASTING DIRECTOR LIKE ME?!
Those days and weeks after auditions are the worst for me. I can only imagine it is the same for a lot of us. As much as we try to keep ourselves distracted, we obsess every second of every hour.
I check my email fifty times a day. Sad, but true. Pathetic, really. Damn. What the HELL is wrong with me? Gee. I'll have to use these feelings during my next audition...for the guy on the ledge about to jump.
(calming breath)
And...breathe out.
It's hard to swallow that despite how much of your soul you invested into an audition or a performance you might just not be right or have the right look. Sometimes, despite how good you think you are, you are not good enough.
When Sally Field won an OSCAR for Best Actress for her work in 1984's Places In The Heart we were all happy for her. It was an exceptionally, heartbreaking performance in a powerful film.
And then she opened her mouth and made her acceptance speech and uttered those words which have become fodder for countless jokes and at least one blog entry-ever since.
I have no doubt the message she wanted to convey was sincere, but somewhere along the line, in the excitement of the moment, it came out a little awkward, and everyone was left feeling a little uncomfortable.
http://youtu.be/MWtUVDG5M1w
It has become one of the moments that is usually shown during OSCAR highlight reels. Whether it is one of the good moments or one of the bad moments is totally up to the viewer.
It's been thirty years and now, watching the clip again, as a working actor, I can totally appreciate what she was saying, or rather, what she meant to say.
Crazy.
Jack Nicholson crazy. And not "Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Crazy." Just every day, Jack Nicholson going to the grocery store or laundromat crazy.
It's a business based on fantasy and illusion where we pay the people in it, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to dress up in tights and stand in front of a green screen and act like there's a giant worm about to devour New York City.
If that's not crazy, then I don't know what is.
As a result of working in a crazy business, we've all gone a little crazy ourselves.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Shia LaBeouf.
I mean even Jack is looking at this guy like 'Are you fucking kidding me?!"
I'm not fluent in French but I'm pretty sure 'LaBeouf' means 'mashugana' which I'm pretty sure means 'crazy as a shithouse rat.'
Sadly, for every Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts there is a Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes. Sometimes, when you are put under the magnifying glass of celebrity, you get burned.
This post is more about actors though and not the phenomenon of celebrity.
Actors.
We are a neurotic bunch aren't we?
Don't deny it. You know we are.
That's why a lot of us end up in therapy and rehab.
That's why some of us, sadly, die way too young.
If you are a broken person, working as an actor is not going to fix you. In many ways, it is going to break you a little bit more.
This business can leave you with more questions than answers.
Pondering those questions and the possible answers sometimes takes us to dark and scary places.
As actors we spend a lot of our time wondering if we are good enough.
We obsess over that question and others.
Did I nail my audition?
Does the casting director like me?
Am I too old? Am I too fat?
Does the casting director like me?
Is the phone going to ring?
Are there any emails in my inbox?
DOES THE CASTING DIRECTOR LIKE ME?
The questions never stop. Not even after we get work.
Does the director like me?
Does the director like what I just did? Could I have done it better?
Do the hair people like me? Do the makeup people like me?
Do the grips like me? Do the background artists? The teamsters?
Strike that!
Fuck the teamsters! They don't like anybody who isn't a Teamster.
Then, if the stars align and lightning strikes and you become the actor you wanted to become and have some aura of celebrity about you, the questions multiply by a thousand.
Does the public like me?
Do the critics like me?
Does my agent really like me?
DOES THE CASTING DIRECTOR LIKE ME?!
Those days and weeks after auditions are the worst for me. I can only imagine it is the same for a lot of us. As much as we try to keep ourselves distracted, we obsess every second of every hour.
I check my email fifty times a day. Sad, but true. Pathetic, really. Damn. What the HELL is wrong with me? Gee. I'll have to use these feelings during my next audition...for the guy on the ledge about to jump.
(calming breath)
And...breathe out.
So, you see, I understand where Sally Field was coming from when she made her speech back in 1985. I do.
She probably asked those very questions, over and over again, for years, as we all have and obsessed over whether people liked her work and liked her, REALLY liked her.
We all wonder if we are good enough and if people like us.
We all wonder if we are good enough and if people like us.
Rejection is hard. Being told you were not good enough to get the role of ZOMBIE NUMBER 5 is hard.
A tough skin is required. Alligator skin. Elephant skin.
My wife tells me "It's not personal" and I know-I pray-it's not.
We all still go to those dark places though. Don't we?
Even though we're told we just weren't right for the role all we hear is "You are not good enough. We don't want you."
We all still go to those dark places though. Don't we?
Even though we're told we just weren't right for the role all we hear is "You are not good enough. We don't want you."
It's easy to go to those dark places. It's a knee-jerk reaction.
It's hard to swallow that despite how much of your soul you invested into an audition or a performance you might just not be right or have the right look. Sometimes, despite how good you think you are, you are not good enough.
It's a hard pill to swallow and sometimes it feels more like the other kind of pill. You know. The kind you don't swallow.
As far as those actors who say they don't care if people like them or not I have to call bullshit. You are a performer. Of course you care! As much as you try to project the image of a cool and calm, you are as just as neurotic as the rest of us.
The only person who probably doesn't give a hoot one way or the other is Robert Redford. Bob's cool. He knows it. We know it. Trust me. He's okay with things no matter what.
The rest of us though are one step away from crying into the camera on an episode of Dr. Phil...
and hoping someone saw us and liked us.
and hoping someone saw us and liked us.
Just keeping it reel.
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I find it most disturbing that the same longing for acceptance and "being liked" which drove my actions during my childhood, continues to plague me in my over-the-hill years. Surely I should be over it by now, right? Comfortable in my own skin? Not giving a tinker's cusp whether other people like me or not? Yet it is still the case that I long for people's appreciative smiles, laughter, pat-on-the-back or whatever encouragement can be sucked from the marrow of the pitifully few relationships I've been able to maintain over the years. It is not simply an actor's dilemma; it is also true of those who have gone into other fields. We engineers differ only in the way that we try to impress our audience with the wonderful things we have designed, hoping that someone will look upon our creations and say, "What an incredibly smart boy you are! Look what you've invented!" And everyone will want to have one, and it will solve some important, critical problem that will save the world, and we will live forever in the history books as the reincarnation of Thomas Edison.
ReplyDeleteMore likely, we'll spend thirty or forty years pushing paperwork in the huge aerospace factories of the world, simple cogs in the giant wheels of corporate anonymity, then retire into the obscurity of our little shops and garages, living out the remainder of our days tinkering with all the ancient hardware we've accumulated over a lifetime, wondering how those young whippersnappers can do anything with those newfangled gadgets that do everything.