thursdays with cameron

 

Class One

Cameron: I don’t know when it started but somewhere, you made a decision that... You were not an extraordinary…beauty, who’s capable of moving people with physical and emotional beauty. Right? Every time you step on stage, some part of you tries to make that lack of beauty true.

The actor nods …

Cameron: You know about acting. I don’t have to teach you about acting. My job is to help you find a way so that your acting supports the idea and the exercise of the fact that you are and have always been extraordinarily beautiful, in both heart and mind ... with great wisdom.

Student: But I don’t feel beautiful

Cameron: I don’t care how you feel, the audience doesn’t care how you feel, nobody is going to throw down fifteen bucks a or a movie ticket because of how you feel about yourself.

Student: No?

Cameron: No! Do you care how I felt coming too class today? Were you curled up in bed wondering how I felt before you came here? Of course not.

Student: I care about you – Class laughs …

Cameron: And I care about you dear, but we’re not talking about how we care. We’re talking how you feel. Feelings; about yours, mine, anyone’s feelings. The feelings of a professional are irrelevant to what happens on the field of play. And what happen here, what happens on that screen, on this stage, is we change people, we don’t feel – we change people.

Student: I change?

Cameron: Yes, and by doing so you can change the people around you - the people who see your work. We all have feelings but very few people are willing to change in public. Sure you have to have an emotional life to do that … feelings I suppose. But it’s selfish to think that an actor is doing their work for themselves or their feelings. Ever had a boyfriend with lots of feelings?

Student: Oh God, yes.

Cameron: Gets ya hot doesn’t it?

Class laughs …

Student: No, no, no, no!

Cameron: So you know how attractive feeling all over someone is?

Student: Yes, I get it – got it.

Cameron: Good. Yes. To act is to change.

Student: Why does it seem so hard?

Cameron: Because to stay the same is ordinary and to change is a Hero’s work. Our stories are about heroes; big ones little ones, loud ones quiet ones. The Hero is the one who faces the impossible and it’s a lesson we learn every time we go to the movies. Our work, you and me …

Student: You and I …

Cameron: Thank you, Grammar Queen.

Class laughs …

Cameron: It’s hard because your challenge is to stop trying to prove to us that you know what you’re doing as an actor and just own the moment. Often, for an actor on film, it is far more challenging to leave their skill behind and share who they have become, who they are becoming. Like a star, literally. It twinkles in the heavens just out of reach but if we get close we’d be burnt to a crisp. You’re cooking and your acting is just a lie. Your acting is only of value in residual. We know you know how to do this. Now, are you going to bring your heart into it?

Student: Yes. (The scene starts again and is stopped)

Cameron: Your acting challenge is that you want to make sure that we know that extraordinary things are happening with you. Now, the fact of the matter is that there are extraordinary things happening to you. I can feel it but you don’t trust. Where it gets to be a problem is when you want to make sure we know it.

Student: I’m not thinking that.

Cameron: Of course not, this is unconscious. Would you be willing to be dull?

Student: Yes.

Cameron: Then I challenge you to do so, make the dullest scene ever.

Student: Deal. (The scene starts and is completed.)

Cameron: God save us from good acting.

Class laughs …

Cameron: Let me tell you something and it’s very important. Let me describe to you what perfect film acting feels like. You and Kelvin are doing the scene on stage and you know that you’re scene partners and this is a stage and you’re in the Carter Thor studio and it’s a Thursday the 13th and there are people watching, you didn’t write this dialogue but you memorized it and you’re supposed to come downstage and look out the window because that’s what Cameron Thor told you to do and you are also Helen and this is an apartment in 1935 in New York City and you rushed up the stairs to stop Don from shooting himself because you’re afraid his alcoholism and his despair has driven him to the point of suicide so much so that you’re willing to give him the drink rather than see your man sob.

Student: Both are true?

Cameron: Both are true, both of those things are true at the same time, they’re not mutually exclusive. The fact of the matter is that great acting is when both things happen at the same time. The idea that they’re mutually exclusive and that the actor is off if they know who they are and they’re on if they’re overwhelmed and swept out with the character is poppycock. It’s nonsense. It’s taught by acting teachers that want to enslave you. You work very hard to be simple. A simple choice allows you to be complex. The camera never blinks, it will see your acting and shut you down. You understand that?

Student: Yes.

Cameron: Good. That’s the secret to your success and it’s what I’m always preaching; you work hard to make magic, not stage craft. Magic.

Student: Magic.

Cameron: You’re done.

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