troubleshooting no 1
you are judging other artists
Troubleshooting is a series where I’m going to talk about some of the mental blocks I witness in actors from working with them, and the blocks and problems I witness in myself. It’s a theoretical resource for actors that hopefully will help them think critically about their work but compassionately as well. It’s also about work in general, my own life, and the impact class, trauma and capitalism have on performers. I do not use genai in my work and I never will.
I once watched an actor perform at a place, in an unspecified decade. (You’ll get no gossip from me!) The actor seemed to be totally unaware of what I perceived as the cringeworthy, overwrought performance they gave. After the performance, I met with another actor friend who was there. We talked over coffee about this actor being embarrassingly terrible, and how we really felt for them, because they clearly weren’t going to go anywhere in their career. I still remember the face of my friend cringing about a specific moment in the show and how we talked about what on earth we were going to say to our other friend, who was involved in the show in a different capacity.
That person we bitched about is now internationally famous, known for their role in a huge multi-million pound franchise, and is paid more money per week than I will probably ever see in my entire life.
I feel fairly embarrassed about that judgement now, not because they turned out to be a megastar, but because I don’t really like to make judgements of good and bad anymore. I’m too aware that I can be wrong and that my judgments of other people’s work are a balm for my own insecurity and pride. Judgements are mostly, functionally shit, beyond making for good gossip. Besides, a performance might be technically bad and have huge artistic merit. A lot of the time I struggle to judge a bad performance as bad, because now I’m more interested in the person and whether their work is a personal expression of something inside them... I also have had a lot of bad days as an actor in my life, and seen other, more talented people also have bad days. Now when I watch an actor and I see them faltering in some way, I’m usually looking for the current between them and the audience, and what their choices say about who they are, what might be happening to them in the circumstances they are in.
I don’t think I was right about that actor either, given that I was in my twenties and I wasn’t right about much in that decade… I clearly missed something about them, or maybe they reminded me of someone I didn’t like. Reflecting on how wrong I was and how much other people loved this person, I realised that experience could free me from all the rejections I had experienced in the past. Not just in my career but in my life. The no’s I have had are not universal truths about me, they are perceptions from people just like me, fallible, fragile, fragmented ideas of who someone thought I was, based on ten minutes with me, and their projections. And this unfortunately was also true of a lot of the ‘yeses’ in my career too. I think a lot of us undersell the fact that as actors we often get cast because we remind someone of someone else they like; another actor, a friend, an ex girlfriend or partner… Some of the most successful actors in this business are very very very charming, if you spend just ten minutes with them.
Letting go of judgment of other actors is realising the horrid subjectivity of life and how frequently wrong we are about each other. It is a letting go of control. If I’m perfect, nobody will think this way about me. It’s also about releasing yourself from the judgments others have made of you. There may be things that people have said to you, or done to you, that you are still carrying around as truths right now, that are limiting you. They are keeping you in a specific reality. I am not going woo-woo, ‘our thoughts create our reality and you can manifest your way to being Bryan Cranston and being a genius and having your own tequila brand’. Some people aren’t seen as romantic leads because of their disability, body type, or race, our economic status has a huge impact on how much we can show up for work, and so much is out of our control. But I do think it’s true that the limiting beliefs we have about who we are show up in the choices we make about a character, and our own ability to take pleasure in our work.
I spent a good chunk of my life in a victim mentality. It’s something I still struggle with now. But now I’m aware of it, and how my life has impacted my work, I am a much better actor. I can see shades in myself and bring out new ideas in characters and scripts that I couldn’t have 10 years ago, thanks to letting go of some of these judgments about who I am and who I was scared to be. I also enjoy what I do a lot more.
I have seen first hand how something one person says to us fifteen years ago can be central to our emotional tapestry, and when it’s unpicked, the whole reality comes down! Suddenly the tapestry can add a whole new ten metres of thread. It’s an earth shaking moment as an actor and as a person. Is acting a sport or an art? Often it’s treated as a sport, competition, comparison, who is the best… I am seeing it at the moment as a weird amalgam of the two. I really do wish it was solely art, but it cannot be untethered from the trappings of success: who books what and who gets to do it on film sets, stages, booths, and that’s what also makes it a sport. Regardless, our inner tapestry has nothing to do with the sport; part of what is so amazing about our work; it cannot be separated from our experiences as a human being. As we develop as people and let go of judgments that once consumed or obsessed us, we do become more interesting artists. (Or at least, in my eyes we do... For all the good one person’s judgement can do.)
If you’re still thinking Tilly I will let you pry my right to judge other actors from my cold dead hands, fair enough, but do think about how it impacts you in your work.
If we are working opposite someone whose work we think is bad, and we then get into judgments about them, it can very quickly turn into an excuse around our own work. I have seen actors absolutely torpedo their own performances from the exhaustion of carrying the weight of the judgement they had towards the actor opposite them.
Meanwhile the actor who (may be) technically “bad” is having a very merry time, and you are fucking up your own performance. Working with an actor who listens, and whose performance inspires you, compared to working with one who lives in their own bubble and has nothing interesting to convey, is the difference between flying first class and flying in the luggage compartment. I sympathise. It’s deeply frustrating when we know how beautiful first class is. But we still have to fly on the plane. (If we are lucky enough to have a job.)
If we are out of work, it can send us doolally. Why did they get that part, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… Ad Nauseum. It’s boring. You didn’t become an artist to judge other people, you became an artist to sleep with people or get revenge (I cannot remember where this bit comes from but it’s not me, I think it’s from a tweet that I cannot find…) Nonono, OK, darker manifestations aside, we want to express things and enjoy the connection we have with the people watching us express things. That’s why we’re doing it. Right? Something like that.
Til next time!