A Matthew Har­ri­son Essay

I’m lis­ten­ing to the con­ver­sa­tion, judge and jury in my head, it’s col­or­ing every­thing, all we did and said. I want you close, I want you near, I can’t help but lis­ten, but I don’t want to hear…Hear That Voice Again…

Voices in your head.

Sounds like the stuff of psychosis.

But that voice that is inside your head exists, speaks loudly, and is always talk­ing to you. It’s nor­mal. It’s nat­ural. It’s a part of you and a part of life.

The ques­tion is…are you lis­ten­ing?
We are all inse­cure ani­mals by nature and so by nature you and I are self-​doubting. There is a per­sonal neg­a­tive bias that has been planted in you long ago from some­where or some­one – a nag­ging nasty lit­tle voice that speaks within your depths. Maybe it’s saying:

- I’m not smart
- I think too much
- I’m lazy
- I try too hard
- I’m not worth it
- I’m a mis­take
- I deserve to be hurt
- I’m not lov­able
- I don’ t belong
- I’m weak
- I’m too pushy
- I’m just like my Father
- I’m not enough like my Father

…or one or more of many, many other pos­si­ble neg­a­tive feelings.

What is your voice, deep deep down say­ing to you?

In life, many of us busy our­selves with actions to quiet the voice. We work, we enter­tain our­selves, we strive and push to keep the voice from talk­ing too loudly into our inner ear.

Some of us fight the voice destruc­tively through self-​sabotage: drug and alco­hol addic­tion, eat­ing dis­or­ders, obses­sive behav­iour, and other destruc­tive mechanisms.

Some of us try to face the voice through med­i­ta­tion, ther­apy, art, and other ways so that we can locate the voice, find its ori­gins, and take own­er­ship of its nasty speak.

But all of us actors, when we walk onto stage, set, or into the audi­tion room take the chance of let­ting the voice out so strongly that it devours us.

The Inner Neg­a­tive Voice sud­denly begins shout­ing, scream­ing into our inner ear, some­times reword­ing itself based on the fact that we’re act­ing, say­ing things like:

- This is going ter­ri­bly
- I’m fail­ing at this
- I’ll never be a good actor
- The teacher (direc­tor, cast­ing per­son) hates me
- I don’ t know where to stand
- I’m not lis­ten­ing to the other actor
- I feel like a fraud
- I wish I was at home in bed hiding

Why is that?

Why is shut­ting down the neg­a­tive voice in an actor when they are act­ing a part of the process that comes up over and over in classes and work­shops? Why does the voice speak so loudly then?

In life, when we’re con­fi­dent about know­ing what needs to get done and we’re busy get­ting it done, the Inner Neg­a­tive Voice gets quiet. This is why when you’re down or depressed, the best solu­tion is to pick an easy task and get it done…fix some­thing in the house, go for a run, go to the gym, get that errand over with, go to work. In other wrods…get active. As a young man, when I was self-​concious and stuck in my head, I loved going to work…as a waiter…it gave me sev­eral hours to get a do-​able task achieved and so get off of myself and into work. By shift’s end, I was always much bet­ter off men­tally, and my inner voice quieter.

The rea­son this works is NOT because the voice goes away…it’s sim­ply that the voice gets drowned out by more impor­tant mat­ters. Wait­ing tables, clean­ing out the garage, lift­ing weights, get­ting to the fin­ish line – dur­ing the activ­ity the voice dis­ap­pears into the back­ground because we give it no creedance while we focus on some­thing other than ourselves.

As in life – so in acting.

The actor sim­ply needs to get the task at hand done. ACT. If she puts all her effort into act­ing, all her FOCUS on the other, the inner voice will recede into silence.

And yet…

The Voice still becomes deaf­en­ing within many, many actors’ heads – even when actors are fully focussed on their part­ners – even with actors who have been well-​trained in being “outer-​focused” or “vectored-​out”.

So why is that? That’s because the actor isn’t FULFILLING the scene.

They may be totally “on their part­ner” but they are not INSIDE THE STORY. There is an instinc­tive under­stand­ing deep inside an actor of how the scene should live out as pre­scribed by the writer…and when we fail to attain that stan­dard, we lose our focus.

When we lose our focus, there breaks open a space between where the scene ought to be and where it is…and this cre­ates a “Gap”.

And when the gap opens up…in floods the actor’s inner neg­a­tive voice.

So. Close the Gap.

Now…that is way sim­pler said then done, which is why the prob­lem is ubiq­ui­tous among actors. It’s easy enough for an act­ing teacher to give you the diag­no­sis, but I must also write a prescription…follow these steps:

First – remind your­self that the inner voice is nat­ural, nor­mal, and human….don’t give it power by giv­ing it more impor­tance than it deserves and do NOT beat your­self up because of your hav­ing it. (By the way– make note of your inner voice…it is a major part of your self def­i­n­i­tion and if nur­tured and accepted, will become your fuel as an artist and your theme to the world…but that’s a whole other essay.)

Sec­ond – when the voice is mak­ing itself heard, accept it as a gift…it’s a red flag warn­ing that the scene is not work­ing and be thank­ful that the mech­a­nism exists as a check and bal­ance to your work.

Third – fix the STORY prob­lem. Know­ing that act­ing is a func­tion of: analy­sis (scene struc­ture) + emo­tional prepa­ra­tion (per­son­al­iza­tion of cir­cum­stances) + focus (part­ner– related actions), decide that the rea­son your Gap exists between where the scene ought to be and where you are must be because you’re under-​rehearsed or have mis­un­der­stood one of those three key pil­lars of acting.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: When I say “where the scene ought to be”, I do NOT mean in any way the result of how the scene should “look”. Act­ing is always process-​oriented and not result-​oriented, and in no way should your work be pre­sen­ta­tional, antic­i­pated, or pre-​ascribed. Act­ing is always defined as liv­ing truthfully:

Def­i­n­i­tion of Act­ing (my new and improved Mesiner): “the real-​life acci­den­tal behav­iour that results from partner-​related actions that are pre­scribed specif­i­cally and clearly from the struc­ture and emo­tional under­stand­ing of a height­ened circumstance.”

By ought to be, I mean that in your rig­or­ous and thor­ough scene analy­sis and in your emo­tional explo­ration to under­stand and hon­our the under­ly­ing truth of your char­ac­ter, you grew to have an innate under­stand­ing of what the cir­cum­stances are about in a pro­found and vis­ceral way.

So…

If the Gap opens up and you find your­self think­ing in the scene, you either:

- did not analyse the script deeply enough and mine the story for all its details (don’t for­get David Mamet’s “invent noth­ing – deny nothing”)

or

- did not dig deeply inside your­self to attempt to empathize with your character’s emo­tional truth and under­stand­ing (and/​or prob­a­bly too scared to go that deep into your per­sonal experiential/​imaginative places)

or

- did not clearly define and com­mit to the partner-​related actions (verbs) and focus on what you are try­ing to achieve in the scene.

Or…a com­bi­na­tion of two or all three of the above. In other words:

DO THE SCENE WORK.
Analyse, decode, research, deduce, and dig, dig, dig into the scene structure

DO THE SELF WORK.
Explore, search your trig­gers, hooks, imag­i­na­tion, dig, dig, dig into the ground­ing and emo­tional truths of your char­ac­ter and what you know about them.

DO THE ACTIONS.
Com­mit to the moment to moment verbs and get it done in the scene through FOCUS.

And then…the “Gap” should close… And that nasty “inner stage voice” should fall quiet.

Matthew Har­ri­son