My last two callbacks I have gone to Producers (one for a film, and the other for a TV series called Felicity.) I have been able to be aware of my breath during these auditions, and it REALLY gets the casting directors to hook in. I can sense their energy tune in when I allow a silent breath to happen (as it wants to.) On more than one occasion (including my meeting with the agency that signed me) when I was feeling like I wasn't getting through I took some silent breaths and I felt the other people suddenly very much IN THE ROOM with me. ON the audition front, I am excited to hear feedback that the producers like me, because even though a job hasn't come through yet, I know I am taking steps closer.
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I GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(The job being a guest starring appearance on the weekly TV show Providence)
So the big day arrives, and I head off to the set (early) as I have several scenes to do (the "big" one being the 3rd of the day) so I just am taking things one step at a time.
The first few scenes went well...I was aware of my breathing, I was seeking joy, and I was reveling in the amazing scenic design that I had the privilege to work on...(They actually recreated sections of the Sistine chapel for my ceiling!!!)
Then it was approaching THE SCENE.
I began to panic a little. I knew my lines, I wasn't WORRIED about that...I just didn't know how I would get to a spot where I could CRY on cue. Especially maintaining that through ALL the takes...
I told a few people near me (whom I had befriended) that I had no idea what I was going to do...but that I would DO something.
The writer was there, the script supervisor, and the artist who was doing my artwork for my character......I repeated don't know what I'm going to do, I'm nervous now...The writer said, "Well we hired a good actor"--NO pressure!@!
SO the artist says: Well, why don't you just think of something sad?
I told him nicely that that doesn't work for me. It usually puts me in my head, and I go numb...my body prepares for me "trying to feel something" and for whatever reason I cant feel a thing.
He and the script supervisor said, if I thought hard enough, I could cry right now...so I thought--cool...maybe if you guys do it, I can too, so they sat there for a few minutes and tried to cry...no such luck. ;)
SO I "blocked the scene" and we were now one step closer...I told the director I was getting worried....she started talking about substitutions...I thought to myself..UH OH>...I don't DO substitutions...I'm trained to breathe, see, hear, seek joy, not dig up memories, or create false ones...I can "let it be true that" but that can only get me to explore...not guarantee
immediate results...
SO suddenly the "good hands" I am in, feel unsafe. And I begin to panic a little more deeply.
SO she tells me a story about when she got her first big crying scene...she ran right out and got herself into a class to learn substitutions, because she knew she was going to have to cry. Her story was not reassuring me.
Then she said, she could get some crystal spray drops or something, which they can do to get the drops going...I thought F***, if I can't do this, and I have to rub raw onion in my eye, my eyes will tear, but that's not what I
want to do as an actor...
I went into make-up and told them I was scared. that I didn't know what I was going to do. surprisingly, they didn't tell me to try to think of something sad...instead they told me "that sucks"
So here I am again, off to the set---I'm sitting in a chair...the director tells someone to go get the drops...My panic is reaching Everest type proportions...So finally I think:
I'll call Carol. No. She'll tell me to breathe. PLUS what if I cant get her on the phone. I'll be wasting their time here on the set.. No. I know what she'll tell me my job is...I know what my job is....breathe, see and hear...
SO I thought--get in your body...
I went to a corner of the studio and began doing a warm-up without sound...I rolled around, I sat up and looked around at things, adjusting my body at the slightest need, and I felt more present, but I was like...F***, this isn't
getting me anywhere near tears...
I did the warm-up on all fours...and besides being stared at, I let myself get self-conscious..It wasn't "working"
I was starting to get mad...So I thought F***. Yeah.....F*** this. F*** the Goddam role. F*** this set F*** these people...(and I was almost laughing at myself, because I thought I sounded funny...then I got mad at myself for not being able to get MAD, so I started to curse out the actors, the tech crew, my agents, the casting director...then I went on to punch the air as I cursed you out in one breathe. (I didn't mean it. Promise.) And then I cursed out my family...and God, and my guardian angel and mom. Then I start going back to my breathe..something was shifting, slightly, but something. Then I started trying to "force something" emotionally, and it all went away again...so I started getting pissed at me...I cursed myself out for being incompetent, for getting hired and not being able to do a single little task, for being a faker, for having gotten into a situation where I am about to waste tons of peoples time...then I repeatedly punched the air and was pacing...I had opened the demons in my head, and they were having a FIELD day swimming around and jumping all over my inadequacies...
I thought about having someone yell at me...I thought about asking the director to pretend to fire me, I thought about running into the lead actresses trailer, and asking for her advice.
They called two minutes...
I began pacing and cursing out God once again, and said" I don't want you in me...leave me alone God, and let me feel what its like to live without you, because I have never felt so alone in this world as when I forgot you existed for all those years...Then I cursed at God again, because God wouldn't leave
me...
I was so mad at you (in that moment) I thought Goddam it, why cant I cry, I just did Carols GODDAM warm-up...I should be able to cry now...what if she's wrong..im in over my head...what am I doing calling myself as actor?
And I sat on my mark...
I could only think to do one other thing, which actually encapsulated the "hee" sound...something I had done when I got cast--and which I did during those callbacks........which was fake it...
For some reason it sounded real to me when I faked it a certain way...but I knew it looked fake..at least I THOUGHT it did...
SO during the final blocking rehearsal with camera, I faked it...And I did my lines, and I stayed aware of my breathing, while still in that other place I had gone in my head...seemingly far away from where I normally am in my mind, but at the same time, hyperaware of any direction, or any sounds that I needed to pay attention to.
During that blocking rehearsal, my face tightened, and I was faking real good. Melanie must have thought I had opened the door because she said...that's it Ariel...stay there...don't lose it...and they were ready to take it...I didn't have any strength to tell her I was mid-fake, and I was about to be lousy on film...but my body took over and started to convulse...in my throat, in my diaphragm...I was convulsing and waves were coming up from deep within, and I felt me eyes begin to wet with tears...I
kept up the soft sign nasally, and I was feeling like something was opening up...I started to sob..and as I heard them calling out "on a bell please...Camera...speed...marking...and action...I was already somewhere emotionally...I was off a cliff and falling, and didn't know where I was going...by the time Melina came in...I was able to hear what I was saying....letting the words fall on me and it fueled me forward to the next place I needed to be. I heard what she was saying, I felt her hand on me, =consoling me, and I heard the words about missing my mother, and losing my grandmother, and why did she have to die...and suddenly I was doing a million things at once...I was following my breathe, and letting it tell me if it wanted to come faster, and at times I tried to fight against it, when I had to "wipe away my tears angrily" and I notices what happened when I did that...but more wave of sobs came...and I fell into Melina's arms...we had done one take...I didn't want to lose where I was, so whilst they rearranged the set a little...I kept following where I was...I saw images flashing....my eyes were closed, and opened....sobs found me...I was doing substitutions, or maybe I wasn't...I was experiencing memories that came up with each breathe...and i let them go, and discovered another...and I apologized to mom for the times I felt I had done things that I could have done differently, or better...
And they reset, and we went, and I cried, and they told me to try once again without putting my hand up, and they kepy rolling, and they got it all, and the tears were coming, and my nose was running, and at the end of the take I heard the whole crew erupt into a burst of applause...but I didn't stop crying...and they had more work to do anyway...they set up for the closer coverage....part of me could see them scrambling to get the lens changed, and measurements done quickly...and the crew was nearly silent, almost as if they didn't want to disturb me...I stayed in that spot...and more tears came...they didn't ask me to move, and the second unit woman came and knelt beside me, and they did their lighting as I continud to sob...the breathe changed over the course of these 45 minutes...It got faster...it shortened, and my fingers began to go numb...I was surging with energy...Melanie (the director) was shouting for me not to push it as she didn't want me to lose it...I heard her, and yet the waves weren't stopping, and the sighs softened, but then it was time for another take and I was holding my breathe, trying to hold onto the emotion, and it was subsiding, but then I heard action, and I heard "the doctors voice" and I suddenly breathed again, and sobs came once more...and this continued for the 35 minutes, through 5 more takes of the scene....through 2 resets...1 direction...1 technical note...And I was both there and not at the same time...I was so intently focused..I was hyper aware of my breathe...I was grateful to realize that following what my breath wanted to do at THIS point was keeping me there, and allowing the emotion to continue...Somewhere in me I was glad to know that the technique worked once everything had kind of kicked in..I couldn't have sustained it for that long otherwise...I thought of that time in class when I was being difficult....(which time you say?) ...back in January, and I had a huge breakthrough and realized that the feeling in my body---the energy surging felt the same...and that time i had cried for almost at hour straight....and so I knew I could keep it up as long as was needed, as long as I stayed with it...
And then, suddenly...we were moving on.
They had gotten what they needed...The director at one point (during my coverage) had said did that feel good for you?.. and I honestly thought---I have no idea what I did...how it was being perceived I am just doing my tasks and saying my lines...and my tasks were to follow my breathe and when I lost awareness, I did something to get it back...and it sustained me.
After many compliments (which were wonderful to hear) from people ranging from producers, to the writer, to the crew to the director to the lead of the show...I did the next scene....and went home, exhausted...I made myself eat something, and took a bath, and then I opened the dictionary, and looked up PROVIDENCE:
There it read "divine guidance or care" which I like, but then THIS ONE blew
me away...
"God, conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny."
Ariel Joseph Towne