Actors are a strange breed. We have a lot of peculiar idiosyncrasies and rituals that may perplex Muggles (in this context, non-actors). If you are an actor, chances are you have been accused of the following:

1. Talking to yourself

People stare at you like you’re insane and you have no idea why until you realize that you’ve been talking to yourself. Maybe you're running lines. Maybe not. Either way it’s unsettling for passersby even in New York where no one is surprised by anything. It's good that you don't always need other people to be entertained. You like being alone contrary to the stereotype that actors crave attention all the time.

2. Performing a one-man show of a play in your room at 2:00 a.m.

What’s playing at the Insomnia Repertory Theatre this evening? A one-woman dramatic reading of “The Children’s Hour!” You play all the parts with nuance and you begin to wonder how this play was ever produced without you covering all the tracks. It starts to feel like that Bugs Bunny episode where he's playing every position in a baseball game and winning by a landslide.

3. Practicing crying and laughing

Actors, when alone, practice crying on command or thinking of “particularizations” that will trigger the tears. This also goes for laughter, which is even more difficult to summon. When you’ve been hearing the same jokes for four weeks of rehearsals, it's nearly impossible to laugh.

4. Stalking strangers (harmlessly)

Otherwise known as ‘people-watching.' Let’s not forget that people-watching literally is stalking and no matter the objective, it’s creepy. However, it is the actor’s job to study people. The key is to study people who don’t know they are being studied so that the observations can be legitimate. Actors find people fascinating and will stare at strangers in search of interesting behaviors or unique ways of moving. Actors listen to the rhythms of normal conversations in order to emulate speech patterns and timing when engaging in a fake conversation on stage.

5. Practicing accents/dialects in public places

Ordering Starbucks in your RP dialect or ordering food in your Irish brogue. The best way to practice dialects is in conversation with real people -- if they look at you like you’re insane, you have more work to do. If they believe you’re actually French or Cockney, then you’re onto something!

6. Doing impressions of your friends…whether they ask for it or not

Your friends have idiosyncrasies or ways of speaking that you are dying to imitate and use on stage. Sometimes you can’t help yourself and unconsciously repeat it back as if you are mocking the person. You're not making fun; you're cataloguing the behavior for your acting arsenal. But try explaining that to your friend and see how it goes over…

7. Writing extensive character bios for a role you don’t have (yet!)

That 25-page speculative passage you wrote on Blanche DuBois’ childhood will definitely come in handy! It wasn’t a waste of time! Also, when you audition for a role and don’t get it, you still have that Word document looming on your computer which reminds you of the job you didn’t book.

8. Changing your physical appearance

Actors do everything possible to “transform” into their character. This includes changing hairstyles and colors, gaining or losing a significant amount of weight, and/or training 10 hours a day to help the audience (at least sort of) believe that you're really a professional ballet dancer or master of martial arts. When you really think about it, this seems a bit drastic for just playing pretend. But actors do it happily, thinking that the fate of the world depends on this one performance.

9. Thinking about how your character would do something before you do it

Wait... how would Hamlet eat this cupcake? Answer: Very slowly and indecisively… or maybe he would just stare at the cupcake for hours trying to figure out the best way to eat it.

10. Absorbing someone’s mannerisms during a conversation

When you're talking to someone one on one, you take on their mannerisms and catchphrases like a chameleon. It's like the mirroring exercise, except the other person isn't expecting you to become them over the course of your discussion.

11. Acting like there's always a camera on you

It’s a strange skill to learn -- trying to seem like you don’t know you're being watched, when there's a camera just inches from your face. It’s also a difficult skill to turn off once the cameras stop rolling and the audience is gone. You find yourself using “good technique” in everyday life, like finishing your sentence before you place a glass on the table or closing a door before you speak. After learning how to properly use actions to punctuate your lines, you apply this to real life! You pretend like you're always being filmed and sometimes you even 'Jim Halpert' to the 'camera' when someone says something dumb.

12. Suffering legitimate hangovers after seeing an amazing play or film

As an actor, you watch many films and see a lot of live theatre. Once in awhile, there are home-runs that stay with you for hours, even days after watching/reading. These plays and films aren’t always tragic either. Sometimes something is so good it makes you furious. Part of that fury stems from the fact that you weren’t involved in making it. I would have sold my soul to be the assistant to the assistant who brought coffee to the set of “Casablanca.”

Actors become emotionally invested quite easily. We don’t understand how other theatre-goers can check their phones during a show or speak about anything else immediately after the curtain falls. We envy their ability to brush it off as we wipe the sweat and tears from our faces and try to process how we're going to go on with the rest of our day (and life). But even though our reaction may be a tad dramatic, we’re grateful that we live profound lives and feel everything so deeply. Actors never want to be accused of having a shallow existence. Acting is about living truthfully under imaginary circumstances and having the opportunity to experience as many worlds and perspectives as possible. All of these weird things are side effects of a quest for truth.