Actor's have to live on faith. I remember my teacher introducing me to the term's "actor's faith." He said it was our magical tool that allowed us to believe in anything so deeply that what ever that thing was became our honest reality and we could then live it for the sake of that play, or scene.
Hasn't that happened with this election? What if not faith got someone like Obama to think he could be the next President? Money? The advice of others? It was sheer faith and will. My gosh folks, this guy has more faith than all of us. So, how did he do it? I know the common answer, but I hate the sound of "he sold us the dream" mostly because selling has become a pejorative to me.
I feel like he showed us what deep faith in a personal vision looks like. Unshakable, remarkable, growing by the minute, faith.
Do you want acting work for the money it brings? Or do you want to relate to the masses all the greatness and feeling you have in your heart? Communicating with many is absolutely intoxicating. When you get that laugh or gasp while you're on stage it's intoxicating isn't it? When you get that laugh or gasp isn't that the audience "voting" for the work you've put in to this play?
Take a lesson from a guy, an underdog, that showed us what it looks like when you're not pretending to be something your not just long enough to get a desired result. This is what it looks like when a person has true conviction for their message and their vision for what they would do with the job at hand should you decide to vote for them.
Would you audition differently if you decided you were there just to really, really, be an actor and not a business person, not a celebrity, not a list of bills that needed to be paid?
I am staggered by the depth of this man's faith in his path. His faith in his value to everyone on the planet. The whole planet! How heady is that? How many of us are that convicted of our value? Would we not love to get fan mail from the whole planet saying our work changed their lives?
Faith is built by you every day. That is to say, it is unless you let the critics and the pessimists invade your psyche. You have the ability, every day, to reinforce that what you do is worthy, valuable, and down right noble. The struggles are always there, the McCains, and Hannity's and Coulters will always there. Are you taking advantage of your private time? Or are you clogging your mental bandwidth with thoughts of being good enough to shut up the critics?
I just stole this from Michael Moore's blog…remarking on Obama's win, he thinks it's our time too.
We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness,
enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be
seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover
the greater truths. When FDR was ushered in with his landslide in
1932, what followed was Frank Capra and Preston Sturgis, Woody Guthrie
and John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange and Orson Welles. All week long I
have been inundated with media asking me, "gee, Mike, what will you do
now that Bush is gone?" Are they kidding? What will it be like to work
and create in an environment that nurtures and supports film and the
arts, science and invention, and the freedom to be whatever you want
to be? Watch a thousand flowers bloom! We've entered a new era, and if
I could sum up our collective first thought of this new era, it is
this: Anything Is Possible.
