Before I get into some of the details, it should be mentioned that I started thinking about acting 3 years ago. Although it was just a thought predicated on some wishful notion that my life could be better as an actor, thinking about it always got me excited. The career sounded fun and the money looked more than promising. To get started, I took an online class taught by Natalie Portman and Helen Mirren. It was a great start to learn from some of the best actresses in the industry, but after I finished the classes, I got complacent about pursuing my acting interests more. I stopped looking for more classes. It wasn’t very helpful either that COVID happened.
Forward 3 years later and after turning 28 two weeks ago, I made a goal to be more active with my career changes and personal interests (one of those being acting). I found an acting class for beginners and got in touch with the director. I remember talking with him in the car as I was driving to go play volleyball. Long story short, he convinced me to audit one of his classes (meaning I didn’t have to pay anything!).
How was I convinced?
I needed a lot of convincing to take this class up front mostly because it was 3 hours long. Although he let me audit the first class for free, 3 hours is a heck of a lot of time. Just to list what I could be doing instead: working on my blog for an hour, taking software class for an hour, and then reading and learning something new for another hour. So I saw those 3 hours more of “giving up 3 hours of my usual routine” for something that I had doubts about after being on hiatus for so long; however, I knew that if I didn’t take this class, then I would be constantly thinking about “what if I had”. I had been putting off my acting interests for 3 years and this class was an opportunity just to get my feet wet. When considering the class, I was thinking more about how the class contribute to my acting career then just how it would help me explore my interests. It was like thinking “if I take this class, am I jumping straight into the 6ft end of a swimming pool or am I only staying in the 3ft area?”. After simmering on those perspectives for a while and making sure that I was indeed going to get a free class, I agreed to come to the class.
Taking the class
I got to class 15 minutes early at the request of the instructor. I remember parking in some shady alleyway. When I entered the dimly lit theatre, I couldn’t find the stage where he said he would be at. After walking around for a couple of minutes, I finally found where he was. We chatted for about 15 minutes before the first student came in. And to my surprise, that first student also shadowed the class just a few weeks back before committing to the full program. At that point, I began to feel more relaxed.
The class was split up into three 1 hour sections.
- The first hour was more physical work – movement exercises and meditations. purpose was just to warm up the body and our minds
- The second hour was improv – wordless improv (only using our body movements to indicate the scenario) and improv with words.
- The last hour was the other students practicing some sort of personal excerpt they chose from plays.
The First Hour
I tried to do each section with as much energy and focus as possible. When I mean focus, I mean not worrying about what others might think of me. Throughout the first hour of exercises, I admit it was extremely weird at first to pretend to throw a fake ball to another student or to show what envy means with my body. There was an internal battle in my mind – one voice was saying “Jerry, this is silly. You want to act! You want to yell and laugh and cry. Not pretend to throw an invisible ball behind the room!” while another voice was saying “Jerry, don’t question the teacher. You don’t know how if this is helpful or not. You came to learn so follow accordingly.” When it came to the exercise of showing certain emotions with your body, I noticed how serious the other students were taking the exercise. I felt less embarrassed and more focused on how the exercises would help me act.
The Second Hour
The second hour was my favorite part mostly because it was the chance to act! In reality, this took about 1.5 hours because I was a new student and so they gave me more time and critique. Did I complain about it? Of course not. This was it! This was what I thought acting was going to be like. The first exercise was acting out a dilemma without using words; we could choose our own dilemma. All the students went up except me because I got a little too nervous. All that focus and confidence from the first hour felt like it just left my body. I wanted to go up so bad but the fear and nervousness glued me to my seat.
The second exercise was acting a dilemma with another partner; the only rule was that each partner didn’t know what the other was going to say. My partner was old and a bit slow, but don’t let that description fool you. I later figured out she was once an actor before switching careers to become a professor. After discussing about potential ideas, I actually got her to agree to sort of re-act a k drama scene in “Search: WWW”. Long story short: the dilemma from the k drama was whether or not to remove a key search word or phrase to protect a politician running for president. She played the director of the search engine company while I played a team leader responsible for control/display of the daily most searched topics.
When it came time for us to act, I felt so nervous but also so excited. I started by pretending to open a door to walk onto the set. It was just a small table with two chairs; my partner was already sitting at the table pretending to go through some paperwork. I walked in, slammed my prop papers onto the table and started vehemently questioning her about why she wanted me to remove a key search word. After I stopped talking, I thought she was going to stop our improv and tell me to calm down, but she kept her posture and responded right back with the same attitude. Oh man, I got pumped. I got laser focused and just said whatever came to mind. After about 5 minutes of acting, I walked off to end the scene. I was so focused on my own emotions that I forgot to open the pretend door I initially opened. I had to take a couple of steps back and pretend to open the door to leave. Everybody laughed.
The Last Hour
I sat and watched the others students practice their plays for the last hour half of the class. The teacher gave really good critique and homework to improve their acting technique. While I wasn’t on stage, it was still fun to see the other students practice their lines from plays. Class ended at 9:30PM and I stuck around to chat with the teacher. He told me I did a great job acting out the improv scene and really thought I had some talent for acting. He thought continuing the class would be a really good idea. I didn’t know what to say because I was still on an emotional high from hearing the feedback. So I told him I’d have to think about the commitment.
So what’s next?
I’m giving myself some time to process what I felt before and during class and meeting with the director this Friday for potential next steps. My gut is telling me to take the class but my mind is telling me don’t because of the commitment.
