Have you ever met an actor who would admit to being ugly? There aren’t any.
Even when playing an ugly character, an actor must portray the role through their own beauty.
An actor is always somehow beautiful, because you can see the child they were, mixed with their pleasure of growing up. When an adult still has something of childhood, beauty is nearby.
If an actor carries with him some of their childhood, they will always captivate. If they drag around the world of adults, they’ll be thrown out with a big kick in the ars. And rightly so. Acting demands a special kind of beauty, one that everyone has but few show. And why don’t they show it? Because they don’t trust it. Because, like all idiots, they don’t trust simplicity.
When the doctor comes to examine a patient, he listens to their heart. If his heart is no longer beating, he says he is dead. It’s the heart that beats the rhythm of life. I’d say to the actor, ‘listen to your heart. It’s still beating, and as long as you can hear it, there’s hope. Your heart beats the rhythm of your life. Don’t listen too much to the reasons why; they argue with your heart all day long. The bla bla bla kills the heart’s impulses. That’s what they are there for – the heart’s impulses are wild, solitary, very beautiful – they give the ‘la’ (music note) to your movements.
Welcome to the school of pleasure. Here,at our school, you won’t learn that misery helps you when performing tragedy. You will learn that it’s the joy of life that drives you to play tragedy. No one will ask you to remember someone you loved and lost, someone you bitterly regret. Instead, they’ll ask you to remember the love you had for them, and how that gave you wings—that alone is enough to act well and bring the emotion to the show that tragedy calls for . In theater, it is always pleasure that drives the actor and the character. There are no good Mormon characters – born from gloom.
Careful ! This is the school of discovering one’s pleasure while playing. If you’re boring like an old merguez sausage that’s waited too long to hit the frying pan, you’ll never earn enough money to afford even a ham and butter sandwich. And let me tell you, a ham and butter sandwich feeds neither the woman nor the man who eats it. It just makes everyone sad.
Kisses, PG.
By Philippe Gaulier 27 OCT 2024