Tell Me What to Feel, Please (Graduate School Update)

Dec 30, 2009 by newkindofclown    No Comments    Posted under: Attitude, Thousands of Stories, Three Actors

This will be brief but I thought I would share some advice I got from a very good friend (and actor currently attending graduate school at CALArts).

My graduate school auditions begin in two weeks. I still am deciding on pieces and need to hunker down and get working on them like a crazy person and yet, I am oddly calm. And I went to him, as he is in school currently, worrying that I wasn’t taking this seriously enough or that I ought to feel one way or another about the auditions. Everyone asks you: aren’t you nervous? Are you working like mad? And, I am neither nervous nor working like mad. The entire point of these auditions for me is to first and foremost, have the experience as I continue on the journey of finding and deciding if this is my “actors path.” Either way – my brilliant and beautiful friend told me something both accurate and ever-so-inspiring in the grander scheme of things. He said,

“There is no way you are supposed to feel. You just are what you are, you are where you are, and you will feel what you will feel.”

This advice is incredible for acting for the best performances, no matter how trained or prepared you may be, are nothing if not honest and present. And, in life, this advice goes even deeper.

Live in the moment.
Breathe.

 ~ Emily

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