'You're strange...' 'Why are you so happy?' 'Why can't we hangout?' 'Why are you so dramatic?' 'You're an odd one.' These are statements I hear every day. It's not because I'm a weird, overdramatic, outspoken, strange person. It's because I'm an actress. I have been a performer all my life, and having these traits comes with the territory. People do not fully understand the mind of an actor because we are slightly insane on some levels of humanity. Now this doesn't speak for all of us, but most actors will relate. There are many defining traits that make actors stand out from the crowd.
We're over emotional/dramatic. Whether you got the lead role in a famous play or the store is out of your favorite ice cream; actors make everything a drama. There is not a week in our life when we do not have a mental breakdown of some sort, or we are overly excited about some little thing in our life. Actors are more in touch with their emotions because many times we have to portray these emotions, even if we have never felt them before. We have to play someone who has been through a divorce, been sexually abused, going through drug/alcohol withdrawals, or someone who is dead. On the other hand, we get to portray people who are happy, joyful, funny, or they have a 'so-called' perfect life. We portray a story, a story that we have never experienced before with just the words rolling off of our tongues and the expressions painted on our faces. We are always displaying some sort of emotion, whether on stage or off. Our emotions are stronger than non-actors. We exercise our emotions on a regular basis, so they show more in everyday life.
Actors see the world in a different way, or at least I do. Being an actor has taught me so much about self-awareness — how you say things and the meaning behind it. Reading through a bare script; there are so many different ways you can say a line, whether it's sad, angry, confused, or exhilarated. On the other hand, there are so many different ways you can receive a line, whether you're insulted, offended or excited about what your scene partner just told you. Acting is reacting. Every action that goes on in our everyday world has some sort of reaction, whether it's intentional or not. You might say something funny to someone, but another person might find it degrading. It's all about what you say, how you say it, and how it is perceived by an audience. It's not only words that show meaning; it's the way people walk, the expression on their face, whether they have their arms crossed or not. Being an actor, you become more aware of these emotions in yourself and in other people.
Unless it's tech week, we are always happy. Most actors are very positive people. We have to be because of the type of work we do. It's hard to do a job if you are not happy while doing it. We are always happy to a certain extent. Some of us are super outgoing and always looking on the bright side of things, while others are just slightly chipper. This 'overall happiness' does not condone for all of us. We do have other emotions as well, obviously because we're actors. Some of us are humorous out of pain, just because some actors have had a darker past than other, but actors help actors get through everything together. On the other hand, tech. week is always the most stressful week out of our careers. It's the week that the show, including costumes, hair, makeup, set, lighting, and props all come into play, and eventually the audience joins in as well. This week is the life or death of our show. Whether the show succeeds or fails is up to us. So we put on a smile and we know that the show must go on.
Actors are chained to the theater. We basically live, eat, and breathe theater. With vocal lessons, performance coaching, dance intensives and rehearsals almost every night, we are in the theater almost 24/7. We are always memorizing lines or analyzing a play for an acting class or for a play or musical we are in at the moment. For those moments that you can't find us and you think that we have run away; look in the theater, we are most likely in there. Acting is such a rigorous career to go into that you have to be 100% involved; so that basically means no social life. We give up our social life for something that we love and not many people can say that. Our theater is our safe haven, we can go there when we feel sad, depressed, happy, or tired, but we will always feel welcome there.
Even though actors are slightly crazy, see everything in the aspect of a play, and have no social life, we are giving our lives to our career. Because at the end of the day when we perform on that stage and we hear the roar of the audience at the finale of a show — that's all we truly live for.
