When I was training as an actor, a professor with whom I was catching up (having tossed down a few too many adult beverages) looked at me and, unsolicited, asked me, “you know what your problem is?” I was caught by surprised. Picture a deer caught in the headlights… of a 747 landing on a back county road at midnight. I didn’t say anything. I just blinked… maybe.
“I’ll tell you,” she went on, “you’re afraid of looking stupid.”
I was silently indignant. No, I wasn’t. I was getting work. I just finished the run of a large musical. My equity card was on it’s way. But she was right.
As long as the character was cool, sang really pretty ballads with super high notes, and was “normal”, I could pretty much land the part. It was the characters who were different, the ones that were gross or ugly or “not smart” I had a problem finding. Granted, I didn’t really go for those parts, but the problem was bigger than just what jobs I was, or wasn’t getting.
The real issue was that I couldn’t make the bold choices. I didn’t want the audience to confuse the things the character did on stage for me as the actor. Isn’t that the point though? Don’t we, as artists, want the audience to believe who we are on stage?
Fear reaches into every aspect of our craft if we allow it. To be a successful, marketable, and wide-ranging artist, one has to be brave. At some point you have to stop worrying about what people will think of you and just do it. The fact is, the bolder the choice, the more the audience loves you. Small choices, choices well within our comfort zone, project a level of discomfort with being on stage that an audience can feel.
Be brave. Don’t worry about what people will think. The truth is, they like you more when you’re willing to open up and share the raw parts of yourself.
Life in the theater is only kind to the courageous and the passionate. It is terribly cruel to the timid.
