There’s a recurring frustration in almost every actor’s life, and it has to do with the size and scope of his or her role in any given production. Background players want to have lines, day players want to be supporting actors, supporting actors want to be leads, and leads are often the most miserable of the bunch, for reasons only the Buddha can explain. 

It’s a dangerous trap, and one that I’ve fallen into many times. Rather than focusing on what can be done with the material at hand, we get distracted by wondering why we’re not playing a different role, or worrying that the role we accepted is somehow beneath us. Neither of which is helpful.

Spending time in this head-space pulls us away from making interesting choices in whatever role we’re playing. It’s self-destructive, and it’s unnecessary. There’s the old story about the actor playing a fruit vendor who was given one line, a throwaway in the background, of “Apples! Apples! Oranges! Oranges!” When it came time to shoot, he started his line, “Apples! Apples” then took a bite of an apple, spit it out in disgust, and finished his line, “Oranges! Oranges!” Brilliant.

Stanislavski famously quipped that “There are no small parts, only small actors.” You may or may not agree with that. But one thing is for certain: spending time thinking about what you’re not doing is far less productive than thinking about what you are doing. And that goes beyond just acting, of course…

Actors have to create their own material. Not only is it the most likely way for us to get the parts we want, but the industry is expecting it now. Yes, there’s the old joke that “The good news is that now anybody can make movies. The bad news is that now anybody can make movies.”

Okay, fine. Now that you’ve stopped laughing, let’s move on.

In sports we hear about how “the position has been re-defined,” meaning, say, that a football quarterback can no longer just be a passer, he has to be a scrambler, too. The same is true for actors. We can no longer just be actors, we have to be producers as well. It’s part of what it means to be an actor today.

And it’s not that the technology is here at last, it’s that the technology was here ten years ago. Now it’s in your pocket. Last week I made a short film on my iPhone with some very cool apps while lazing in bed. It had effects, transitions, music and titles. While it lacked a compelling narrative (panning across my bedroom a few times does not a story make… unless maybe you’re French and it’s 1966), it was nevertheless a completed film able to be posted, tweeted, YouTube’d and Vimeo’d, also from the comfort of my bed.

Until the machine comes along that makes movies directly from your thoughts, it’s not going to get much easier. So do it. Create your own material. The position has been re-defined.

As the old saying goes, “When would now be a good time?”

Actors have to market themselves. It’s part of the business. Whether it’s sending out postcards and email blasts from a studio apartment, or having a personal publicist wrangle a launch on the red carpet, every actor is trying to get their sliver of the light.

The practice can get you jobs, or it can rub people the wrong way, it can make a splash, or fall flat, but most likely it will test the limits of how comfortable you are with saying, “Look at me!” It’s not my favorite pastime. And in this, I know I’m not alone.

Despite the call of stages, cameras and applause, actors often struggle to find the right way to promote themselves without feeling embarrassed, or like they’re preening just a little too hard. (This is probably a healthy balance in the end, and should be kept in perspective.) But it does not eliminate the fundamental requirement of self-promotion.

There’s a courteous, above-board way to do these things – send out only items of legitimate interest, respect online etiquette, and so forth – but that still doesn’t help with the question of how to be comfortable with it. To which, unfortunately, there is no single solution. You’re going to have to say, “Look at me!” in some form or another, so best to get used to the idea.

But I would offer this: your self-promotion should have the same care and art that you put into your craft. It’s a kind of mini-performance, a chance to say who you are and show what you do. Do it with the same creativity and individuality you bring to a part and people will ask, “Where can I see more of you?”

And isn’t that the point?

Most people are secretly in awe of actors. It’s true. Despite our narcissism, emotional instability, and poverty, people still admire those of us who stick our necks out in this strange and beautiful way.

And these admirers often ask this question: “Don’t you get nervous?”

When I started out, I was nervous all the time. Auditions made me queasy, performing was the stuff of dread, and I nearly vomited before screen tests.

But after a while the nerves subsided. Part of it was experience, of course, but part of it was that I’d become blasé about it all. And that, it turns out, is a big problem. Not oddly enough, as my nerves went on vacation, my career drifted.

Nerves are a good thing. Nerves = Excitement. Something that is important to you is happening, and your body and mind are responding. If you’re nervous, thank your lucky stars. If you’re not, then find a way to get nervous.

This winter I returned to the stage after a long, long hiatus. On opening night, when the lights came up and I saw a packed house staring at me, I thought I could easily pass out right then and there. But just as I was remembering how to breathe, a little voice in my head said, “You’ll never get anywhere until you do this. So do this, and do it well.”

I don’t advocate becoming a nervous wreck. That’s jut silly. But there’s a healthy dose of insecurity that has to live underneath the cool exterior. So get out of your comfort zone. Do something that will scare you silly. Make sure your art is living in a place where you’re not sure you can handle it.

You can.

(Guest blogging for ActorsAndCrew…)

I watched an actor give a mediocre performance recently. He knew it and we knew it. But when he stepped forth for his curtain call, there was no doubt in his mind: he had been fantastic.

He smiled broadly, nodded to all corners of the audience, whispered “thank you, thank you,” and clasped his hands together in grateful prayer as he folded his body. And as I walked out of the theater, what stayed with me about this actor was not the shakiness of his work, but a feeling that he had, in fact, been fantastic.

It’s an old trick, of course, but worth remembering: leave on a high note. Think you just stank up the room with your audition? Smile brightly as you exit. Sure you just blew the meeting? Shake hands as if you’d just been handed a check for a million dollars. Whatever the case: leave on a high note.

The opposite is also true. I’ve seen people undermine themselves by displaying their own dissatisfaction. I remember seeing some lovely work on a difficult scene last year in a class, only to watch the actress collapse in a heap of self-loathing when it was done. She’d been good… until that point. Then we all had to agree with her: she was terrible. After all, she just told us.

We can’t necessarily always give the performance of a lifetime, and there will be days and evenings when we’re going to stink up the joint. That’s fine. But we do have some measure of control over how it’s all perceived, and ultimately, it’s all about perception.

People will believe what you believe. So believe you’re damn good. Especially at the end.

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An interesting point was raised by Ron Van Lieu in class yesterday at The Actors Center. After offering some notes on a scene from “A Doll House,” the work started up again. After the second go around, Ron noted that the actress had taken his notes and veered straight into “character,” nearly forsaking the content of the “scene.” What she did was certainly entertaining, but it neglected something fundamental.

A little bulb went off in my head. Actors today are trained toward playing character, and we do, in fact, often neglect the scene. There’s little hiding from this.

This is especially true in film and television, where more attention is paid to character elements like wardrobe, stylings, mannerisms, look, haircuts, habits and catchy one-liners, than if a scene is any good in its entirety. Whether something is advanced in the emotional make-up of the character, or whether we learn something beyond simple story points has been rendered nearly irrelevant. It’s a race between plot and character, scene be damned.

The scene, as it were, is nearly dead, rendering our most basic criticism of them as to whether they’re too long or too short. “Too long” means we got the plot point and would like the narrative to move on, “too short” means there wasn’t enough time to get our needed dose of character.

I have an audition coming up, and as I sat in class I ran my lines in my head, searching for whether I’d done any work on the scene. I had not. Several choices about vocal pitch, clothing and a nervous twitchiness had been established, but there was little in my preparation that answered the question, “So, what is this about? What’s going on? What are the points A and B here?” I had no idea, and here I was, a professional actor, studying with a celebrated teacher, suddenly clueless about the basics of my own craft.

But I felt as though I’d been mercifully spared another round of an anguished audition later. I could go back and do my work, properly. If I do the job, the rest follows, and it’s the attention to scene that will separate a mediocre read from a good one. Whether anybody in the room knows what’s going on doesn’t matter. Something will be felt, the way good stitching holds a bad together even as we desire only to feel the smoothness of the leather.

And at any rate, nearly all the classes out there are still being advertised as “scene study,” are they not?

Professional acting is not a meritocracy. There are countless talented actors who toil in obscurity while bona fide hacks saw the air too much nightly across living rooms throughout the land. It has always been thus, and shall always be thus.

Professional ball players might get paid too much, but if you can’t throw strikes, you’ll be sent down the minors pretty quickly. Not so with entertainment. If somebody up there likes you, they’ll make the strike zone fit whatever you’re chucking down the pike. Your only talent could be in getting people to believe you have talent.

It can all lead to a bitter taste in the mouth, and I was reminded of this feeling on two occasions recently. My stories involved genuinely talented people, but certainly no more talented than I, and I was struck by how much their successes brought me to feelings of jealousy and frustration.

In one case, I was acting opposite a part I thought I should have had, and in the other, I read of a friend’s deal to make a film. In a visible business like acting, it can all feel magnified. You often have to watch it glide by on the side of a bus or on the cover of a magazine, or, in fact, unfold right before your eyes. It’s like somebody is having sex with your partner in front of you, and it can feel awful.

Jealousy is one of the sharper thorns to ever poke our sides. Somebody else has something we want, and it sticks in our craw. But until we figure out how to be happy with ourselves, it will forever plague us. For there is always somebody else’s something that we’ll crave. There’s always another missed part, and another friend’s film.

The practice, as always, is awareness, but it’s time to deepen the practice. The awareness only ebbs the tide so much. It’s time to practice genuine happiness for the successes of others, as unnatural an impulse as it can sometimes feel.

So to the two people whose lives I briefly wanted to have, let me say this: congratulations on all your success thus far. More than that, I hope it brings you peace of mind.

I know it’s helping me.

For the Mineralava Musings, this is Edoardo Ballerini.

I’ve been trying to get into the audiobook world for years, and finally broke through, getting two books in one month. What I hadn’t fully understood, though, was how taxing the work can be. The latest volume I’ll be reading is thicker than the yellow pages, and we’ve got to get it done in four days.

After several hours of reading aloud, the mind goes numb. Try it some time and you’ll understand. The voice, too, strains and cracks, but that seems minor compared to losing all faculty for language.

But, forever seeking to understand the intersection of my meditative practice and my professional life, it dawned on me that audiobooks were a gift from the heavens. Not only do I enjoy the work immensely, but the recording sessions are a chance to deepen my practice. Time on the cushion and time in the booth are alarmingly similar.

The body is still, erect but not rigid, for a long period. A quiet comes over the room. The mind wanders, and we are asked to bring it back. We notice our discursive thoughts and learn not to judge them, for the judging simply interferes with the task at hand. And when we rise, and shake the stiffness from our bones, we are transformed.

The world outside moves at a different pace. The sounds seems crisper, the angle of the light more acute. And the mind, though exhausted, is refreshed.

I wonder how many other activities in life are equally similar, or at least have that possibility.  I wonder…

Abundance surrounds me. When I think about the staggering wealth at my doorstep, the endless talents of my colleagues, and the limitless blessings my life has had, it boggles the mind. Even at my lowest points, it seems, a guardian angel descends from the heavens to cradle me.

Add to this my belief that our greatest efforts are the ones that lift others up, it would be natural that I become the most successful person I could possibly be, leading the way for others, showing the world that gifts bestowed can be turned into gifts given. My good fortune could benefit others.

But the embarrassment of riches can easily become simply an embarrassment. Abundance can feel selfish. With so much suffering in the world, who am I to sip an ice blended on a lazy Tuesday afternoon as I pursue a life in the arts? Better that I fail, or at least fall short.

It is painful to admit, but I have lived by this creed for the better part of my life.

The psychological underpinnings of my youth notwithstanding, it dawned on me recently that not relishing in my abundance doesn’t simply leave an absence of good tidings, it creates bad ones. Every day that goes by with a halfhearted attempt, or with the nagging belief that things can’t be achieved, fuels the next, and the next, and gets into air. If success is contagious, so is its lack.

Let us lead, we who are so fortunate. And we can start by living well, pursuing our dreams and the happiness of others at the same time. We must.

In the end, we all benefit…

Actors are perennially in search of two things: affecting an audience, and feeling personally significant. We can debate the order another time. In either case, there’s something relational at play, a need for emotions to stimulate the brain, or heart, or groin. (Again, we can debate the particulars later.)

In the best of circumstances, you’re working, on something you like, and you’re well paid. In these times you walk the earth with a lighter step. Traffic snarls are merely chances to listen to more music, rain is refreshing, and the dim-witted cashier is a person worthy of compassion.

And in the worst of times, the wisdom of a three day waiting period to purchase a hand gun becomes clearer than ever.

I am no stranger to these matters, of course, much as I can elucidate a point or two about them. An assessment of my life can shift depending on the day, or the hour of the day, so that at breakfast I’m King Midas and by lunch I’m Wile E. Coyote, and all that happened in between was a phone call, or lack thereof. It’s a fragile state of affairs.

It need not be so. Caring about one’s work and livelihood is a good thing, of course, but defining ourselves by the decibel level of applause we hear is a fool’s errand.  It will never be high enough, and even Pavarotti had nights where the standing ovations must have felt tepid.

So, where do we go from here? What is the winning shot in the endless volley of good times/bad times? Can we live lives of equanimity and joy, regardless of the external circumstances?

The answer is yes. The art of it lies in defining what we can control, and what we can’t control, and making sure our energies are focused on the former. If the only joy an actor experiences comes from getting the call with the offer, it’s going to be a dark road. If instead, there is equal, or dare I say greater, excitement in, say, putting up good work in a class, then we might have something.

The formula may seem simple, but it’s effective.  It’s also very difficult to master, and no, I am no great master. But I know the road I have to travel, and that may make all the difference…

For the Mineralava Musings, this is Edoardo Ballerini.