A Matthew Har­ri­son Essay

I saw a lec­ture once by a psy­chi­a­trist who spe­cial­ized in work­place depres­sion. When asked about actors, he had an inter­est­ing per­spec­tive. He had stud­ied actors and had come to this con­clu­sion: actors are worka­holics. They are dri­ven, ambi­tious, and con­stantly think­ing about, talk­ing about, and obsess­ing about their careers. If given the chance, they would work eighty hour weeks and rarely take a break. They are addicted to their jobs and place that pri­or­ity above all else. But, con­tin­ued this psy­chi­a­trist, your typ­i­cal actor is a “non-​working actor”. She is either between gigs, or between agents, or with an inef­fec­tual agent. She audi­tions once or twice a week if lucky, and like most actors, faces rejec­tion the major­ity of the time. So…the con­clu­sion of this psy­chi­a­trist was: actors are prone to depres­sion because they are worka­holics with­out work. Addicts with­out a fix. The only two reme­dies are: quit the addiction…or…find a fix.

“Be proac­tive! Cre­ate your own work! Make your own suc­cess! Get working!”

Sure. We hear this all the time. Well, eas­ier said than done. We all know that: “Going to the gym, leav­ing a mes­sage for my agent, and re-​watching Star Wars: Episode 2 before going to an indus­try party…” isn’t how we should be fill­ing our days. But what exactly should the actor be doing? How, exactly, does one cre­ate one’s own suc­cess? If it’s a full time job, what should the actor fill their time with? In my work­shops, the stu­dents and I have spent time col­lect­ing and orga­niz­ing ideas and tasks so that the actor can set up a spe­cific work sched­ule and self-​arranged program…one that suits his or her spe­cific end goal.

The “Sixty-​Five Things An Actor Can Do List” is a great way to get active, do cre­ative work, be an artist every day, and be an actor on your own terms…not defined based on any other person’s whim or opin­ion. With goals, self-​ascribed objec­tives, and hard work…auditions and other “busi­ness” takes on a less impor­tant role, bal­anc­ing out your career.

Many of the “things to do” are fairly obvi­ous. Oth­ers, hope­fully, will pro­voke you and give you new ideas. The point is: you will be busy…

WARNING: this list is sug­ges­tive. It’s a way to help actors with­out a game plan get back into their game. The dan­ger is that an actor will think that this is a must do list and attempt them all at once, feel over­whelmed, fail at every­thing, and then give up act­ing altogether.

Another mis­take an actor can make is to take a “wash” approach – doing as many dif­fer­ent things as she can, all at once – the idea being that the more lines you have in the water, the more likely you are to catch something.

A far more effec­tive approach is the “mag­ni­fy­ing glass” strat­egy: where you focus all of your drive and energy on a sin­gle point. Soon you will get the small­est of flames. Add a lit­tle more fuel, fan the flames and the fire will spread. Before you know it, you’ve got a roar­ing bon­fire. In other words…

Work one step at a time. Make a pro­gram for your­self. Set a schedule.

Define your end goal and work back­wards from it, work­ing step by step to get to where you want to be. Your end goal is: “to be a series reg­u­lar on a drama.” Great!

Now, how will you get there? Book guest star parts and get expe­ri­ence. Good. How will you get there? Give the best audi­tions you can. How? Get over your nerves in audi­tions. How? Improve your tech­nique and de-​mystify the room. Now look at the list of things you can do, and make a pro­gram for your­self, with weekly and monthly ATTAINABLE goals.

If you want to improve your audi­tion skills and write a short for your­self to act in, because your end goal is to write, direct, and act in your own fea­ture so you can “have a career like Billy Bob Thor­ton”, well that’s great! Make spe­cific times in the day and in the week for both. Out­line a point by point strat­egy. Get orga­nized. Get spe­cific. Set goals for your­self. Don’t over extend your­self. Do what you can in a planned and step by step way. That’s work­ing efficiently.

And enjoy yourself.

This is act­ing. It’s about work­ing at some­thing that fills you with passion.

So have fun…

PRACTICAL THINGS TO DO

1. ATTEND CLASSES/​WORKSHOPS. Obvi­ously. Train­ing is key. Get­ting new per­spec­tives from dif­fer­ent teach­ers is valu­able. Get­ting up in front of your peers, absolutely invalu­able. And…

2. WORK WITH A COACH. Work one-​on-​one, once a week, with a pri­vate coach who gives you per­son­al­ized insight into your craft. Like piano lessons for piano play­ers. Of course, classes and work­shops and pri­vate lessons cost money…something we often don’t have. So…

3. ORGANIZE AND ADMINISTRATE A CLASS/​WORKSHOP. Two stu­dents approached me, said they would like to orga­nize and admin­is­trate work­shops for me. In exchange, they get to attend for no fee. Guess what? It worked. We’re still going.

4. ORGANIZE A STUDY CLASS. Every­one pool a few dol­lars and hire a teacher for your­selves. It’ll cost way less than going to a school. Or

5. ORGANIZE A SCENE STUDY GROUP. Direct and cri­tique your­selves. Do scenes from film. Or scenes from stage. Or mono­logues. Or maybe pick one writer and focus on she/​he for a few weeks. Maybe bring in a guest teacher one out of three classes, save on costs.

6. PRODUCE A SCENE NIGHT. Hire a direc­tor to come in for the last rehearsals of your scene study group, raise some funds at the door and with pro­gram adver­tis­ing, pay back the director’s fees. Or, better…

7. TALK YOUR AGENT INTO PRODUCING IT FOR YOU. Show­case her tal­ent – get your­self seen – get some­one else to pay for it.

8. PRODUCE A PLAY. It’s not as hard as you think. Act­ing isn’t act­ing until put into prac­tice. Get your­self on stage. And do it right: adver­tise, hire a good direc­tor, get a decent venue and set, and get reviewed. In other words: fundraise. Rais­ing cap­i­tal takes a lit­tle cre­ativ­ity, but isn’t that hard. Throw a “casino night” or auc­tion off local celebri­ties or host a beach party. Get adver­tis­ing for your pro­grams. Pro­duce a play with a hook into a theme or premise that guar­an­tees a major cor­po­rate spon­sor or cause. Pro­duce a locally writ­ten play and save on copy­right fees (that might have long term profit involved). Find alter­nate venues and save on the­atre rentals. Do the play out of your home. One of the best plays I ever saw was Stan­ley Katz do Wal­lace Shawn’s “The Fever”. In his liv­ing room. Or/​and…

9. DO A ONE MAN SHOW. Keeps the bud­get cost down. Work with a direc­tor you trust. Even better…

10. WRITE A ONE MAN SHOW. Or get a writer to write it for you.

Of course…

11. AUDITION FOR PLAYS.

Here’s how:

12. ALWAYS BE WORKING ON THREE MONOLOGUES. One con­tem­po­rary comic. One con­tem­po­rary dra­matic. One clas­sic. Always be work­ing on them. Get oth­ers to help direct you. Hire a coach for some pri­vate ses­sions to work them up. Start a mono­logue study group. Prac­tice them at a scene night some­where. When you’re absolutely cer­tain that they’re ready…find three more.

Where do you find monologues…?

13. READ PLAYS. Go to the library. Get online. Find the Broad­way Guide for recent years and skim through story summaries…find a play that turns your fancy with a char­ac­ter that you relate to…and then find it.

14. START A PLAY READING GROUP. Choose one play­wright and become experts. Or one genre. Or theme. Oh, by the way…

15. WATCH ALL TEN EPISODES OF “PLAYING SHAKESPEARE”. All twenty hours. Then watch it all over again. John Bar­ton is a genius.

16. GO SEE PLAYS. The num­ber of actors I know who never see plays astounds me. See one a month and at least you’ll have seen twelve at the end of the year. See two a month, and you’ll be a the­atre afi­cionado. Lis­ten for mono­logues. Find scenes that excite you and do them. Also, when you see a play you love…

17. MEET THE DIRECTOR. Give her/​him your head­shot and resume. Get a num­ber to call for the future when they are hold­ing auditions.

By the way…

18. GO TO OTHER ARTS. See the bal­let. See the opera. See the sym­phony per­form. Go to muse­ums. Go to book read­ings. Find your inspi­ra­tion any­where you can. Get con­nected with art.

Back to the­atre auditions…

19. CALL THE EQUITY HOTLINE. Lis­ten for local audi­tions, union and non-​union. And…

20. DO GENERALS. The Play­house, the Arts Club, The Bel­fry, Shaw, Strat­ford, any­where. Call them. Do generals.

21. WRITE AND PERFORM A STANDUP ROUTINE. Stand­ing at the “open mike night” at Yuk Yuk’s or Urban Well, deliv­er­ing your fun­nies… terrifying…exhilarating…and a great act­ing work­out. Then, when you feel like you’re ready…

22. PRODUCE A STANDUP NIGHT. Rent a the­atre for a night, hire a sure-​fire-​funny, well known come­dian to head­line. Invite every­one you know includ­ing agents, cast­ing direc­tors, and let it rip. After that, you’ll never be ner­vous for an audi­tion again. Or maybe…

23. TRY IMPROV. Join a group…or bet­ter, jump up on ama­teur night and crash and burn. You’ll learn a lot about lis­ten­ing to the other actor.

24. PRODUCE A CABARET SHOW. Put it all in one night: scenes from a play; stand up com­edy; some improv sketch com­edy; the show­ing of a short film; a lit­tle dance; a lit­tle live music. Invite peo­ple. When Michelle (my wife) and I first moved to Van­cou­ver, we pro­duced three in a year. We acted in front of an audi­ence, con­nected with peo­ple, and enjoyed our­selves. And raised money for a play.

But, you say, you want to focus on film right now? So, fine. Then…

25. PRODUCE A SHORT FILM. Find a writer/​director and a cam­era and go for it. Get it into fes­ti­vals. Sell it to CBC. Can’t find a script? Adver­tise in the paper “look­ing for scripts.”

26. GO TO SCRIPT READINGS. The Cold Read­ing Series. Final Draught at Doolin’s. The Alibi Room. Go. Read. Lis­ten to scripts. Meet writers.

27. START A SCRIPT READING SERIES. That’s what I did.

28. JOIN A SHORT FILM CONTEST. The Reel Fast. The 24 hour Film fest. There’s even a hor­ror short fest. Get involved. It’s fun. It’s act­ing. You meet young, future direc­tors. Maybe even get a scene that can be used as reel mate­r­ial. Most impor­tantly, you’re clock­ing time in front of the cam­era. Like an air­pleane pilot, you need to prac­tice. How about…

29. START A SHORT FILM CONTEST. Ask Cathy Duborg how that worked out for her. Talk­ing about film festivals…

30. GO TO FILM FESTIVAL FORUMS AND TALK BACKS. The Van­cou­ver Film Fes­ti­val, The Whistler Film Fes­ti­val. Lis­ten to direc­tors talk. Learn their lingo, their thought processes, how they talk to and about actors and film in gen­eral. Direc­tors are your imme­di­ate col­lab­o­ra­tors. Get inside their heads. Maybe even…

31. TAKE A FILM CLASS. Learn about the cam­era. And…

32. ACT IN STUDENT FILMS. UBC. SFU. VFS. The Art Insti­tute of Van­cou­ver. Drop off your head­shot and resume to them.

33. PRACTICE IN FRONT OF A CAMERA. Re-​do your audi­tions with friends and col­leagues. Or, ask your agent to give you audi­tion scenes. See what the cast­ing direc­tor sees. Objec­tively cri­tique your own work. Look at cam­era angles. Prac­tice audi­tion­ing. Bet­ter still…

34. RENT AN AUDITION STUDIO. Once every two weeks, rent Shore­line, Cast­ing Work­book, or Sec­ond Avenue. A room is 30$ a half hour. A good invest­ment. Run audi­tions with a part­ner. Sit in the cast­ing director’s chair. De-​mystify the room. Prac­tice. I did this con­sis­tently through­out my first years as an audi­tion­ing film/​TV actor. Invalu­able. And it’s fun to see your name out­side the door next to the cast­ing director’s. By the way…

35. BE AN AUDITION READER. That’s how you really de-​mystify the audi­tion room AND get paid. Many of the cast­ing direc­tors need read­ers. Call them. “What?! Call the cast­ing direc­tor!?!” Yes. Or get your agent to sub­mit your name as a reader. What have you got to lose? As a reader, you get to watch hun­dreds of audi­tions. Good and bad. You get glimpses of feed­back and how pro­duc­ers, direc­tors, and cast­ing direc­tors think.

Also…those the­atre direc­tors that you’ve met see­ing those plays you’re see­ing every two weeks? Offer your ser­vices to them as a reader.

36. DO LOW OR NO BUDGET INDIES. Great prac­tice. Good demo reel mate­r­ial. And once in a while a low budget-​no pay indie hits the fes­ti­vals and gets big notice. Either way, it’s a no-​lose sit­u­a­tion where you can exper­i­ment with your craft with lit­tle neg­a­tive con­se­quences. Tell your agent you want to do them. Go to indie fests like the “Cel­lu­loid Social Club” and intro­duce your­self to the writ­ers and direc­tors. Can’t afford to take time off to do a no bud­get film? You can’t afford not to. Find a way. Get spon­sored to do the film. Raise money. It’s your job.

37. READ SCREENPLAYS. Get on line to www​.script​-​o​-rama​.com or www​.dai​lyscript​.com or any one of those free screen­play sites.

Here’s one of my favorites…

38. RUN SCENES FROM SCREENPLAYS. Choose a screen­play with a char­ac­ter in your type. Find one scene. Break it down. Mem­o­rize and rehearse it like an audi­tion. Film it. Then watch the actual film. See what the actor did with that scene. Notice the dif­fer­ences and the sim­i­lar­i­ties. Also…

39. WATCH ONE SCENE OVER AND OVER. Find the details. Study the edit­ing. Learn the process of filmmaking.

40. START A SCREENPLAY READING GROUP. Read the screen­play. Dis­cuss it. Then watch the film. Dis­cuss the per­for­mances. Maybe…

41. STUDY ONE PERFORMER AT A TIME. Declare this month “Paul New­man” month and rent every Paul New­man film you can get your hands on. Or “Johnny Depp Month”. Or “Diane Lane”. Or declare next month “Soder­bergh Month” and see every­thing he’s directed.
And here’s the biggest one…

42. WRITE A SCREENPLAY. If it’s good, who knows? Get it pro­duced. It worked for Matt and Ben. It worked for Billy Bob and Sly.

But even if you’re no Lawrence Kas­dan, writ­ing a short, or even tak­ing a stab at writ­ing a full length fea­ture will not only make you think about your own cast­ing, but it’ll also give you great respect for writ­ers and sto­ry­telling. Most impor­tantly, it will give you a much clearer under­stand­ing of how scripts and scenes are struc­tured. By the way, very important…

43. READ STORY BY ROBERT MCKEE. As an actor, you MUST know the struc­ture and tech­nique of script writ­ing. It’s your job to make the story come alive. Know how it was con­structed. In fact, go to www​.word​player​.com and read essay #5. Which reminds me…

44. READ EVERYTHING. You’re actors. Your job is to tell sto­ries, show human­ity a lit­tle bit about itself (“hold the mir­ror as ‘twere up to nature!”) So you’d bet­ter ingest as much story and human­ity as you can. Read biogra­phies. Read auto­bi­ogra­phies. Read essays, jour­nals, diaries. Read his­tory. Read nov­els. Read “Hero With a Thou­sand Faces” by Joseph Camp­bell. Read his­tor­i­cal nov­els. Read poetry. Read phi­los­o­phy. Read the Sun­day New York Times. Read, read, read. And, if you feel you really, really have to, read one or two “act­ing” books. But only one or two.

And if you really, really, MUST watch television…

45. WATCH DOCUMENTARIES. What a great way to ingest real human behav­iour in extreme cir­cum­stances. Also watch the news, because you need to…

46. FOLLOW CURRENT EVENTS. If the actor is part story teller, she is also the fourth estate: the artist whose job it is to be the con­scious of our soci­ety. Inform your­self. Have opin­ions. Strive for a bet­ter world.

ARTISTIC THINGS TO DO

47. KEEP A LOG BOOK. A blank-​paged note­book. When you have a moment of high emo­tion, a moment of inter­est­ing behav­iour, an idea, or a thought the res­onates deeply with you…write it down. When you hear inter­est­ing dia­logue, a quote that moves you, an idea that scares you…write it down. When you see a pic­ture in the news­pa­per or a mag­a­zine that affects you, makes you want to vomit, delights you, ter­ri­fies you…paste it in the log­book. Log all things dur­ing the day that strike your human­ity in some way. Cre­ate a ledger of the world. When you’re done with it, put it in your closet and start another. You can refer to it if you’re look­ing for inspi­ra­tion for a scene or char­ac­ter, but really what you want to do is train your­self to invest in check­ing in with what affects you and makes you tick. Shock your­self into feel­ing alive at all times. In the past, I’ve cov­ered my walls with clip­pings and pho­tos and quotes, but this tends to scare away din­ner guests. Keep it all in your logbook.

48. KEEP A LIST OF HOOKS. Psy­cho­log­i­cally we all have “hooks” or “trig­gers” which are the spe­cific keys to our instru­ments. An image, or sound, or some­thing some­one said in your past…our imag­i­na­tions are filled with “hot but­tons”. It’s the spe­cific image that makes us cry at movies which trig­gers us. It’s the thing we’re “sen­si­tive” about and react to if we hear/​see/​say it. What are yours? Each and every time you stum­ble across one, WRITE IT DOWN. Own it.

49. EXERCISE YOUR IMAGINATION: DO A PREPARATION A DAY. Really, you should be doing dozens a day nat­u­rally. The mag­i­cal ques­tion, and actor’s best friend: “what if…?” When you read the news, hear someone’s story, see a sce­nario in the real world, ask yourself…what if? What if that was me? What if I had can­cer? What if my wife did? What if our child is born with Down’s Syn­drome? What if I’m los­ing my mind? What if I sold my film? What if I could travel any­where in the world? What if…what if…all day long. WRITE THEM DOWN in your log­book. Now, take the time to do one spe­cific one all the way, like you’re prepar­ing a scene, and know you’ve tuned that key of your instru­ment. Another way is to…

50. EXPLORE NON-​TANGIBLE NOUNS. Take a word like “wealth” or “love” or “power” or “fear”…a noun that you can­not phys­i­cally touch. Define it for your­self. Explore what it means to you. Find the hook in it for you. Become inti­mate with ideas like “racism” and “for­ever” and “beauty” and “time”.

51. CREATE AN ACTION LIST. Make a list of actable verbs (part­ner– related verbs like “to teach”, “to seduce”, “to poi­son with dark thoughts”) that res­onate for you and turn you on artis­ti­cally. Increase your lexicon.

52. PRACTICE TRANSLATING INTO ACTIONS. Take an emo­tional result, like “jeal­ousy”, or worse: “insou­ciant con­de­scen­sion” (!!!) and trans­late them into actable doings, in other words, verbs. So “jeal­ousy” might be: “attack to cover fear of loss”…and “insou­ciant con­de­scen­sion” could be: “to look down on an infe­rior because I hold the truth.”

53. EXPLORE PHRASES. Take “Thank you.” Imag­ine five dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios for the word. Prac­tice thank­ing some­one. Take the phrase “Don’t give up”. Imag­ine why you’d say that. Prac­tice it.

54. CONFRONT YOUR FEARS. Afraid of heights? Walk across the Lion­s­gate Bridge then write down how the expe­ri­ence affected you. Afraid of rejec­tion? Go fall in love.

55. EXPLORE YOUR JOYS. Sit on a moun­tain­top and watch the sun­rise. Play with your niece. Always wanted to be a rock star? Hire a band on your birth­day and sing your vocal chords off for four hours in front of every­one you know. That’s what I did.

56. SHOCK YOUR SENSITIVITY. Love pup­pies? Go to the SPCA and hear the cry­ing of the caged ani­mals. Vol­un­teer at a clinic and hold a three month old with AIDS.

57. WRITE AN “IST” LIST. Worst. Best. Most. Least. In other words, superla­tive adverbs. Answer a hun­dred ques­tions and keep adding new ones. Two lists: one imag­i­na­tive. One his­tor­i­cal. The worst thing that’s ever hap­pened to you. The worst thing that could ever hap­pen to you. The hard­est thing you’ve ever done, or would ever have to do. You’re best lover. You’re fan­tasy best lover. The pret­ti­est cor­ner of the world. The most expen­sive thing you’ve ever bought, seen, wanted, stolen. The strangest per­son you’ve ever met. Answer lit­er­ally hun­dreds and hun­dreds of these. Between the what ifs, the hooks, and the ist list, you have a full and deep instru­ment with an active and AVAILABLE imagination.

58. STUDY PEOPLE. Okay…this one gets much mis­un­der­stood, the old: “I spent the day at the cof­fee shop study­ing peo­ple.” Uh huh. But what were you doing? Study peo­ple behav­iourally, mean­ing, study their phys­i­cal behav­iours and then trans­late them into actions you can do. From that, deduce their under­ly­ing psy­chol­ogy, and trans­late THAT into actions that you can play.

For exam­ple: the girl work­ing at the cof­fee shop won’t look at you when you’re order­ing, and when she makes your cof­fee, whips the hell out of the steamed milk, mer­ci­lessly. But, she seems like she’s exhil­a­rated by her actions. After leav­ing the cof­fee shop, I re-​enact her vio­lent milk whip­ping and real­ize that she’s dom­i­nat­ing and con­trol­ling that milk because she feels she has no strength or con­trol in the real world, which is the rea­son she doesn’t look me in the eyes when I order. Write this down. Prac­tice it.
By the way, THAT is what you should be doing while you wait tables, or dur­ing your eight hour shift at Video World. And…

59. PRACTICE CHARACTERS. Imag­ine the cof­fee shop girl in the real world, par­tially anthro­popho­bic (afraid of peo­ple) and a con­trol freak of any­thing out­side the sphere of other humans. Spend an hour act­ing in her shoes, going to stores, inter­act­ing with peo­ple. And…

60. STUDY PICTURES OF PEOPLE. Por­traits at the museum. Pic­tures in a pho­to­jour­nal­ism book. Shots you found in a box at the flea mar­ket. Study a Rem­brandt and fig­ure out the behav­iour behind the por­traits. What are they doing. Find their action. Dis­cover their voice and man­ner­isms. Write their story. Bring them alive.
Talk­ing about character…

61. LEARN A NEW ACCENT. My favorite tapes are the David Allen Stern Act­ing with An Accent series. Get good at them. Most importantly…

62. LEARN PSYCHOLOGY. We are cre­at­ing real life on the stage or screen. Real peo­ple with real psy­chol­ogy. Know that all peo­ple are in con­tra­dic­tion with them­selves. Know that choices are often sub­con­scious. Read about peo­ple and their choices. One way, is to…

63. GO TO THERAPY. I’m not kid­ding. Explore your thoughts and ana­lyze your­self with an objec­tive point of view help­ing you. It will not only help you, but open the world of psy­chol­ogy to you.

64. LISTEN TO PEOPLE. Your job is to tell people’s sto­ries. Live people’s sto­ries. So? Ask peo­ple their sto­ries! The elderly. The bus dri­ver. The lady who sells you muffins. Your grand­mother. Absorb all the infor­ma­tion you can. Ingest the world around you. On that note…

65. GET CONNECTED. Unplug your ipod. Turn off your tele­vi­sion. Roll the win­dows down on your car. Look peo­ple in the eye. Take in the world. You want to be an actor who lives truth­fully on a stage or screen? Then go for walks and PAY ATTENTION to the truth­ful lives around you.

Good luck. Have fun.

Matthew Har­ri­son