My Book: Death of the Actor #2

Action Figures & absent audiences

AI Bayliss Action Figure (w/thigh harness!).

Sweet!

Here are a couple more chapters of Death of the Actor: Everything I Never Learned About Nothing. I love all the questions and conversation which emerged from the last post - so comment away!

When reading it, feel free to change the word "Actor" to writer, sculptor, dancer, musician, artist, photographer, knitter, creator or whatever is appropriate to you.

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ACTION FIGURES

There are some humans, or “action figures,” to quote Paul Hedderman, who have the actor “ingredient.” They take on a role—a character—written by a writer who imagined the character and story. The actors connect to the story and the characters through blood and sweat, or whatever means necessary.

Each actor seems to have a process for doing this. They’re either trained in a method, arrive at one through life experience, have a “no-process” process, rely upon intuition, or some combination thereof.

But why? Why such an apparent desire to do this thing called acting? What good is it to be an actor?

There seem to be as many answers as there are actors.

The good/bad news for the actor is; that there is no actor.

(I know, I know, but hang in there).

No me, no ‘actor.’

No purpose, no process, no one enacting anything, and finally —

No audience. (Yikes! Right?)

Ever hear actors say some version of “That wasn’t me,” or “It just came out like that,” or even, “I wasn’t there during that scene”?

It’s a poorly kept secret, this no-actor secret.

BUT WAIT...No audience??!! That’s just crazy!