The Great Acting Blog: “Set Your Own Standards”

The test of an actor’s dedication is often this: “how much shit can you eat?” And the measurement of the quantity of shit eaten, is the measurement of that actor’s dedication, ie – the more shit you can eat the more dedicated you are. When the “dedicated” actor finally begins to suspect that what he is doing may not necessarily be in his own best interests and asks a few questions, he may be told that if he doesn’t continue to do “fill-in-the-blank-shit-eating-task” then he is clearly not “serious” about being an actor.

Most actors are dedicated, they have to be because they operate in a highly competitive arena, and most actors want to do a good job (regardless of their ability to actually do so). Further, most actors are optimists because they want to believe in art, and therefore, they will always try to make the best of whatever work comes their way. I remember reading a story written by Steven Berkoff in which he’s offered a part playing the rear end of a donkey in panto at Middlesborough. Initially he’s appalled, but after turning it over in his mind for a while, he decides that he might be able to eek out a few laughs in the role, and decides to accept the offer. And it’s this mindset which can leave the actor vulnerable to exploitation.

Frankly, there comes a point when the actor needs to wise up, and if that point never arrives, then more fool him, he deserves to be taken advantage of. But how can the actor tell if what he is engaged in is the true struggle to create as oppose to some kind of manipulative verisimilitude?

Well, I say he can do this by setting his own standards and measuring what he is doing right now against those standards. Further, under no circumstances can these standards be compromised, regardless of the production or the personnel. In every piece of work which comes the actor’s way, he must be able to discern whether he will able to meet his standards, and if he discerns that he cannot, then he must withdraw his skills and wait for another opportunity. To decline work is counter intuitive for the actor because he spends most of his time trying to get it, but the crucial point here is that the actor must never ever compromise his personal truth. Never. And that’s what the standard amounts to: that the actor has rendered his work truthful. This truth can never be sacrificed in order to go with the flow, and certainly not to appease destructive forces. The actor must step onto the stage or before the camera fully committed, and if he isn’t, then I suggest he refrain.

The height at which the actor sets his standards and his effort to meet them, without compromise, is the true test of the actor’s dedication.