The Great Acting Blog: “There Is No Hiding Place”
Somewhere along the line you’ll get found out. That’s the great thing about acting, it will always find you out. It always reveals the truth, despite our best efforts to hide it. Acting will unmask your true intentions. The lifestyle and the work will bring you face to face with yourself, with who you really are. Question is: will you be able to cope with the clarity? I’ve seen many a solid character brought to near emotional paralysis because of it. The real demand though, is that you can never kick back and put your feet up because the work on self is constant – if you stop that work, then you lose the clarity.
Where can we find peace then? In viewing the struggle as an invitation to commit fully to the demands of our craft and of our chosen form. If the work and life of an actor are about revealing the truth of who we really are, then we need to decide whether what we reveal is going to be rotten or beautiful.
