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
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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