Path Into The Unknown....
"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is"~German Proverb
The past few weeks have been challenging due to the fact that our assignment was to willingly ask people for their opinions on what type of character they could see us portraying. The challenging part is having to be completely open and receptive to whatever may come our way, which I must admit caused some discomfort.
From years before, going back to high school and college acting projects, I've always been cast as a bad guy and more specifically one that is written off in a double cross type of situation. Twice I've portrayed a drug kingpin or mastermind who is killed by being in too deep. Most roles from people that knew me were somewhere along those serious roles: a mobster, a politician, a soldier, a Chuck Norris type of hero, an FBI agent. The part that was even harder was asking complete strangers out of the blue.
Maybe it was because of the change in appearance (clean shaven, fresh haircut) or the more professional attire, but the answers surprised me to an extent. The roles people saw me in were more light-hearted and, to be honest, more in tune with my actual personality. One person said a quirky, funny sports guy at parties, another saw me as more in comedies and two others said a romantic comedy protagonist similar to Kevin James. To be fair, all the answers were correct, one minute I could portray a cold hearted mobster and the next second I could portray a romantic at heart...which I am.
To be fair, once I started asking people for roles, I lost all inhibitions and trepidation that others would abuse the privilege and use it to deliver a punch line or something completely off base that wouldn't even apply or help. But people, even complete strangers, really took to the task and were helpful in providing initial guidance to nail down roles. Turns out I was making an mountain out of a ant mound.
Which ties in to the monologue that I started working on for class. At first I delivered a completely serious rendering of a soldier sharing a funny story that turns into a serious self-reflection of how much of a jerk he was to a loved one. But for the second take with the help of fellow thespian Cecilia, who knew how to improvise on the spot and capture the essence of the scene on cue, I got to play around with turning that into a more relaxed delivery. It still needs some work, but the beauty of it was that it can portray two completely different types of people while still using the same storyline. A dichotomy that most people could relate to once they get past the fear of embracing the complexities of how people relate to them.
The past few weeks have been challenging due to the fact that our assignment was to willingly ask people for their opinions on what type of character they could see us portraying. The challenging part is having to be completely open and receptive to whatever may come our way, which I must admit caused some discomfort.
From years before, going back to high school and college acting projects, I've always been cast as a bad guy and more specifically one that is written off in a double cross type of situation. Twice I've portrayed a drug kingpin or mastermind who is killed by being in too deep. Most roles from people that knew me were somewhere along those serious roles: a mobster, a politician, a soldier, a Chuck Norris type of hero, an FBI agent. The part that was even harder was asking complete strangers out of the blue.
Maybe it was because of the change in appearance (clean shaven, fresh haircut) or the more professional attire, but the answers surprised me to an extent. The roles people saw me in were more light-hearted and, to be honest, more in tune with my actual personality. One person said a quirky, funny sports guy at parties, another saw me as more in comedies and two others said a romantic comedy protagonist similar to Kevin James. To be fair, all the answers were correct, one minute I could portray a cold hearted mobster and the next second I could portray a romantic at heart...which I am.
To be fair, once I started asking people for roles, I lost all inhibitions and trepidation that others would abuse the privilege and use it to deliver a punch line or something completely off base that wouldn't even apply or help. But people, even complete strangers, really took to the task and were helpful in providing initial guidance to nail down roles. Turns out I was making an mountain out of a ant mound.
Which ties in to the monologue that I started working on for class. At first I delivered a completely serious rendering of a soldier sharing a funny story that turns into a serious self-reflection of how much of a jerk he was to a loved one. But for the second take with the help of fellow thespian Cecilia, who knew how to improvise on the spot and capture the essence of the scene on cue, I got to play around with turning that into a more relaxed delivery. It still needs some work, but the beauty of it was that it can portray two completely different types of people while still using the same storyline. A dichotomy that most people could relate to once they get past the fear of embracing the complexities of how people relate to them.
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