The power to shape your own reality moment by moment.  We all can do that every day of our lives.  But, OK, sometimes it's difficult.  Life has a way of getting in the way and doing what it wants rather than what we want.  Although we ourselves ARE life, so I guess we all get in our own way and in each other's way.  

Sooo - that's why some of us turn to acting.  In acting, an actor becomes ever powerful, a magician, creating a life and a world and moments in whatever way she wants.  Fantastic.

Even as actors, we forget how we can do that and how powerful it makes us.  Even as actors we think other people are getting in our way or not giving us enough.  But we have the power to change that in whatever way we want.

This play I'm doing right now has kept me in endless rehearsals, in an endless tete a tete with a group of  cliquish, enunciating, annunciatory (not a real word, I think - so my spell check tells me - but I like the description so I'll use it) actors who never really communicate.  So much talking and so little communicating.  I fear I'm starting to copy them in my acting.  So far, the play has kept me from attending a screening party for an internet  episodic I did, has kept me from editing the film shoot I did on a boat that I can hardly wait to see done, has made me cancel and reschedule yet another shoot for another little short I wrote.  

But - I finally find the time to film the little short anyway.  In between the endless, almost daily rehearsals for the play that doesn't seem to get any less annunciatory or any more real.

A girl in her early 20's in one of my workshops loves my writing.  She's asked me to write a scene for us that we can shoot and  she'll arrange and pay for the shoot itself.  I think it's a gift when someone loves your writing and acting and wants to work with you.  And wants to take care of all the logistics.  Just wants you to be creative.  So I say yes.

I don't know her well.  I look her up and down, trying to gauge her essence, her true spirit, trying to feel out how we can best work together.  

I don't even like her all that much.  She seems bratty, persnickety, a perfectionist.  A twenty-three year old know-it-all with an edge of smugness.  She herself is far from perfect.  Tends to get cold sores on her lips.  Has a wonky eye.   Freckles.   Chubby.  Hmmm, that might be a vulnerability under all the persnickety brattiness.    It might be an "in" into her soul.  I love to explore what makes other people human, flawed, what's behind all the humdrum, fake, I'm-OK defenses they put on for the world.

And there's something in this girl that shows mettle, spirit, determination…

…She got up in front of the workshop once.  Told us she has artificial hips - on both legs.  It's a problem when she's with a guy.  She has to get, well, creative.  Since lovemaking can be difficult.  My heart fell to my feet for her.  Her vulnerability so plain and so real in that moment.  Just a girl with artificial hips and her defenses down.  Before the persnickety thing came back.  People are so danged fascinating when they let their defenses go.

So I say yes.  The artificial hips really got to me.

I decide against using the artificial hips angle in the scene.  I don't know her well enough.  It's too real.  It might crush her.

I use her other weakness - her chubbiness.  I want to  reach her heart, but I don't want to kill her.  And I use one of my own vulnerabilities - my fear of old age and ending up on the street.  I put them together and end up with something a little "Up In The Air-ish".  Perfect casting.  A young persnickety chubby HR girl giving an older single mom her walking papers.  It sounds trite, but I know it won't be.  I've zeroed in on both our personalities, our dynamics together, where we put up our defenses, and where our hearts cry the most.

Day of the shoot - I have to reassure Persnickety that you can't see her cold sore under the lipstick.  Yes, she's grown one of her cold sores - almost overnight - from the stress of doing a shoot.  I know the feeling.  Every time I have a SAG shoot where I'm going to be on real TV, I break out in a huge pimple the night before.  No, not a pimple.  A huge festering boil.  And I never get those.  It always seems to pick a most strategic spot - the tip of my nose - my forehead, right between the eyes, the tip of my chin.    A spot where no makeup can go.

Persnickety takes out her makeup bag and puts on more lipstick.  The cold sore is almost not visible.  

A few trial runs, a master shot, now we're on my closeups.  I've done two.  I feel I'm overdoing it but somehow can't stop myself.  The D.P. who's shooting our scene, a guy Persnickety found on Craigslist, quietly says, why don't you just be more low key about it?  Somehow what he says hits me just right.  I do another closeup and I have all the inner life without having to show it off.  It's there.   Why is it so hard to learn that acting at its best is simple.  Why do I have to keep learning that again and again?  At one point, Persnickety shuffles papers right on my lines - during my closeup.  That pisses me off because she won't stop.  I grab the papers to shush her.  That small movement fills me with rage, grief, anger.   I'm not low key anymore, but the emotional level is just right.  I organically created it in myself with one small movement.  How powerful.  By magic, everything falls into place.  I have that power.  With one small movement.  Always take care of yourself.  Give yourself your power.  Shove a piece of paper.  Grab something.  Hug yourself.  Punch your fists together.  Whatever you've got to do.  Give yourself the power.  And get yourself wherever you need to get.

Later,  Persnickety tells me to do the same for her on her closeup.  Grab the papers from her again.  I say it will make noise during her lines.  She says she doesn't care, do it. Apparently she can't create her own power.  They say if you're fully involved as an actor, you won't need someone else to do anything for you in order to get you somewhere.  But it's OK.  We're all working on it.  It's always more helpful when a fellow actor gives us more.  I do it.  I need to learn to be more generous in my acting.  Give other actors as much as I give myself in my own closeups.  I surprise her, though.  I don't do it the same way I did it before, don't do the exact thing she's expecting.  Her eyes fill up with shock, hurt, surprise.  When she's talking about having been fat as a child, it's all she can do to keep herself together.  It's a beautiful moment.  The tears in her eyes shine like diamonds.  Her mouth with the cold sore softens, fighting to keep control of itself.  She looks beautiful in her vulnerability.  At that moment, cold sores don't matter.

A perfect day of shooting.  Perfect because I connected with an actor in a real way and that moment made its way onto film (well, HD video).  What else can an actor ask for, except more moments like that.

I keep thinking about power.  If I have the power to affect Persnickety, I have the power to affect anyone else too.  Even a death-cold reader reading opposite me at an audition.  And even if they don't get affected, let that affect you.  They're still humans, being cold to you.  And you're still a human, wanting them not to be cold to you.  That's got to affect you.  I'll try not to ever again complain that a casting director or reader isn't giving me enough.  It's in my power to change anything, affect anyone, or do any movement or gesture or preparation that gets me there, so I can affect myself.  I HAVE THE POWER!

Maybe I should remember that when I'm rehearsing my play with those annunciatory actors.  OK, my spell check says stop it.