Act Your Face Off

I have been taking an on-camera class recently to get some more practice at the whole TV/Film audition thing.  It's been great so far and I already feel WAY more prepared to deal with that portion of the industry than I did before.  One of the many wonderful things the casting director who teaches the class has said is, "Just go in there and act your face off." Love it.  

But that's not really the point of my story.

The point of my story is that the studio where I am taking these classes is in one of those very NYC multi-purpose buildings with very slow, finicky elevators and 11 different completely unrelated business on each floor.  My class is on the top floor, so anyone using the elevator to go down from any of the other floors will most likely be met with a car full of actors.

As I was leaving this evening, the elevator stopped on the fifth floor and a man a woman who were clearly closing down their office for the day got on.  They took one look at us all and their eyes sort of widened like they were a little frightened of us or something. The conversation that followed went something like this:

Woman: You all just coming from acting class?

Actor: Is is obvious?

Man: Absolutely.

Me: What gives it away?

Man: Your faces... they're just so... it's like... everything inside you is coming through them.

 

Oh man.  

So apparently we're all brilliant actors when we're just standing in the elevator. It's when we start thinking about it that we screw everything up.  Ha.  

Next time I am wigging out over a side or something I am just going to think about riding the elevator. 

--Sarah Wharton

Comments

[Lira]

Awesome. It's not "act your face off," but "off your act face." Acting is better when it looks like you're not!

[Sarah Wharton]

Lira, you are a genius.