Our imaginations are dying. That’s a shame for everyone, but it’s tragic for actors.
One of the reasons many people chose acting as a profession in the first place is that they loved to use their imaginations. Other kids may have had a train set or a family of dolls, but the aspiring actor could have twice as much fun with an empty box and their imagination. So what happened?
Search engines: We don’t have to imagine anything anymore because we can look it up; the answers to anything we want to know are a click away.
If you call yourself an artist, though, it’s your job to do more than spit back available information. Your job is to show the audience the world in a new way. This is true whether it’s a painting, story, or performance. And the richest place to create from is the imagination.
No one looks at a piece of great art and says, “Yes, that makes sense.” They say, “Wow! I would never have imagined that.”
This applies to auditions as well, by the way. The people in the room want to see the role you’re reading for delivered to them in a brand new way, one that surprises and excites them. They want to see what you and only you have to add to the role.
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