A Matthew Har­ri­son Essay

There is immers­ing your­self into the work and there is mak­ing the work about you. The dif­fer­ence between the two is the major gulf between art and ego­ism, between pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ama­teurism, and between get­ting the job and not get­ting the job.

In the past few act­ing work­shops, “ego-​less act­ing” has popped up as a theme. The idea being love the work…don’t love your­self in the work. In the work­shops and in sev­eral of my recent coach­ing, I’ve been work­ing with accom­plished, well-​resumed actors who have fallen into a self-​proclaimed “rut”…who feel they’ve become des­per­ate and have brought a “stink of des­per­a­tion” into the audi­tion room. The “ego” has reared its potent and ugly head. It has become clear to me that ego-​driven work is pan­demic among us actors and a direct cause for pain, frus­tra­tion, and failure.

By “ego” I don’t mean arro­gance or self-​centeredness. We’re not talk­ing about an actor who is fun­da­men­tally ego­tis­ti­cal. No one likes to work with that kind of actor, no one has the right to be such an actor, and such an actor will get noth­ing from this essay or this kind of teach­ing. (On the other hand, we know that pow­er­fully ego­tis­ti­cal peo­ple are plainly mas­querad­ing as such and are in fact com­pen­sat­ing for some equally pow­er­ful inse­cu­rity that lies deep inside. Per­haps if the ego­tis­ti­cal actor can find the courage to acknowl­edge their self-​importance/​self-​hatred dual­ity, then they can read on…)
The def­i­n­i­tion of “ego” we’re explor­ing here is the self in any per­son, the con­scious “I”. And what the actor must get clear is that she must set bound­aries between the self and the self-​in-​the-​work. These are two dis­tinct peo­ple with two com­pletely dif­fer­ent roles. But because the nature of the work involves being judged at every audi­tion, every class, and because in the end the crit­ics write reviews about us, and because the final prod­uct is us see­ing us on screen, the bound­aries between, say, Actor Jane and Per­sonal Jane get blurred and washed away. The “I” or “ego” inevitably rears its insid­i­ous head.

Watch how Per­sonal Jane gets mixed up with Actor Jane:

“I need to get this job.”
“I need to impress this cast­ing direc­tor this time or else…”
“I bombed my last audi­tion, and if I have to nail this one.”

More sub­tle:

“This role is per­fect for me!”
“I have to work with Al Pacino before I die.”
“They love me!”

That last one shows up all the time and is par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous. They don’t love you. And if you really need their love, your ego is in some very, very deep trou­ble. They don’t even love your work. Hope­fully they respect your work, your abil­ity and tal­ent, and under­stand your casta­bil­ity and so you can all com­mu­ni­cate as pro­fes­sion­als who are try­ing to respon­si­bly cre­ate the best prod­uct under bud­getary constraint.

Actor Jane and Per­sonal Jane need to stay away from each other and let each do her job.

Actor Jane’s job is to act. To be absolutely pre­pared for each day on set, or for rehearsal on stage, or for the first read-​through of a script, and for each and every audi­tion and appoint­ment: off-​book, rehearsed, with a clear under­stand­ing and analy­sis of the scene, its struc­ture, where it fits in the big­ger story, and be able to artic­u­late it in the room in a con­cise and pro­fes­sional way as a char­ac­ter state­ment. Actor Jane needs to know the character’s heart, mind, and soul, and explore her own imag­i­na­tion and expe­ri­ence for inspi­ra­tion on how to do jus­tice to the char­ac­ter she’s play­ing and the story that she’s telling. Then Actor Jane needs to do her job: walk into the audi­tion room, or onto the stage, or onto set, face off another actor, or actors, or reader, and effect change in them in order to attain some­thing as dic­tated by the script, moment to moment, beat by beat.

Where in all that does Actor Jane have time to try and impress any­body about how great she is or how badly she needs the role?

When I was in the­atre school in New York, I used to work at the Ridicu­lous The­atri­cal Off-​Broadway Com­pany. Every night, back stage before his entrance, I use to watch Everett Quin­ton mime rip­ping the neg­a­tive, self-​critical, trou­bled ego-​Everett out of his body so that he could walk out on stage and deliver his inter­pre­ta­tion of Bot­tom the weaver in A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream. Here was a pro­fes­sional of the high­est cal­iber, as per­son­ally pained and inse­cure and needy as any­one, lit­er­ally allow­ing only the Actor Everett to step on the stage, leav­ing his ego behind.

Actor Jane enters the audi­tion room as the author­ity on how Actor Jane will inter­pret this part and look in the role. She is a prod­uct that they either think is appro­pri­ate for their project…or not. But Actor Jane doesn’t need any­body to love her. Actor Jane will be respected because she comes in and does her work. In this way, Jane NEVER bombs an audi­tion. She works too hard and is too good at what she does.

Why peo­ple “bomb” audi­tions, or get in “ruts”, or “choke” on set or stage has noth­ing to do with the Actor in them at all. It’s the Ego in them that does the damage.

Ner­vous­ness is the most obvi­ous symp­tom of ego-​driven act­ing. Need­ing to do well, suc­ceed, get a break. Let’s be clear: these feel­ings are nat­ural and nor­mal and can’t be denied. In fact, they ought to be allowed to breathe, under­stood and accepted. But NOT in the audi­tion room. Mak­ing the audi­tion mean more than it does (“if I get this role, I’ll finally prove to my par­ents I’m a somebody”…you laugh, but it’s very com­mon); mak­ing the con­se­quences of not get­ting the role big­ger than they are (“my agent will drop me”)…if these or any other ego-​driven thoughts are inside Actor Jane as she walks into the audi­tion room, onto stage, or onto set, how does she have the abil­ity to focus on act­ing? How can she be clear-​headed enough to face off another actor and effect change in them in order to attain some­thing, moment to moment, beat by beat, if she has all those neg­a­tive ego-​driven voices going on in her head?

Those lit­tle voices that ring through your mind while act­ing when you’re less than focused…? You know them? The voices that say “I’m fuck­ing up”, or “she doesn’t like my work”, or just as bad: “the direc­tor is nod­ding his head…I think he loves me”?

Those voices are cre­ated by the gap that opens up like an echo cham­ber in your mind when Actor Self isn’t work­ing all alone but has been joined by The Ego. The voices take up energy that is non-​character related, non-​work related, and now Actor Jane isn’t in the moment at all, but some­where think­ing about her­self, and her wor­ries, and her anxieties…and the cam­era or the audi­ence knows.

So…be pro­fes­sional. Don’t drag your bag­gage into the room. Focus on the work…

Eas­ier said than done?

I don’t think so. It takes a major shift in think­ing, but in the end, NOT bring­ing your Ego into the room is way, way easier.

Here’s how:

DON’T LET THE “ACTOR SELF” BE LAZY: Do the work needed for your audi­tions (or time on set or stage) and be as pre­pared as pos­si­ble so that your Ego doesn’t have time to ques­tion your abil­ity, your author­ity, your right to be there. You MUST be an expert on scene analy­sis, story, struc­ture, char­ac­ter and your craft. You must be trained and highly skilled at main­tain­ing focus and doing actions in order to achieve an objec­tive. You MUST con­stantly work your imag­i­na­tion so that you can, on com­mand, will­ingly hurl your­self into the art of make believe.

On that last point, lets be very clear: you need to be con­stantly deep­en­ing your under­stand­ing of your self and the world around you so that you can dig into your own per­sonal expe­ri­ences and imag­i­na­tion so that you can per­son­al­ize the scene. But per­son­al­iz­ing a scene so that you can under­stand, empathize, and become a char­ac­ter in cer­tain cir­cum­stances is the polar oppo­site of mak­ing the audi­tion or scene per­sonal in a negative-​ego-​driven way.

GIVE “PERSONAL SELF” ITS TIME: You need to deal with what­ever neg­a­tive thoughts and voices that ring in your head. You need to take own­er­ship of your need for love, and accep­tance, and maybe even adu­la­tion. Or your need to suc­ceed. Or your need to please. Or what­ever your per­sonal need is. Find its ori­gin. Take it out and deal with it. Own it. Ther­apy helps. Lots.

GET ACTIVE SO “ACTOR SELF” IS BUSY AND “PERSONAL SELF” APPEASED: Cre­ate your own suc­cess so that the audi­tion or set or stage becomes less impor­tant in real terms. Write a script. Shoot a short. Pro­duce a play with you as the lead.(If you haven’t already, read The WORKING Actor by yours truly.)

In other words…make work about WORK. Not your SELF.

Here’s a tip: in the audi­tion room be the author­ity as an actor by talk­ing story: tell the direc­tor, cast­ing direc­tor, pro­ducer what you think your “char­ac­ter state­ment” is (objec­tive + rela­tion­ships + con­se­quences). Get into the habit of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the direc­tor and oth­ers about the work. Not about you.

Another thing to do is give your­self CHALLENGES for each audi­tion. Exam­ples: To really effect the reader. To con­cen­trate on the arc of the scene (The direc­tor Michael Robi­son told me that he always looks for the arc of an audi­tion, that is: how the actor plays the changes in the char­ac­ter.) To get more phys­i­cal with your block­ing. Any­thing that keeps you focused on the work and not on yourself.

*

Now here’s the key, the magic…

When ego-​less act­ing is attained, some­thing beau­ti­ful and sur­pris­ing happens…

The pres­sure is off you to be bril­liant or amaz­ing. You can shed that need for accep­tance from any­one. You can stop ques­tion­ing if you’re good enough. All you need to do is act. Do your job. Mas­ter your craft. And…

When you get out of your own way and stop stink­ing the room up with your Ego, and instead fill the room with your good acting…the real, deep, and per­sonal YOU that you never really knew how to access actu­ally shows up.

In other words when you get you out of the way of the work, the real You shows up.

And that’s good acting.

Matthew Har­ri­son