I "picture wrapped" on Wednesday, which means that the small role I played was done filming all the lines and scenes that it was in. I spent three days filming, (even though I only had like five lines, and they were all at once, I had background in other scenes), and I think I did a decent job. Nothing spectacular at all, but for a day player, it was good enough to get it done.
I have already written about how much respect I have for actors after watching hundreds of auditions, but now after having actually spent three days filming, I will say this:
Acting is 10x harder than you can imagine, and should be considered an art on par with any other art--writing, painting, sculpture, cinematography, etc.
I can't talk too much about the character I played because I don't want to give anything away. I will say that I only had five lines, they were very easy to remember, and I only had to hit one very simple emotion state, but STILL--it was fucking hard. It's not remembering lines that's hard. It's not even necessarily acting itself that's hard--if you are playing a character whose emotional range is within your own, it's totally doable. There are several other problems that arise that you'd never think about:
1. Concentration: When you do a scene, you have to remember that you are in character the whole time. Everything you do, everything you are, everything about you have to be that character. Seems obvious, right? Try it. Through 25+ takes. If you can maintain it the whole time, congrats, I couldn't. I was probably in about 10 scenes total in one form or another, and at least 30% of the time, I caught myself not being "in character." I was either in the background or not even in frame a lot of that time, but still--I sucked at concentrating on what I was doing. I know it sounds easy, but after ten hours, its not.
2. Repetition: Doing something great once is not easy. Doing it over and over and over again is REALLY hard. Think about it--hit a three pointer 20 times in a row. Or a homerun. Or write 20 amazing memos in a row. Whatever. Summoning your best for one or two shots--that's doable. Summoning it over and over again--that requires not just talent, but real professionalism. That was what made Matt's performance last Friday so remarkable. He did the scene that is the climax of the movie, a long, difficult, emotionally intense and varied performance, like 25 times, and nailed it EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME! I had five lines in the same scene, and I read my scene the same number of times Matt did his, and I nailed it (for me) maybe like three times, had like ten good takes, and the rest were OK to bad.
3. Emotional range: Those first two are part of the difficulty in playing small, normal roles. Once you get into the realm of playing a lead, then you come into a whole other range of issues. I am watching Matt Czuchry go through this right now on this movie. In real life, he could not be less like me--where I am a narcissist, he is incredibly empathetic. Where I am outgoing and boisterous, he is shy and reserved. Where I am aggressive and physical, he is calm and reasoned.
But he is playing me, so he not only has to act, he has to become someone he has very little in common with in his personal experience. And beyond that, he has to play a character that has never really been before in modern cinema. With all those chips stacked against him, he's STILL turning in a transcendent performance, and THAT is the mark of a great actor--to excel even when you are playing a character whose emotional range is outside of your own. [As a side note, I am going to write something about this later, how amazing it's been to watch Matt grow into this character and inhabit it and make it his own. Watching it in rehearsal was awesome, but watching him do it when it counts, on film, is something else. Everyone on set is talking about this--we are seeing a star being born right in front of our eyes. Right now, the only people on earth who know how good of an actor this kid is are the Gilmore Girls fans who watched him steal scenes for three years, but soon, the whole world will know.]
Look, I don't want to go crazy here: There are plenty of jobs that are much harder than acting. But I hear so many people--non-entertainment people, mostly--shit on acting as a profession and say stupid things like, "How hard can that be, I could do that." I used to say those things. People say the same thing about my writing, "I have better stories than him, I could totally do that." My response is always the same: Then do it. I am making well into the six figures, answer to no boss, and do pretty much anything I want. A good actor makes a TON more money than me, gets more women than me, and has even more freedom than me. If you think you can do what we do, and get what we have--why aren't you?
Chances are, it's because you can't. Shit, I can't do what Matt or Jesse or Geoff are doing, or I would. It's hard. That's WHY actors and writers and directors (and top level athletes and rappers, etc) get paid so much: Because the skill is highly valued, and the fact is, there aren't a lot of people who can do it. Lots try, almost all fail.
I am the last person on earth who thinks that, as a group, actors need to be coddled or babied any more than they already are. I HATE when someone thinks that just because they can do some difficult job well, it means they are entitled to be fucking brats who think they can do anything they want. And I don't think actors or artists or athletes or anyone is in any way "better" than anyone else just because they can play a role or throw a ball or write a song. That is NOT what I am saying at all.
But the fact is, being a good actor is not anywhere as easy as it looks, and the next time I think "Come on, how hard could this be," I will check myself and just remember how hard it was for me, and how mediocre my performance was.
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