Just think about it. The first thing we do in the morning is decide who we’re going to be that particular day ... let’s start with wardrobe. Some of us shouldn’t be trusted picking our daily costumes, but that’s another blog about fashion police. Today, I am a sophisticated woman dressed from head to toe in Santa Fe peasant chic. My boss doesn’t like it when I show up to work that way, but I don’t care, because I am ANACTRESS! I get to be whoever the hell I want to be.
Let’s be brutally honest here, shall we? When you have a first date with someone, neither one of you are being who you really are. Your role is the perfect woman or man who is faultless, fashionable and fun. Lights, camera, rolling ... ACTION! Some of us are bad actors when presented with this scene. We accidentally let slip that we’ve (and this is the royal ‘we’) been married three or four times, but the marital discord was never our fault. You’re acting, remember. You can make up a back story, rewrite your lines to align with whatever your date is saying ... “Do I WINDSURF? Are you kidding? Since I was big enough to get on a surfboard.” (D windsurfers use surfboards?) ...you get the picture here. It’s not until he actually tries to take you windsurfing that he realizes just what a great actress you were, because you didn’t realize that an actual sail was involved in this sport.
Picture how you’d act given this scenario: When someone hands their baby to you because they’re sure you want to hold it, only it has shat in its diaper and the odor immediately triggers your gag reflex because some of it has gotten on your arm. What do you do? Act as if that baby is the cutest little thing, and take that clothes pin out that you’ve been keeping in your purse and snap it on your nose, complaining about allergy season. Do they even make clothes pins anymore, whatever, stick Kleenex up each nostril, using the remainder to deftly wipe the shit off your arm without vomiting, and you can still complain about your allergies. Or, for God’s sake, hand that baby back and tell the mother that her child smells like a cattle feed lot in Lubbock when the west wind blows. You have acting options, see?
Sal is an acting coach, so I’m pretty sure she can come up with some handy tips for our every day acting jobs. I hope you get the part!
I did.
KK
***************************
Yes, I am an actor. I was teaching a class last night and one of the lovely, young actors called this magnificent compulsion ‘both a blessing and a curse.’ When you are an actor you have a hard time containing yourself. Your laugh is a little louder than others, your tears flow more freely, and you have a finely honed radar for free food. That’s because making a living as an actor is like being an alligator in the Sahara dessert. You might find enough water to roll around in, but it’s likely that a camel already pooped in it. I liken that camel to the big-talking name-dropper who promised you a part in his next movie and then turned out to be a second-rate salesman at the ‘Ugly Car Rental’ pagoda in the airport parking lot. The budget for his next big movie is the five thousand dollars he’ll charge on his mother’s credit card, and the cinematographer is the guy who set up his cardboard rose arbor to take pictures at the last Austin High School prom. But I digress …
Who shall I be today? Shall I be smart and wear black, with strands of turquoise and silver, talk about how tacky the art in Santa Fe has become, and sip on a Manhattan for an hour at The Four Seasons while posing like Katherine Hepburn on the gray velour couch? Or … should I don my Michael Kors jeans, ostrich-skin boots and frazzled cowgirl shirt with the snap buttons, and go two-steppin’ at the Broken Spoke? The latter is more expensive because of the ten Lone Star Beers and plate of brisket and French fries big enough to feed everyone at the Four Seasons Bar AND the valet parkers out front. Both are valid characters because they are both me … and yet—not.
