Save Me.

I love meeting new people, hearing about their lives, lessons they've learned, places they've travelled, etc. Not only does it add to my catalogue of characters, but also it allows me to see how other people deal with their lives and perhaps give me an alternative perspective on my own. Or in this case, how they avoid dealing with their lives. 

For those of you who didn't know, I was living, or rather dying a slow and painful death, in the weirdest, most disgusting house I have ever been in. If you remember, I was cast only 4 days before I was required on set for the show. This gave me very little time to find an adequate, and within my budget, place to live. 

I had to settle with the first option that Kijiji offered me, and settle I did. 

I began living with an elderly gentleman, whose wife died about 4 years ago, and a boarder who was essentially the blond version of Lurch from The Addams Family.  The wife had clearly been responsible for maintaining the house; I honestly don't think anything has been moved since her death, except for the gym equipment into the living room and the spices from the cupboards onto the deck... 

Now when I decided (had no choice) to move into this place, I thought, "This will be an adventure!" I gave the residents, of this rather sad home, the benefit of the doubt and thought, "We will become best friends by cleaning the house together!"

Well, I had been there for almost 2 months and neither the older man nor the roommate made any attempt to get to know me, or show any interest in speaking to me about their lives. Instead, they griped about me using the toilet paper or forgetting my keys. One day I was denied entrance into the house until I promised to not forget them ever again.

Now, from these pictures, I want you to visualize what the rest of the house looked like.

Got an image? Now picture 3 times worse. 

Essentially, I managed to touch as little as possible by not leaving my room or cooking anything. I was afraid I might contract some disease from an unmoved towel, or the hair covered utensils. 

I won't even get into the bug situation. 

Interestingly enough, Lurch's room was meticulous. Like, serial killer clean. The strangest part of his room was that he kept 3 pictures of people (probably victims), in frames on his bed. Not on his dresser, but sitting ON HIS BED! He didn't work, had barely any belongings and just watched TV endlessly. Occasionally he would walk the older man's ancient dog, clearly blind, due to it's massive cataracts, and for some reason always looked wet. 

Did I mention that there was a deep pit in the back yard...?

This setting for Stephen King's newest novel was where I spent my downtime: close to the set, in a town 60km outside of Vancouver and a 15 minute drive away from people who knew how to engage with one another. I had no car, and it took about 2 hours to bus into the city. I started to go insane, especially on my days off. The older man was always working on something late into the night, other than cleaning his house or getting rid of the copious amount of junk. He consistently found something to complain about, whether it was the 8 vehicles sitting in his driveway that no longer worked...

Or the perpetually drenched dog's endless whining. Basically, it was awful and I regret not moving out sooner, it was nothing short of an irritating and disgusting experience. It wasn't until last week that I realized how much this space was affecting my psyche. It was deeply effecting my work and diet, or lack thereof, while making me dread coming "home" after shooting.

With any job, one needs a place of refuge, where one can unwind, relax and prepare for the next day. Living here, in this pre-Hoarder candidate's home, I was walking on egg shells, literally and figuratively, while trying not to use the toilet paper excessively for fear of dirty looks and unnecessary aggression over needing to wipe my butt. Needless to say, I finally moved out. I'm now staying with a lovely family who is clean, wholesome, normal and made me steak on my first night with them; substantially better, and much healthier for my mind. 

As Darren Hardy says, "Garbage in, garbage out." 

I'm learning to take responsibility for my needs: what I need in order for me to do the best job I can. To bring the best version of myself to set. To fuel my body the way it deserves. This experience has taught me to put my well being first, an obvious one, but in the process of me not wanting to cause preemptive waves I sacrificed my health. Something that should never be on the sacrificial slab. 

W. 

Open Up.

As an actor, everyday I'm fighting for the roles, and the moments that challenge me emotionally. Even though this is what I am fighting for, and what I love, there are moments where I feel like I'm not ready. I fall into the feeling of "I would be so much better at calling on this emotion if I had more life experience; a better reserve to draw from..." this would then fuel my character choices and help make my delivery that much more precise and deep. This brings me to a quote from Charleton Heston, "The minute you feel you have given a flawless performance is the time to get out." And it also reminds me of children, and how present their emotions are. There is no preemptive, they simply feel. I have to stop trying to jump through hoops and open myself up.

In my second year at the National Theatre School of Canada, my class worked with the critically acclaimed director, László Marton. One day, I was struggling with the emotion of a character in a scene and upon expressing my issues to László he said that it wasn't about "crying on cue" but rather living the moment honestly. And in order to have ones emotions so present one has to work on it like any other skill. It takes discipline to break down ones barriers and let the emotions bubble up on a regular basis. It's something we suffocate as we grow into adults. Actors have to work very hard at shattering those emotional walls for these intimate moments, then building them back up in order to deal with realty.

It's not easy, and as much as I talk about it, it's still extremely difficult. There are people who have such emotional depth that they can pop in and out like taking off a hat, and then there are people who are simply great at faking it, so much that it looks like the real thing but actually comes from fear of letting their guard down. I'm working to break down my walls, get to that raw and unabashed emotion so that not only is it real for me, but that the audience can see I am being real with them.

Being half way through this contract, I'm continuing to learning a lot about my habits in this medium, and how to best bring the "goods". Being on this journey, from theatre school graduate to professional actor, is challenging but I am getting more comfortable with Lykos, finding the best ways to deal with the situations that befall him. He's a very complex young man, and his trajectory is incredible. This requires me to be diligent and unabashed with my approach to scenes.

This week has had big moments in it. I've been feeling very homesick lately, and that has started to slump me down into a rather pessimistic and negative mood. I have been relatively quiet and non engaging, but I'm human and I'm allowed to have moments like this. The issue is that when I get into these "slumps" I slip into the mind frame of jealousy, negativity and a need for constant approval. This is a dangerous place, because when I cannot separate myself from these emotions before it comes time to act, I end up completely cutting myself off from my scene partner(s) and ultimately the viewer; a dangerous place.

I'm an idealist and also set very high standards for myself. Sometimes this is a great combination; it allows me to approach each new project with fervour and excitement, it allows me to sympathize with people and makes me work at achieving the life that I want. The downside is, I expect people to be like me and want the same things, which comes off as me trying to impose my ideals on people. This leads into my struggle with the fact that this is a job, and like every other job there are going to be favourites, and gossip and bad attitudes, and great attitudes and lovely people and people who will never even know I was here, even if I made an inukshuk and left it in the middle of the set.

I'm a strong advocate for equality. I think if we could all be given the same treatment, rather than building up certain individuals, there would be a lot more happiness, as there would be less room for comparison. Growing up and being around more people is teaching me that the only way to rise above mediocrity, ego stroking, the superficial love and gratuitous encouragement, for essentially being alive, is to rise above it. To not give it the time, to not let it burrow into my mind and to prize my mind as a place of serenity, harmony and happiness.

Being part of this project is truly something out of a fairy tale; I could not have asked for a better project to start with. I am learning so much about myself, I'm learning about people, actors and artists as well as all the technical aspects of film and how to execute my instincts in the best, most honest way, with immediacy. It's teaching me to deeply listen to myself and truly be a vessel for my character.

Something else I am re-learning, is how to trust my talent and myself. In moments of doubt I have to remember that I came from a great program, with a wonderful education behind me. I booked this job, and have yet to be fired. I'm doing great work, despite how I may feel about it. I'm doing my homework and am always prepared for my scenes. I constantly work on being authentic in my performances as well as incorporating the precision and nuance that defines a human being. I'm learning to accept that I'm not your average actor, visually, stylistically, and artistically. I'm an individual and will forge my own path rather than follow in someone else's, it's easy to get distracted and resent someone for achieving "success" but if I can stay focused on my journey then I will etch out quite the life for myself.

I constantly need to remind myself that I am 23 and haven't experienced much life yet, there is still a lot ahead of me. I have to focus on my mental stability and living life for me: trusting my instincts and putting positive energy into the universe rather than trying to figure everything out, comparing and missing the opportunities being presented to me by giving into fears and insecurities.

This week ended on a high note, as Amanda Tapping, who has been directing me all week, hugged me and told me that I had done superstar work. Images of Molly Shannon sniffing her sweaty armpits surged into my mind and a smile spread across my face.

 I'm doing something right.

W. 

Honeymoon Period

I've heard, the best way to learn how to swim is to be thrown into the deep end. I'm actually a great swimmer, so this idiom doesn't really apply to me in liquid environments, but it does apply to my first day on set.

In the last few weeks, as with any new job, I have found myself learning how to negotiate my needs for each situation while working to bring the writer/director/producers ideas to life. It's requiring me to put a lot of trust in the powers that be, which is good for me. 

As you may be aware, I have a tendency (I use that word lightly) to over analyze things. So the less time I have to think about the situation or ask questions the better. I'm known for wasting all kinds of time talking rather than doing the task that is required of me. 

Cut to: Me in karate class when I was 13, all I did was distract my classmates with ramblings of Digimon and going on Parisian tours. Eventually, it came time to show what we had learned and I was put into the ring. It went something like this: Karate with Wayne.

A similar situation happened when I tried to play the clarinet in junior band. 

When one is only allowed 2 or 3 takes, max, for a scene, one learns very quickly that there is not a lot of room for failure. Lessons need to be learned quickly and without much discussion. This is very different from theatre school where we would all go around, share our feelings about the scene, discoveries we had made and what worried us. Then we would all lie on the ground and breathe deeply for about an hour while an unlucky classmate massaged the tension out of our sweaty backs. 

Ahh, the good ol' days. 

This particular show is shooting an immense amount of footage a day, moments lost worrying about trivial things is money out the window. This lack of time has forced me to start filtering out the most dire and important questions for the director, and figuring the rest out myself. In hindsight, this is a valuable lesson to learn for me not only an actor, but also a person.

Another one of my character flaws is that I, again, have a tendency, to take things personally. Mainly because I open myself up to people, more than I need to, and expect them to respect my "honesty and openness", but unfortunately, society views this as a weakness and people end up using me for their personal gain. As I get older, I am learning how to protect my heart and only expose it when it's truly safe. I think a huge lesson I'm learning here is that although I feel like Lizzie MaGuire in her movie, working on this project, it's still a job in the real world and I can't let peoples' insecurities and judgments affect my work. 

The rose-tinted glasses have been broken; the honeymoon period is over. 

Although the aforementioned may sound jaded, I want to state that I feel very taken care of on this show. The cast and crew are wonderful people, I feel honoured to be surrounded by some extremely talented, albeit not well known (yet), actors who are wonderful resources for me. Through them, and listening to their stories I'm learning how to protect my work and releasing my need for constant approval.

This quote has been motivating me lately:

"When you become confident, your opinions start to matter and your ability to work with people grows exponentially." -Kiefer Sutherland.

In case you missed my last post: I have launched, while trying to avoid pretension, my official website and Facebook page. The idea behind the launch is to streamline all of my social media pages into one access point. If you are interested in following me and my journey, I encourage you to take a gander! 

W.