The Great Acting Blog: “Our Remarkable Story”

The Great Acting Blog: “Our Remarkable Story”

The actor’s life rarely unfolds in the way we thought it would. We set out with all kinds of ideas in our heads and then we’re rudely interrupted by that thing they call reality. It takes a while to make the essential correction, to hold onto our ideas but also to deal with life as it actually confronts us.

The great joy is that we don’t know what will happen from one year to the next. We actors get to imagine our future then set about making it happen and we do so year after year. It’s not only the work itself which requires enormous creativity then, but the life too. If we no longer pay attention to our imagination or if we stop trusting it, then we are not making use of our most powerful gift, and in the process, severely hamper our chances of achieving all that we want to.

When we take a moment to reflect on the past, we see the pattern wrought by our character, the wrong turnings, the bad decisions, the bits of luck, the good decisions, the disappointments, the triumphs, the lost friendships and the newly found ones. We look back at the lessons meted out to our younger selves, lessons which seemed to be unjustly harsh at the time, but now, with the benefit of hindsight, we see that they were crucial experiences and that without them, we would be much diminished today.

We may rock back with pride for a moment, and enjoy the fact  that we have ridden the wave for so long without being beached [yet].

Then it’s time to get back to work because the story isn’t even nearly finished.

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