Sorry, But Acting Has Got Nothing To Do With Being Realistic | The Great Acting Blog

Following on from yesterday’s post about directors who manipulate actors in order to get a “real” response from them. I want to go further and say that not only  is manipulation wrong, but it’s objective, namely this “realism”, is beside the point.

Why?

Because acting has got nothing whatsoever to do with “realism”.

Let’s face facts: the actor’s performance (or the character) is an illusion created in the mind of the viewer by the juxtaposition of the actor’s actions and the fiction of the script. If you’re going to make a film about a man-eating shark, you don’t need to get a real shark to really eat your actors. No. You need to create the illusion (through the performances, special effects, camera work, sound, etc) that the actor is being eaten.

So called “realism” is irrelevant, what counts is whether the work is true or false. If it rings true, then we, the audience, will suspend our disbelief and buy into the ruse – we will accept that the man is being eaten by the shark. If the work is false, we will reject it (although our instincts often fight this rejection in the interests of having a good time). Jaws is not real. It uses a plastic shark controlled by humans and wires, and yet it scares the pants off us. Why? Because it rings true to us.

An actor’s performance can only make us laugh or make us cry if it is true. This truth should be the object of all the actor’s work.

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