Actor-Enlightenment

The term ‘enlightenment’ is bandied about a lot.

Probably not something most people will get to experience in their lifetimes. However for an actor, there is something I’d like to call “Actor-Enlightenment” which I’ll argue is not only well within reach, but ultimately the goal of every actor.

The job of an actor involves embodying different character realities, in other words; a head-to-toe energetic “possession” which I believe happens without “effort” once prompted with an understanding of something “core” to the character’s reality. A belief like “I’m not someone good things happen to” can align the body/mind of an actor into a certain “shape”. This shape once allowed to take over the body, automatically creates attitudes and relational stances including voice and holdings in the body. Even the look behind the actor’s eyes is altered and projects a different reality.

I am a believer that the core skill of an actor is this energetic skill of jumping in and out of different character realities. This happens not through the intellect or through control and planning, rather through an awareness of the actor’s own humanity experienced through the wisdom of the body. Exploring what if feels like to be stuck in ones own “crazy” and limiting beliefs and habitual feelings, how they shape our lives, bodies, voices, relationships and careers.

The leap the actor makes is to leave all their own “stuff” behind and “jump into” a whole other way of experiencing reality.

As this process is repeated, the actor looses some of the seriousness and attachment to their own “drama”. They begin to live bigger lives more in line with their essence. They play more notes on the piano of human-experience within their being than the few their own character experience has limited them to.

This is Actor-Enlightenment