Acting - Make Believe

Actors get quickly into character of the script during shooting. When in character, his performance is assured. Words, emotions and actions will flow naturally unimpeded.

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As much as it is important for the actor to get into character, it is also important for him to get out of the character.

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During one of my recent film shoot, I played the tough army warrant officer during the day, running around the tracks and collapsing upon an excruciatingly painful torn ligament on the right knee. And as in film making, this collapse had to be repeated many times (at different camera angles), during each time which I was to demonstrate more and more convincingly that I had collapsed due to a right knee ligament injury.

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Then when the shoot ended at 7pm, I had to rush down to another production studio for a rehearsal where I played the sobbing taxi driver father during an emotional separation from his daughter. I managed to get out of the warrant officer role and immediately became a caring sobbing taxi driver father.

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I thought I did well transitioning from one character to another, until the next morning when I woke up with a painful right knee. Apparently, my repeated auto-suggestions the previous day had resulted in a painful right knee manifesting. In other words, I had managed to bluff my sub-conscious that I had a right knee injury and finally really got one!!

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Our mind is powerful. It can believe in something and make that something manifest. So be careful with your thoughts, as positive thoughts manifest, but so do negative ones.

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ps. The pain faded after one day. I had to wish it away!

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