Love Losing

Without a doubt, the greatest gift being an actor has given me is having zero fear of losing. And as hokey as it sounds, learning to sidestep failure and continue to push towards your aspirations is essential.

What I discovered in an industry where you’re told “No,” virtually 99 % of the time, is that failure isn’t a testament to your character, self-worth, or an accurate indicator of your talent. It’s just feedback – a way to assess where you’re at and where you need to be.

But the most important takeaway was that failure wasn’t my problem, my reaction to it was. Being told, “No, Maybe next time,” or “We’re going to pass,” used to put me in a tailspin. But the older I got the more I learned to take it in stride and incorporate those setbacks as integral parts of the longer journey.

3 Ways to Make a Character Your Own

1. Honor the given circumstances. Start with what you know. If a playwright has included details about a character’s job, age, or how an experience has influenced the way he or she interacts with their environment, I incorporate that information into my personalization of the role. Remember, those specifics were put into the script for a reason. I can’t play the Elephant Man as agile and graceful, but I can choose how his impairments affect the way he sees the world. So long as I am honoring the given circumstances, I can also create my own backstory and decide how they shape my relationships and overall objective.

2. Find freedom within structure. Think of building a character like composing a jazz number. A pianist doesn’t just get onstage and start riffing. A skilled musician can only improvise if they’ve first mastered the written composition. The marriage of your personalization and the play’s definitive truths (setting, age, etc.) makes the work not only your own but more specific. Ask yourself, “What excites me about the character? How do I identify with him or her?”

3. Tell the story on the page. Back in grad school I performed in my favorite play, “A Doll’s House.” I took into account that Torvald was a newly promoted bank manager, had three children, and lived in an upscale sector of society. Those given circumstances informed the way I walked, talked, and how I might treat someone who didn’t share my status. I then mastered the text and took ownership of the language, making the part my own. I had gradually pieced together a three-dimensional character.

But I also lost sight of the fact that my job was to tell the story on the page, to be of service to something bigger than myself. I was standing out for the sake of standing out, which affected the quality of my listening and ability to make it about the other person onstage. Eventually, I discovered I could still make bold choices, but they needed to be of value to the overall story.

Friendship

I listen to a podcast called, On Being with Krista Tippett. On a recent episode she replayed an interview with very interesting man named, John O'Donohue, an Irish poet, philosopher, and former priest. 

Tippett's interview with O'Donohue was one of the last he gave before his unexpected death in 2008.  

I found part of the interview particularly interesting as I'd been reflecting a great deal on the relationships in my own life. Specifically, how they evolve and grow over time. I perked up when I heard Tippet ask if our generation is less capable of love, commitment, and meaningful relationships to which O'Donohue responded by saying the following:

I don’t think we’re less capable at all. I think we’re more unpracticed at it and there for more desperate for it. I think it’s a matter of attention really. That if you really knew how vital to your whole spirit and being and character and mind and health friendship actually is you will take time for it.

The trouble is for so many of us that we have to be in trouble before we remember what’s essential... you hold desperately to things that make you miserable. And that sometimes you only realize what you have when you're almost about to lose it.

I think it’d be great to step back a little at one’s life and see around -- who are those who hold me dear? Who truly see me? And those that I need? And to be able to go to them in a different way.

Go and Fail

Academy-Award nominated actor Jeremy Renner attributes much of his success to this mantra and so does the billionaire founder of SPANX Sara Blakely. Both have reached great heights in their respected fields and claim to come from homes where their parents embraced the importance of trying something and failing at it.

Sara Blakely once said in an interview, "Growing up, my father used to ask my brother and me what we had failed at at the dinner table, which was so interesting. And he'd celebrate it. He'd actually be disappointed if I didn't have anything I'd failed at that week."

Jeremy Renner echoed the sentiment in his recent interview on CBS Sunday Morning when discussing his father's mentorship. "Pick a class and go take it. Go fail. I always had love and that go fail son empowered me to go succeed, or try. So I did! I went and I just tried stuff."

Part of success is about reframing failure. When you look at setbacks as deferred successes you cultivate a tolerance for being told, "No." As a result, you're not as discouraged when it occurs. You begin to see the bigger picture and appreciate the essential role not getting something plays in becoming a person of character and resilience. 

The Benefits of Patience

For some, there are no two words more maddening than, "Be patient." We want what we want when we want it.

Still, though those two words are not sexy and seldom offer comfort, I have found them beneficial for a number of reasons:

-  Being patient strengthens your "Why" for doing something. If you're willing to pursue a dream, goal, or passion despite setbacks and waiting years on end to see it realized, you are gradually eliminating the extrinsic values that may be associated with achieving such a feat. What's more, the people whose "Why" was never strong to begin with start to quit.

-  Being patient can build character. There's integrity in seeing a project through from beginning to end without cutting corners or believing your success needs to come at the expense of another's failure. There is a way for your to win the right way. Gaining something quickly often diminishes that likelihood.

-  Finally, achieving something of value through smart approach, hard work, and patience means you'll value it more once you attain it. What's more, you'll be able to pass on what you know to someone else. There a fewer rewards greater than teaching what you know.

Be Patient.

Build on Who You Are

Tony-nominated director Diane Paulus once said to our class: "The more you build who you are as a person - how you educate yourself, how you identify, what interests you in the world, the issues you care about - all of those things will make you a better performer."

To my 20-something year self it was difficult to fully grasp the scope of her message. But as the years went on, and I began living a life and not just a career, her words began to resonate.

The characters I wanted to portray on stage were living breathing beings who cared deeply about human rights, politics, education, children, and poverty. They were three-dimensional people who weren't actors but citizens representing an idea, a possibility, a unique voice.

I discovered the only way I could even begin to understand the complicated nuances of their humanity was to start exploring my own. This required me to get up and out into the world rather than bury myself in the pages of a play or rely solely on my technical training.

Read Widely

By most accounts, I was a pretty good kid growing up. I never had much interest in getting into trouble, sparing my parents a headache or two.

This is not to say I was the perfect son by any stretch. One source of great anxiety for my mom and dad was my refusal to sit still and finish a book. I'd never seen my father come so close to weeping as he tried everything short of a seance to get me to fall in love with literature.

It took some time, but their efforts paid off. Books have become something I can't live without. They also played a very important role in making me a better actor.

By reading widely I was able to consider perspectives wildly different from my own. When taking on new projects, I began to think as a playwright, director, or producer might. Characters now leaped from the page becoming three-dimensional.

Discovering more about science, history, philosophy, and current events enabled me to connect a heightened sense of humanity to the plays and scripts I read. I began to rely less on just my technical training as an actor and get more in touch with what it really meant to be human.

Books pushed, stretched, and nudged me to think bigger.

They've served me well in my pursuit to become a great storyteller and beyond.