What resonated most with me of everything Tom Hiddleston said about acting, its objective, and his ongoing fascination with it, was what he said about the actor’s relationship with the audience. That is because it has to do with my own interest in reading, not as an act of determining meaning to establish “political” dominance but as an active power we develop in our lives to improve ourselves and them through communication. For him - as, I’d say, a typical British actor in this respect - the territory where actor and audience meet, and where these encounters can suddenly become so intense, is always what I use to call the “human stuff”. In his opinion, the actors’ job is “to represent and investigate human reality”, which is also their joy and their privilege: “You want to be vulnerable and flawed and courageous …”.
The opportunities to be these things in real life are scarce, and, if they come, not exactly gratifying. And, of course, some things we never get the opportunity to execute and examine except under life-threatening circumstances or in peril of grave censure. Nonetheless we want – and need! – to examine them. At least I felt already during my sheltered childhood that it isn’t “true” life if I left all this out. There is a lot of the human stuff that somehow is “in” our lives but never “gets out”. Or which is really difficult to address with other people. But we want and need to share these things nonetheless. As Tom Hiddleston said:
“That’s why we go to the theatre and to the cinema: WE NEED TO CONNECT WITH EACH OTHER. (…) And we all leave with a shared understanding of what we know to be true about life.”
What beautiful words!!! I don’t think it could be expressed any better than this. It is, in my opinion, where the great and, in fact, vital responsibility of actors is located. And it might be the reason why acting in the theatre is still considered to be special - as the original and “genuine” form of acting - which is taken from there onto sets, into films and TV: that – from the actor’s perspective – the audience is there with them. As – from “our” perspective – the actors and their characters are there with us, in the same place at the same time.
And I mean “vital” still in a different sense than ANY cultural activity might be vital. I always felt that the work of great actors with the capability of investigating these truths from “within” and help them get out in the way they do cannot be overrated. I didn’t think, though, that they were themselves entirely conscious of it. From what Tom Hiddleston said about his own motivation for acting - and “live-changing” experiences with other actors' performances - I got the impression that they might be extremely conscious of it. Not just of the responsibility it contains but also of the great PRIVILEGE of being in a position to offer what NOBODY ELSE can offer:
“You are preparing to GIVE a part of yourself that is a very private part of yourself (…) because it is the right part of you that fits him or her for that moment. (…) The actors are lending their souls to this story to create an experience of meaning for all of us.”
Again – this couldn’t possibly be expressed any better than this! Nobody could make ME understand the extreme GRATITUDE I feel for them, doing something like this “for me”, any better. This is also the reason I constantly get into a certain form of overrating. There are certainly lots of occasions where it doesn’t take much work or art or effort on the part of the actor to create this kind of situation where we can be “in it” TOGETHER. To find the right part of yourself and show it. But this is not even the point. In my opinion, what separates a great actor from somebody who - for external reasons like good looks, physical prowess, and confidence - has become famous and successful is that I see proof that they are conscious of this part in producing the text, that they like their responsibility and are prepared to work hard for it. In fact, the more I see them taking this seriously and being prepared to sacrifice for it, the more impressed I get – and CONVINCED that their work will result in the kind of moments of truth I seek. Not least because actors I like appear to feel the same about it. Easy success is great, of course, but it also feels faintly suspicious. The spirit is always to be PREPARED to have to give everything you have.
(Not so strangely, maybe, this appears to be how I feel about life in general. It is great when everything runs smoothly, but never for a second take this for granted! When shit happens, never complain or despair but grit your teeth and do whatever it takes!)
The reason why I value this activity so highly is that I experience how it DIRECTLY benefits ME. There is nothing, in my experience, as healing as the feeling of sharing part of my own truth with another human being. It may happen that I feel so connected in real life when I finally get round to talking with somebody about THEMSELVES - not the weather, corona, the job, or the series we are just watching - but it is seldom as perfect and gratifying as it is when I am reading. And even there is a world of a difference still when somebody is “interpreting” for me in such a competent manner, helping me to make the experience MORE TRUTHFUL. My most recent example: Listening to “David Copperfield” read by Richard Armitage makes me aware how completely I can share the human stuff in this novel following his vivid and compassionate reading, and how much more tedious and less efficient this would have been just reading it by myself. (And – as I am not really into Dickens myself – there is no way I would have realized how FUNNY it is! Genuinely “humanely” funny – without exposing the characters to ridicule.)
Quite often it probably isn’t such a big thing to create this kind of situation. Mostly just me being ready for it. Nonetheless the actor takes the primary responsibility for its TRUTHFULNESS. And there are these cases where this special relationship really is a big thing. They are, of course, where there is most gratification for actors through their work. It is also a kind of relationship that only actors can have in this way and that therefore must appear strange to “mere mortals”.
I just had the opportunity to witness one of these relationships – though, of course, only from the outside, but, I believe, as closely and comprehensively as it gets. That was when – on “anniversary weekend” – I finally got round to listening to the interview Richard Armitage gave about “The Crucible” on the stage of the Old Vic during the time when they were still playing(, which is also on “Digital Theatre”.) Having watched the production the night before, the first thing that was so obvious was how the real person of the actor was altered by the character he was playing. This was clearly about half Richard Armitage – mostly in his professional capacity talking about John Proctor and, of course, a little as the private person having feelings and personal experience about it to share – and half John Proctor, his physicality and state of mind influencing the way of talking, thinking, feeling, being “himself” … I have seen something like this quite a few times – conveying the impression of actors as some kind of chameleon people: never quite the same when you “meet” them again – but never like this! He had said before that he knew that playing John Proctor would change him as a person, and I believed him because my first impression seeing him in the cinema as this character had been about how much he had GROWN in confidence. But I never quite understood what he meant – until the interview. I couldn’t have, as he himself said he wouldn’t know until all this was over. BUT, as he said, there was SOMETHING. He had realized that a lot of John Proctor was about things he was afraid of about himself, and already he wasn’t afraid anymore!
(Not for the first time I was pleasantly shocked. Not just because this was what I had SEEN. Of course this has been how I came to take a personal interest in him because, in this respect, I am exactly the same. I relish to say this kind of personal things to other people – and would probably do so in public if there was an occasion – because this is exactly the kind of thing I can talk about TRUTHFULLY and have therefore any business to talk about. And wouldn’t give a damn about anybody judging me, knowing that I have spoken the truth!)
Apart from this, I was impressed with the consciously and carefully managed relationship with his character whom he thanked every night for having been there. (Understandably – because the special worst nightmare for an actor must be the character suddenly losing interest and terminating the relationship BEFORE the show closes! Like in real life: being polite and grateful certainly never hurts. 😉) He needed this moment of expressly distancing himself from the character and getting back to being himself, but couldn’t “put him to bed” entirely to get on with his own life because he knew he would need him the next day.
When I wrote my “fan fiction” and “was” Balin, I got used to Balin reliably showing up whenever I found the time to write. Still, I knew what a privilege that was. I was certainly grateful! And these relationships between fictional characters and real people are a source of endless fascination for me. But even though the relationship with my narrator got unexpectedly intimate, there is still a considerable difference in “real life quality” between writing “inside” a character and being this character in the way great actors can be. At least in my experience, “written” characters do stay within the text.
I am really pleased to have been able to finish this seminar on acting and officially thank Tom Hiddleston for the great input! But the best thing he said, and the most useful for me, I saved for last. It was how he described his relationship with Shakespeare. Obviously, he is the same kind of “real life philosopher” I am – who likes to look kind of systematically at what is going on inside himself - just less verbose and more efficient. I think he figured out what makes Shakespeare so special for so many people. And this I plan to write about in my next post – getting back to SHAKESPEARE at last! (One of the many things I have been looking forward to for a long time …)
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