Growing & Efforting Part 2: Betterment of the Artist

“Self-help junkies, however, frequently mislabel their lack of real progress as intangible, internal, or psychological growth. If that inner growth is really present, one’s external reality will surely reflect it.”

–Steve Pavlina

Last update, I talked very briefly about Steve Pavlina’s “Self-Help Junkies” and how it applies to our creative endeavors. I wanted to leave some time in between updates to let you guys think about it for a little while before delving too deeply and giving you my opinions. I said in that update that art cannot grow unless the artist grows, no matter what your art (even if your art is simply living happily).

You see, this idea is one that hits very close to home for me, both as an actor and as a person. I’ve been one of Pavlina’s “junkies” before. I spent quite a while under the certainty that all I had to do was to read and I would somehow change by osmosis. It was as if holding the books and staring at them would somehow change me forever. While it made me smarter, it certainly didn’t make me wiser, or at all improved in my experiences. It took me a long time before I could admit to myself that it was fear that was causing this osmosis theory. I was afraid of failing, afraid of trying at all. And, yes, even afraid of succeeding.

I was afraid that if I failed, people might laugh at me and I would never find support for my endeavors again. I was afraid that even trying what I wanted might be too much because perhaps there was something I didn’t understand, or perhaps it wouldn’t turn out the way I expected. I worried that maybe dreaming of perfect goals would be better than actually achieving them. What if they weren’t as good as I thought they might be? I’d have wasted all that time on nothing. I was afraid that if I succeeded my life would change too drastically. I liked the life I had and changing me might mean permanently shifting my life in ways that may prove uncomfortable. Even in success I felt I couldn’t win.

Once this propensity for fear was faced and accepted, I realized that my life onstage had benefited as much as my life offstage. I hadn’t expected this change, you see, because I didn’t think my acting could change. I didn’t think there was any reason for it to. I was already being praised for my talent all the time, why should I change something that was working? Part of this idea was simply my being young; the rest of it was my naivety about what the process of being an actor truly was.

Acting is all about strong emotions. There are no boring days on stage or screen. There are no “ordinary” or “plain” moments. We visit characters on the best or worst days in their lives, never in between. Because of acting’s high emotional content, the actor must be prepared to experience those emotions. Acting puts us through every emotion imaginable, it is a masochistic profession that wrings us out and hangs us up for all to see. My acceptance of fear offstage opened a door to accepting my fears onstage. Suddenly I found it easier to face the emotional highs and lows that theatre could throw at me. I found myself willing to explore the darker places; those scary places inside myself I had once shied away from onstage.

That was all of the convincing I needed to come to the conclusion that the quickest way to become a better actor was to become a better man. It seemed so obvious to me then, though it never had before.

Soon I began to explore what changes I wanted to see in my stagecraft and then how to begin to bring about that change through myself. The more I worked, the more I realized that it was like being a musician; to change my performance I had to alter some part of the instrument (i.e. Me). Just as moving the slide of a trombone creates varying notes, delving deeper into myself resulted in varying levels of performance. Suddenly I began to realize just what “levels” were after hearing the terms for so long. Now I understood not only what “levels” were to an actor, but how to access and use them. The secret was in discovering my own humanity.

Art, no matter what form it takes, is some form of reflection of humanity. Visual arts are the reflections of what life is, was and could be. Music and literature are the telling of wonderful stories. And acting is the human experience in its most concentrated form. It seems so obvious that we as artists must be able to connect to humanity at its most base and shared level. To do this we must first connect to our own base levels and to accomplish that we must learn everything we can about ourselves.

Many actors and artists believe that it is their art that must improve, not themselves. Their talent is unchangeable, un-improvable, and it’s that talent which delivers finished products. They learn new things, they try new techniques and the same creations get better, but they are still just the same old creations. The painter improves their style, but they still paint the same pictures. The singer’s voice improves, but their songs lack passion the way they always have. Actors learn how to stand, how to speak, but always play the same role. The art isn’t ugly, or repulsive, it’s simply flat and unimaginative.

For centuries artists have been struggling to find a cure for this flatness of their work. They seek out answers in those who are older, wiser, more experienced. We want to find teachers who can give us the secrets we long for. The problem is that we never understand that it isn’t the teacher who can give us these things. Teachers shouldn’t be underestimated, but neither should they be overestimated. There are many invaluable things that a teacher can give you and their guidance is crucial to growth, but they can only show you how to find the answers, they cannot give them to you.

Actors seek out the “masters” of their craft for instructions and very rarely does it truly do them any good. Most “methods” of acting are far too technical, they would rather tell you the process by which you create, rather than the process by which you learn to create. Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio gave rise to a great wave of “method” actors. Actors who were so involved in getting the steps of their process right that they lost sight of why and what they were creating. Sanford Meisner taught his students to find the emotional truth of a scene within themselves, telling them to dig inside their own humanity for the answers they needed.

Of the two I certainly prefer Meisner’s techniques. You see, if a “method” works for you, then there can be nothing truly wrong with it; but one method leads to staleness of performance over time. A painter my paint her anger and frustration onto canvas and create beautiful works, but if she doesn’t access new emotions to express she will continue to create the same types of paintings. While every last one of these angry paintings may be beautiful, there is no denying that they are all, in essence, the same. To deny yourself any form of creative outlet is to stifle every outlet. The road to fluid beauty and creativity lies in freedom of expression, not rigidity.

Many artists would argue that “if it works for you, then it must be right.” I guess that’s true, but it brings up the question of “what works?” and that is a much longer article.

I know that perhaps my idea of personal growth over strict tuition may offend some artists and many may just think I’m insane. While they may be right, I don’t think I’ll ever stop believing that I am merely an instrument. As an actor, I am not a sculptor of characters. I do not create humanity as I see it, or as I would have others see it. I am an instrument through which humanity speaks. I don’t see this profession as personally glorifying, I see it as humbling. Ours is a profession of service. There is always something to say for seeking out education in your art, but don’t confuse education with answers. Education shows you the path to answers; it’s up to us to walk down it.

The Betterment of Art Comes Through Bettering the Artist

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