The Words of Wisdom this week are very simple.
Don't smoke!
As an actor one of your main assets is your voice. The easiest way to damage it is by smoking. Don't smoke!
You'll know about the health factors: lung cancer and other cancers, heart disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis - all nasty diseases that you would want to avoid. Don't smoke!
Ever seen a smoker trying to run? Breathing more deeply they dislodge the tar buried in their lungs. It rises into their throat and they suffer a coughing fit as they try to clear it and have to stop. Don't smoke!
And then there are the wicked tobacco companies, making money out of a drug more addictive than heroin. Why put money in their pockets? Don't smoke!
Smokers have years taken off their lives. A recent study of 180 people aged 100 and over found that one, yes just one of them, smoked. About 20 had smoked in the past but had given it up. The remainder had never smoed in their whole life. So if you want to live long and healthily: don't smoke!
And, if you are afflicted by this addiction Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking is recommended.
But, best of all: don't smoke!
Showing posts with label don't. Show all posts
Showing posts with label don't. Show all posts
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Don't believe your own publicity
The latest piece of online advice, the Words of Wisdom are Don't believe your own publicity.
In this difficult business, after many years of effort and training, you may find yourself becoming successful. This can happen quite suddenly and it can bring problems with it. For a while you will be the centre of attention, people aroud you won't be able to do enough for you. Your picture will be in the press, you may be on TV, people will recognise you in the street, they may ask you for your autograph. All this can be quite destabilising: you are living the dream and you may easily fall into the trap of believing you're superior to ordinary people. You are in danger of becoming conceited and treating people badly. A little power can go a long way - to your head.
It's very important to keep your feet on the ground. You are still the same person you were before. Stick with your family and friends outside the business. Don't splash your money around. Don't trust people who may be more interested in your fame than in you yourself.
Two thousand years ago, when a Roman general returned to Rome having conquered a foreign land he would be granted a triumph, a parade of all his troops and the booty of war that they had won. But a slave would be employed to ride in his chariot with him, to continually whisper in his ear and remind him that he had not become a god but that he was still mortal.
The other end of the publicity stick is if you get criticism or rejection, which may seem exaggerated and unfair. You may have made the mistake of believing that the love of an audience applied to you personally. Now you feel unloved. Let it wash over you. It will soon be forgotten. Take bad publicity with a pinch of salt just as you do good.
We all have a need for excitement and glamour, that's one of the things we join up for. But we also all have a need for the safety and stability of ordinariness. Don't believe your own publicity.
In this difficult business, after many years of effort and training, you may find yourself becoming successful. This can happen quite suddenly and it can bring problems with it. For a while you will be the centre of attention, people aroud you won't be able to do enough for you. Your picture will be in the press, you may be on TV, people will recognise you in the street, they may ask you for your autograph. All this can be quite destabilising: you are living the dream and you may easily fall into the trap of believing you're superior to ordinary people. You are in danger of becoming conceited and treating people badly. A little power can go a long way - to your head.
It's very important to keep your feet on the ground. You are still the same person you were before. Stick with your family and friends outside the business. Don't splash your money around. Don't trust people who may be more interested in your fame than in you yourself.
Two thousand years ago, when a Roman general returned to Rome having conquered a foreign land he would be granted a triumph, a parade of all his troops and the booty of war that they had won. But a slave would be employed to ride in his chariot with him, to continually whisper in his ear and remind him that he had not become a god but that he was still mortal.
The other end of the publicity stick is if you get criticism or rejection, which may seem exaggerated and unfair. You may have made the mistake of believing that the love of an audience applied to you personally. Now you feel unloved. Let it wash over you. It will soon be forgotten. Take bad publicity with a pinch of salt just as you do good.
We all have a need for excitement and glamour, that's one of the things we join up for. But we also all have a need for the safety and stability of ordinariness. Don't believe your own publicity.
Tuesday, 19 June 2007
Don't 'act' when you're acting
And so to the Words of Wisdom. They are ‘Don’t ‘act’ when you’re acting.’ It’s about the difference between artificiality and directness. The people in the audience haven’t come to see actors acting; they’ve come to see a play. They don’t want to hear people saying lines; the want to listen to the words. They don’t want to hear you reciting Shakespeare; they want to bridge the gap of 400 years and hear the play as if it was being performed for the first time. As an actor, don’t intrude between the writer and the audience. Paradoxically, the more you make yourself disappear inside the character and the situation, the more you will be admired after the event.
Treat the audience as equals; shun the mindset of cultural superiority so evident in, for example, TV costume dramas; we, the audience, don’t want to see two actors playing the parts of two tramps; we want to see two tramps. Don’t ‘act’ when you’re acting.
Treat the audience as equals; shun the mindset of cultural superiority so evident in, for example, TV costume dramas; we, the audience, don’t want to see two actors playing the parts of two tramps; we want to see two tramps. Don’t ‘act’ when you’re acting.
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