Gos-Wiig Week

Hey Abyss,

This week has been an interesting one, as it always seems to be.

The theme of my life: interesting. 

I need to find less stale and more enticing words to preface my entires.

Seriously.

This week I have been inspired by Kristen Wiig and the Gos, as per usual. The unusual one, the operative word being unusual, is Andy Kaufman. You see, my parents bought me the first season of Saturday Night Live for Christmas and I have, clearly, been watching it. Andy Kaufman was a guest star for a little bit at the beginning of the show and he really interested me and so I started to search around and read about him a bit. He was an interesting, er, fascinating guy. I watched the Golden Globe winning film Man on the Moon with Jim Carey about Mr. Kaufman's life last night and was so engrossed with the career this guy had. Truly remarkable. It's a shame that he died so young.

I was telling my girlfriend today, before I went to see Gangster Squad tonight (which I enjoyed very much), that I have these 6 people in my life that consistently inspire me but the limelight fluctuates each week; Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Johnny Depp, Ewan McGregor, Ryan Gosling and Kristen Wiig. I truly admire them all so much as not only actors but what images and associated art accompanies them.  I feel that they embody everything that I want to be as a person and an artist.

My class and I have been working with the world renowned director Lazlo Marton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Marton_(director)) this week and will continue for the next two. I have been truly enlightened by him, he is so remarkable and I walk away from the class being both frustrated and knowing what I need to do. He is very much about teaching us how to be prepared actors for our futures and how we can develop our minds by ourselves and the questions and practices we should be integrating into our daily work as actors.

He is teaching us how to be prepared for rehearsal and to use our own experiences and emotions to fuel our individual interpretations of characters. His broken english almost provides more clarity in situations because of the blunt nature that it spoken. He is such a kind man and only wants the best for us as young performers and I feel truly honoured to be working with someone who is humble enough to come and bestow his knowledge on us.

Someone said to me once that, " To become a better artist, you need to surround yourself with inspiring art..." or something like that. And I have truly been enjoying just that, no matter how simple it is. I get such gratification out of seeing and listening to things that I enjoy, which seems obvious, and on some level I grow from them into a more self directed artist and that is a really wonderful feeling.

This last week has provided me with many epiphanies and I am just revelling in them.

Night Abyss.