Bring on the Onions
As an actor, a part of the job is to be "emotionally available." Growing up, I remember riding the school bus and this girl showed me how she could make herself cry. It was pretty cool!
But being an adult, living in this city, I for one, hold everything in in my daily life. I put up walls so as to not be affected. The emotion I probably show most is anger/frustration, especially in the daily commute to 34th Street. And that makes me sad. I want to be compassionate but it's not easy when you're pushed and shoved and you're lugging the world around in your pocketbook. I always think of the film "The Pianist" and how Adrian Brody nobly walked through the crowds in Nazi Germany - so much compassion.
I read a poem at my grandfather's funeral. I held it together, "performance-perfect." Then I sat back down and cried. When I saw my chiropractor back in New York who'd seen me through the year leading up to his death, she'd asked how everything went. I said, "We held it together pretty well." And she was like, "Why? Why would you not sob and get it all out the one time in life when it counts?" Public displays of emotion are frowned upon where I come from, I said.
Yesterday I read sides with my girlfriend at work for her on-camera class. She was playing a character who'd been raped and she started to cry a bit when we were reading through to go over the lines. She was so connected, so "there."
When I was in college, I remember being in a play, and the director wanted me to come out with tears streaming down my face. I didn't deliver. I didn't know how. I like to think I'm much more trained now than I was then, but I haven't really been called to do something like that since. You never know when you'll need your "tricks."
Sometimes I cry at movies. I cried at the end of "La Vie En Rose." But what really chokes me up are awards shows. Seeing people win awards in theater, tv and film. Knowing what it took for most of them to get there. It kills me. It's hard to make art. And it's even harder to "sell" it. But when you get to be a part of something truly great, there really is nothing like it.
Bring on the onions.
But being an adult, living in this city, I for one, hold everything in in my daily life. I put up walls so as to not be affected. The emotion I probably show most is anger/frustration, especially in the daily commute to 34th Street. And that makes me sad. I want to be compassionate but it's not easy when you're pushed and shoved and you're lugging the world around in your pocketbook. I always think of the film "The Pianist" and how Adrian Brody nobly walked through the crowds in Nazi Germany - so much compassion.
I read a poem at my grandfather's funeral. I held it together, "performance-perfect." Then I sat back down and cried. When I saw my chiropractor back in New York who'd seen me through the year leading up to his death, she'd asked how everything went. I said, "We held it together pretty well." And she was like, "Why? Why would you not sob and get it all out the one time in life when it counts?" Public displays of emotion are frowned upon where I come from, I said.
Yesterday I read sides with my girlfriend at work for her on-camera class. She was playing a character who'd been raped and she started to cry a bit when we were reading through to go over the lines. She was so connected, so "there."
When I was in college, I remember being in a play, and the director wanted me to come out with tears streaming down my face. I didn't deliver. I didn't know how. I like to think I'm much more trained now than I was then, but I haven't really been called to do something like that since. You never know when you'll need your "tricks."
Sometimes I cry at movies. I cried at the end of "La Vie En Rose." But what really chokes me up are awards shows. Seeing people win awards in theater, tv and film. Knowing what it took for most of them to get there. It kills me. It's hard to make art. And it's even harder to "sell" it. But when you get to be a part of something truly great, there really is nothing like it.
Bring on the onions.
posted by Girl Ray @ 10:04 PM
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