In case anyone was wondering: acting is hard.

I had a "learning experience" night in acting class a couple days ago.  I was doing an "audition" for a small part from a movie script where I had to play a therapist.  I didn't prepare as well as I should have and relied too much on having the script in my hand, checking it every couple of lines to make sure I was still on track.  I got the voice right, felt the delivery was pretty good, but the lack of eye contact in a scene where I was supposed to be giving a patient my full attention was disastrous to the overall effort.  I bombed big time.

Fortunately, we're doing the same scene again next week, so I get to learn from my mistakes and blow the doors off next time.  But it underscores something that I learn anew every time I go to perform: Acting is really, really hard to do.  And it's really, really, really, really, really hard to do well.  To anyone new to this that thinks they're just going to be handed some dialogue and they're going to be brilliant right off the bat, you're either a genius acting savant and I hate you or you're in for a rude awakening.  Failure and learning from that failure is something I'm encountering basically every time I do this, and I don't expect it to ever change.  Sure, I can increase my rate of success from 0% to something a bit higher as I go, but no one gets every part they audition for.  In listening to interviews and talking to working actors, rejection and failure is simply expected.  It's part of the job.

Take the last thing you said to your spouse, your kids, or your coworker and try to repeat it with the same delivery, the same emotions, the same headspace as before.  Harder than it seems, right?  Something's different or off about it.  Even when it was something that was generated in your brain and came out of your mouth.  A good actor, not even a great one, has to be able to take something someone else wrote and do the same thing -- make that dialogue authentic, natural, and believable.

Sometimes all it takes is a glance to the side to ruin a take.  A simple break of eye contact or a twitch of your face breaks the moment or communicates something besides what you were intending.  Michael Caine speaks about the importance of simplicity and eye contact in this interview here, which I would highly recommend for anyone even slightly curious about this whole subject.  I'm not at a place in my training where I can afford to be that cerebral about it, but sometimes if I just remember the goal of the scene, what my character wants to accomplish in the set of given circumstances, I subconsciously do what he so brilliantly puts into words.  And having listened to his take on it, I'm just a little more studious and notice what my face or my eyes do, and how tiny things can affect the overall result.

From BBC Radio 4.  "An Acting Masterclass with Michael Caine"

I'm going to be really bad at it for a long time.  That act of making something look and sound simple and real is going to be an effort.  But man, am I looking forward to that "eureka!" moment of magic one of these days when it all clicks on purpose instead of by accident.  When I can do that, I'll have taken another step on this road.

Until then, and after, it's still going to be fun.  Whether I succeed brilliantly or fail horrendously the act of acting is still something that fuels my soul.  As bad as I was, I got to be a grizzled, pony-tailed, ex-hippie therapist last class.  Before that I was a bumbling cop desperate for love.  In voice auditions I've been a dancing skeleton, a hooded assassin, a corrupt businessman, a panicked gnome, and more.  It's all very difficult, and I fail more often than I succeed, but it's FUN.  Even when it's hard work, it's fulfilling and it's worth it.

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In other news, Steve Blum's Facebook community group continues to be a blast.  He laid down the latest voice acting challenge for the Blumvox Studios members last week for Talk Like a Pirate Day: Say something in a pirate voice/accent that no pirate would ever be caught dead saying.  Naturally, I threw a line down from Mary Poppins and improvised an eye patch with my headphones.  I've already won one of these, but I love doing them, and I love seeing what everyone else comes up with.  Judging ends tonight, so fingers crossed!  Maybe I'll get another shout-out.