We
are fascinated by them, and based on the numbers, the ratings,
daily entertainment shows, gossip columns and magazines, we
simply can’t get enough of them: the stars and starlets
of the silver screen. How is it that they are so able to occupy
our thoughts and fantasies and monopolize our conversational
life? Does our abiding obsession with people whom we have
never met, will never know, make the case that we are borderline
batty going on unhinged? Or is our fixation in fact not at
all irrational, but a collective confession that we are fascinated
by people who can persuasively impersonate other people?
The first myth to put to bed is that we are obsessed with
the lives of famous actors simply because they are celebrities,
the beautiful people who vicariously answer to our deepest
longing for recognition and adulation. All of this of course
is to a certain extent true, but that is not the primary reason
why we are consumed by, envious of the life (both on and off
screen) of the actor. What draws us and keeps us locked in
his orbit is his highly specialized power which is the same
in kind wielded by the super heroes we encounter in comic
books, science fiction and mythology. What separates the actor
from his fictional counterpart is that in the real world his
power is observable and palpable. The same skills he uses
on the set are the same he seamlessly employs in his daily
life, which gives him an almost inhuman advantage when it
comes to procurement. It is one thing to be born with charm;
it is altogether something else to be able to manufacture
it at will.
To better understand what distinguishes the actor from the
rest of us, we must begin with what the great actors all have
in common: an extraordinary ability to deliver lines (penned
by someone else) as if they are the living issue of their
own flesh and blood and real life experience. In short, we
don’t believe they are acting, so convincing are they.
The great actors, like elite athletes, are sometimes paid
millions of dollars -- such are their extraordinary skills.
But they are not supermen with super powers, just as we are
not strangers to their art. I am invited to a good friend’s
house for dinner to meet his new wife. She has prepared a
dish that disappoints but I try (projectile vomiting notwithstanding)
to the best of my ability to convince her that I enjoyed her
cooking. Her happiness during the course of the meal and evening
will be directly proportional to my acting ability.
Over the course of a lifetime we all find ourselves in situations
which require performance, so that most of us become -- in
varying degrees – passably adept at pretending to feel
something we don’t feel at all. That said, in our daily
life, there isn’t one of us who doesn’t wish that
he could act better in order to partake of -- with a nod to
Freud’s pleasure principle -- life’s just rewards.
Life teaches us that the spoils of whatever is at stake --
in romance, job interviews, commerce -- go to the best actor.
What separates our small and occasional acting success from
the actor’s is that he is able to deliver the goods
on cue, every time and in every situation, which makes his
accomplishment central to the awe, envy and bafflement aroused
by his gifts.
So how is the actor able to convince himself and everyone
else that he is feeling, for example, a terrible loss, when
in fact he does not, or that he is amused by someone’s
behaviour when in fact he is ashamed of it? How does he execute
this sleight of mind? How is he able to overrule his true
feelings?
As many actors have acknowledged in interviews, the key to
their success is not to act, but to convince themselves into
believing what they are supposed to feel. In short, they are
able to perform a psyche job on themselves, that, combined
with practice and natural ability, kicks in on command.
The very specialized expertise wielded by the actor enables
him to supply whatever is emotively required for any given
situation. I am nervous, apprehensive and perspiring profusely
in respect to a particular woman I am meeting for the first
time, and am seriously considering wearing rubber underwear
for the occasion. In this same situation, the skilled actor
(think Leo DiCaprio) has already imagined and rehearsed what
the situation calls for: being calm, charming, sympathetic,
witty and confident. On command, which is the art and discipline
of self-command, the actor, in respect to everything except
his physical appearance, will be able to best answer to what
this woman wants and expects, which is why the actor mostly
gets whenever and whatever he wants.
And if we are all-too-quick to diss the actor for being vain,
arrogant and of gargantuan appetite, we must concede that
it would be foolish of him to refuse or overrule his exceptional
ability since in each and every situation it works to his
advantage. Acting, as an adaptive trait, is favoured by both
natural and social selection, just as envy is our confession
that we want what someone already has for which there is no
cure other than getting it.
What intrigues most of the actor’s competence is that
it serves him equally on the set as in real life, an aptitude
that is not lost on the politician who is obliged to take
positions on any number of issues which he personally doesn’t
subscribe to. The campaign trail is a study or exercise in
stylized method acting that every successful politician must
master. Former President Barack Obama, who took Ronald Reagan’s
acting prowess to another level, states in Dreams From
My Father that he considers himself “a blank screen
on which people of vastly different political stripes project
their own views.” So much for vision and prima facie
evidence that one Edward Gibbon fits all.
It is hardly a coincidence that the great actors give better
interviews than almost any other kind of entertainer. Good
acting requires both exceptional practical and psychological
intelligence when assuming the persona of a character for
an acting role or real life situation. The actor must step
into a complex set of circumstances that includes its history
and emotional underpinnings. He has to analyze and empathize
quickly and convincingly, and make us believe that he is personally
familiar with the entirety of the situation and the persons
who have evolved it.
So who is the actor, or what remains of him if he is inventing
himself in perpetuity? What kind of self does he possess?
It would be a mistake to conclude he has no self, or center,
when in point of fact he has only decided that his center
doesn’t serve him well. For practical reasons, he chooses
not to be himself since it doesn’t work to his advantage.
His true or real self only manifests when he is alone and,
over time, in intimate friendships and relationships. Some
actors are wary of close or long-term relationships because
once the true self has been outed, it cannot be put back in
the closet. Since everyone would rather be liked than not,
and actors are exceptionally able to obtain that result, we,
too, should be guarded in our relationships with them until
we are able to distinguish the real person from the act. Acting
is like a magic act; it only works so long as you don’t
suspect it or haven’t figured it out.
Before we accuse the actor of being inauthentic, we must bear
in mind that nature blesses adaptability. Human beings are
uniquely malleable and existentially responsible for the selves
they choose to become. An insecure, complex ridden person
who over time rejects his centre (his ‘real’ self)
and refashions himself into his opposite and is rewarded for
his efforts cannot be accused of being inauthentic for his
praiseworthy adaptability. Our real selves are constantly
evolving to best answer what a particular situation requires.
“Man learns when he disposes everything he does so that
it answers to whatever essentials are addressed to him at
any given moment” writes the philosopher Martin Heidegger.
Like no one else, the actor embodies this exceptional competence.
Am I a hypocrite if I am able to convince someone that I feel
his or her pain if I really don’t since I will be rewarded
with this particular person’s friendship and respect
which I deem essential for my well being, or, if I pretend
to my boss that I enjoy my work when I really don’t
if the rewards impact positively on my sense of self-worth
and family life? Our true selves and centers are constantly
in flux.
More than anyone, the actor is exceptionally positioned to
ask the largest questions of self-hood (authenticity) because
being-himself and not-himself occupy the same place in time
and trace the same gestures. So when we take exceptional interest
in the moments of an actor's life both on and off screen,
we have created an opportunity to question our own selves,
since our awe and envy point to a lacking (inability to act)
in oursevles from which -- by constitution or act of will
-- the actor is spared.
Nature blesses all life forms that, chameleon-like, can change
their appearance and/or behaviour to maximize their advantage
in any given situation. That actors are able to command millions
of dollars and the attention of millions around the world
speak to their preternatural adaptability as well as our very
proper obsession with their exceptional gifts.
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