You learn quite a bit on accident when you do something over and over again. I’ve been making a movie every day this year which also means I’ve been acting a lot of those days as well.
I think I have a tendency as an actor to have an ‘on’ button and an ‘off’ button of sorts. Kind of like a thick black line I can draw really well when I decide: ‘now I’m acting’.
Being in the practice of acting almost every and editing my own performances into films, I’ve been able to stretch this ability.
In the edit, I’m finding moments I didn’t think I was ‘acting’ but are very character revealing. Little moments that I end up using in the end film that teach me to experiment with scales of subtlety.
I’m learning I can make a thick black line sometimes and others just a gentle grey scribble. Pressing the pencil hard is easy to track because you can definitely feel the line being created (you can feel the acting happening).
A subtle look or a small inhale of dread on the other hand are harder to nail down. Mainly because you can’t nail them down, they are organic modalities that arrive when you loosen your grin on the pencil.
