The Great Acting Blog: “Acting Is An Illusion”

The Great Acting Blog: “Acting Is An Illusion”

The character is an illusion created in the mind of the viewer by the juxtaposition of the intentions of the actor and the fiction of the script. The character is not real. Macbeth is not real. Jaws is not real. Hannibal Lector is not real, Anthony Hopkins didn’t really eat all of those people. If the character in the scene gets drunk, the actor playing the character doesn’t need to get drunk in order to do  it – no, they act, using technique they create the illusion of drunkeness. Creating illusions is what actors do.

There are those that say otherwise, that acting technique is little more than tricks, that any actor who doesn’t do the thing in the scene for real, is a fraud. These people say, for example, that if tears are required for the scene then the actor must cry “real” tears. This is a gross misunderstanding of the art of acting. Let me be clear: any “emotions” which are not created organically by the actor’s attempts to do their action, are a lie. Those tears squeezed out at the director’s behest are a lie, they are mere crocodile tears. And if plying the actor with red wine to get him really drunk for that drunk scene is the way to do it, then actors are no longer required because their specialist skills are not being employed.

The truth in acting rests within the actor’s intentions during the scene. His intention is within his control and is something he can commit to. His intention is the truth at the heart a film or play’s fiction. If an actor is to shoot the other actor in the scene, then he doesn’t need to really shoot him with a real gun. He possesses the intent to do so while using a prop gun, and the illusion is created.

Acting is an illusion.

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