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How Actors Create

Emotions: A Problematic
Psychology
Fully inhabiting the mind, mannerisms, and reality of a fictional character
can be as alienating as it is rewarding.

Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters

JUDITH OHIKUARE | MAR 10, 2014 | HEALTH

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Early on in her career, Deborah Margolin realized that she was a woman nobody
liked, not even herself. She was a homely person who was pregnant all the
timenot because she enjoyed sex, according to Margolin, but because of a
sense of self-loathing that led her toward the same dead end, over and over again.
She was married to a man but wished that she were with a woman. Or, rather, she
wished that she were a womana dierent one. She wished she were Patience or
Sarah, two women whom everyone around her seemed to want.

Historical-ction bus might recognize the name Patience and Sarah as a novel set
in the 19th-century adapted for stage. Others might recognize Deborah Margolin
not as a bitter, perpetually expectant woman, but as a playwright, an Obie-award
winning performance artist, and an associate professor in Yale Universitys
undergraduate theater studies program.
But for Margolin, the line separating her real self from her stage self became less
dened the deeper into character she went. Playing a person whose existence was
blight on others took a real toll, emotionally and physically, and possibly even
aected how her peers treated her. For many actors like Margolin who land
demanding roles, fully inhabiting the mind, mannerisms, and reality of a ctional
character can be as alienating as it is rewarding.

"My character was unattractive and

somehow, so was I. Something about
that infused the community of actors
that I was in."

It was depressing, Margolin recalls. My character would cry, and I would cry.
She was miserable, and I was miserable. She was a frustrated, ignorant person
trapped in a narrow life, and I felt like that. Once, while I was onstage, my purse
was robbed in the dressing room, and I felt like everybody backed away from me,
thinking that I would infect them with tragedy. These were lovely peopleI loved
them dearlybut my character was unattractive and somehow, so was I.
Something about that infused the community of theater actors that I was in.

The idea that there are psychological consequences to good acting has been
espoused so often that its easy to assume the science is there to back it up. As a
result, the sudden and often surprising deaths of talented actors sometimes
inspire fearful, knowing whispers about the dangers of delving too deep into
harrowing roles. Many theatergoers have a sense that somewhere in the actors
psyche lies the potential to forget himself when authentically getting into
character.

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In truth, cognitive scientists and psychologists have been reluctant to embrace

acting as a serious subject of study. But researchers like Thalia Goldstein, an
assistant professor of psychology at Pace University, have recently started to
investigate the links between the two elds with the idea that both disciplines can
be enriched by a study of their commonalities. In a joint paper from Goldstein
and Yale professor Paul Bloom, The mind on stage: why cognitive scientists
should study acting, Goldstein argues that psychologists can look to how actors
create emotions in order to understand human nature in a new way.

I think that at their cores, psychology, cognitive science, and theater are all
trying to do the same thing, which is understand why people do the things they
do, our range of behavior, and where it comes from, Goldstein says. Its just
two dierent ways of looking at the same question.

Goldstein believes that a principal barrier to such research is that few people ADVERTISEMENT

scientists and average viewers alikeunderstand the work that goes into acting
and what it means to convincingly portray another person onstage. She nds it
helpful to rst distinguish what acting is from what it isnt, and then determine
the processes involved in performing.

As a human invention, acting is hardly a hardwired part of our biology, she notes.
So while theres no such thing as a thespian instinct or an adaptation that makes
good acting evolutionarily advantageous, we can come closer to understanding
why realistic acting is so convincing by analyzing the cognitive capacities it draws
upon.

Goldstein looks at three categoriespretense, lying, and actingas they t into a

trio of cognitive parameters. First, what is being presented perceptually and if it is
actually happening or is just pretend; second, what behavior is being shown and
whether that behavior is a cue to reality; and nally, whether the exhibited
behavior is intended to fool the audience. On the rst parameter, Goldstein says,
all three categories are in agreement. In the cases of pretense, lying, and acting,
what is being presented perceptually, what were seeing, is not real.

"Acting is a form of pretense that's

done with more realistic behavior,
and a form of lying that everyone is in
on."

In the second parameter, there is some variation among the categories. In

pretense, the behavior is a cue to the fact that what [someone] is doing is not real.
Youre smiling even though you say youre sad, or youre not using a cup when you
pretend to drink, Goldstein explains. In deception and acting, though, the
behavior [alone] is not a cue to the fact that what youre doing is not real.
The nal category is the trickiest of all: Are actors trying to make people believe
that what theyre doing is true? Well, yes and no. Acting is not lying and neither is
it pretense, but both irt with what is true or real to varying degrees.

Everybody knows that when theyre watching CSI: Miami or playing tea party
with a four year old that theyre watching television and not dining with the
Queen, Goldstein says. But with lying, only the person who is lying understands whats
going on.On the categorical spectrum then, acting is a form of pretense thats done with
more realistic behavior, and a form of lying that everyone is in on.

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But can a realistic scenario be overly convincing? In other words, is good acting a
kind of Inception?

In the 2010 lm, Dominick Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) charges

architecture student Ariadne (Ellen Page) with the task of building the most
convincing possible dream world. However, Dom warns Ariadne of the dangers
of borrowing too heavily from her own life, telling her to always imagine new
places.

Youve got to draw from stu you know, right? she counters, to which Dom
replies, Building a dream from your memory is the easiest way to lose grasp on
whats real and what is a dream.

Similarly, actors must do real workbuild real worldsto temporarily convince

themselves and others of the veracity of unreal circumstances. Yet they must be
mindful of how much of their own lives and experiences they imbue their
characters with, something they only began to do a handful of decades ago.

What we value as realistic acting is a relatively new and particularly American

way of depicting society. Taking into consideration the arc of Western
performance from highly-symbolic Greek theater, to Laurence Oliviers classic
turn as Hamlet in 1948, to pretty much any Meryl Streep role, ever, it becomes
evident that audiences demand to really believe what they are seeing has been a
gradual, modish progression.
The trend toward realism in acting emerged in the mid-20th century due to the
inuence of Russian actor and director Constantin Stanislavsky, who urged actors
to strive for believable truth. As noted on PBS.org:

Stanislavsky rst employed methods such as emotional memory. To

prepare for a role that involves fear, the actor must remember
something frightening, and attempt to act the part in the emotional
space of that fear they once felt. Stanislavsky believed that an actor
needed to take his or her own personality onto the stage when they
began to play a character. [] Later Stanislavsky concerned himself
with the creation of physical entries into these emotional states,
believing that the repetition of certain acts and exercises could bridge
the gap between life on and o the stage.

"You might subconsciously be

colored by real pain, but your
imagination could bring up
something else."

Subsequently, heavily inuenced by Stanislavsky, actor and director Lee

Strasberg interpreted his teachers philosophy for an American audience and
emphasized aective memorya key component of what is touted as method
acting, or simply, the Method. As noted by Pamela Moller Kareman, the
executive director of the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New
York City, the eld was forever changed.

Beginning way back with their interpretation of Stanislavsky, Americans have

had a tremendous inuence on the art of acting, internationally. What people
[once] thought of as American acting is just acting today, she says.

Unfortunately, audiences have become a little impatient with stylized acting and
now wont even watch a black-and-white lm because they think its boring,
whereas it was stylized but very truthful. Take somebody like Quentin Tarantino
his are highly stylized lms, and yet you still believe the behavior in them. It
might be heightened, but its truthful.

Neighborhood Playhouse teaches its students according to the principles of the

Meisner Technique, an oshoot of Stanislavskys work developed by Sanford
Meisnera one-time friend and contemporary of Lee Strasberg. According to
Kareman, the divide between the pair was that Strasberg was much more
interested in actors working from their real lives and real pain, whereas Meisner
thought that was psychotherapy and had no place in acting.

Meisner thought that the biggest gift an actor has is his or her imagination,
which is limitless, while ones real life and real experiences were quite limited,
Kareman says.

He also felt, and I agree with him, that you wouldnt be able to go [to certain
real-life experiences]. So, if you were ever in any way molested as a child, he
never wanted you to use that; it would be a very unhealthy thing. You might
subconsciously be colored by that, but your imagination could bring up
something else.

Deborah Margolin also discourages the possible romanticizing of traumatic

experiences for art saying, Ive gone to dark places in terms of the roles Ive
played, and Ive also gone to dark places just living. Theres this whole thing about
suering for your art and I think thats baloney. I tell my students not to worry
about the suering. Suering will nd youseek the joy.

Either way, deciding whether or not to design roles around personal experiences
isnt the all-or-nothing decision that it is for Dom Cobb. Many actors create their
own methods, with some mix of immersion and personal history, while others
include no trace of their lives. As Professor Goldstein sees it, though, either
choice may result in some subtle eect on a performer.

She cites research from late Yale professor

RELATED STORY Susan Nolen-Hoeksema on the eect of
ruminating on negative events, which has
been shown to consistently predict the onset
of depression in those who engage in it,
particularly women.

To actors who might laugh that o and

present acting as being purely physical,
The Dark Psychology of Being a
Good Comedian Goldstein says other research in psychology
suggests that they, too, might experience
emotional aftereects from performing. She
points to ndings from Harvard social psychologist Amy Cuddy, who has said that
just putting yourself into an assertive position, a power pose, like sitting in a
chair with your chest pued out, not only aects the way that you feel, but
actually changes hormonal levels, with stress cortisol decreasing and testosterone
increasing.
Goldstein admits that current research doesnt look at these behaviors in the
context of acting but says, theres a sense that if actors are really diving into
themselves, maybe theyre having some ill eects.

For some professionals in the eld, those ill eects can be attributed to nding
glitches within their own lives, as well as in the diculty of performing itself.
Deborah Margolin evocatively compares the lasting impression that acting leaves
upon her to the scar left on an ovary post-ovulation.

The egg is not there, but it leaves a mark of having burst forth, she says. It may
sound arcane but I feel, in this fertile way, scarred, informed, freed, and changed
by every role Ive ever played.

And in an interview with Indiewire, Tony Greco, a veteran acting teacher who
counted Philip Seymour Homan among his students, explained that the
personal introspective work needed to mine the minds of complicated characters
is what ensnares actors who push themselves. Speaking about his experiences
with Homan and others he said:

When Phil came to me with a great role, nothing was o limits. I could
talk to Phil about any part of himself. Any aspect of his life. His love of
the role was so big, his wanting to get to the truth of the part, that he
was willing to journey to very complicated places. I have another
student who Ive known as long as Phil, Nicole Ari Parker, and she just
did Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. And you can imagine that
if you decide to take on Blanche DuBois, when the play is done you
dont go home and not think about all the questions that these great
roles bring up inside of you. If you really decide to go where these great
roles will take you, then you come out of them a changed person. You
come out of them dierent because when an audience sees a great
role, it should make them question their own lives. And when an actor
takes on a great role, it should make them question their lives. They
change.

Deborah Moller Kareman says she agrees. In life we have a lot of facadesand
we need them because we cant be as vulnerable, and penetrable, and open in life
as we must be onstage or in front of a camera. In art you have to be responsive.
Things have to get in so that they can get out, and you cant live the way you do
your art or youd be wounded every second.
Nevertheless, she breezily noted that most actors live very normal livesvery
well aware of who they are after a role has ended, even if they might tell the
people around them, That one took a lot out of me. She is also keen to add
nuance to ideas like Grecos about great actors and dicult roles.

"Intensity gets misinterpreted. Not all

acting is necessarily extremely
intense. But it is concentrated and
very much about being here, now."

To the Neighborhood Playhouse executive, distinguishing between intensity and

concentration more accurately explains the emotional and psychological travails
of actingas well as acknowledges the wide range of work that an actor might do
in her lifetime, from playing Cashier Number Three to Leading Lady.

Intensity gets misinterpreted because I dont think that all acting is necessarily
extremely intense, says Kareman. But it is concentrated and very much about
being here, now.

For example, consider the teeny-tiny gal in the train stationyour standard
behind-the-scenes extrawho is in the background of Grand Central Station
away from the crux of the action. According to Kareman, the extra needs to be
just as concentrated as the leading actors, otherwise shes just pretending to be
in the train station. (Or as Goldstein might put it, she is too engaged in pretense.)

If shes really in the train station shell be concentrated; and if her newspaper
falls, shell pick it up, Kareman says. But if shes not concentrated then she
wont pick it upthen all of a sudden theyve got to stop the scene and say, What
was that? You dropped the paper and didnt pick it up. And thats just bad acting.

You do lose yourself in an artistic way, Kareman explains, but less soand
less dramatically, perhapsthan the layman might think.

Indeed, one of the ways that she, Deborah Margolin, and others in the profession
insulate themselves from their own work is by disengaging from their heightened
level of concentration just as doggedly as they build it up. Naomi Lorrain, a
student in the MFA Graduate Acting Program at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
mentioned the importance of safe spaces, explaining that for her, school is a safe
space to do the unsafe things that are required in acting.
I cant do a really intense role and then snap out of it. Mine is a slower
progression out of a character, but Im learning a lot of physical things that help
me shake it o, Lorrain says. Ive learned to develop a ritual, whether a vocal
exercise or yoga, to bring me back to my center.

Aside from creating a routine to reconnect with herself, Lorrain added that
reconnecting with people she trusts is also crucial. I think having an outside LATEST VIDEO

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can be hard. Ostage, you have to remember that its pretend and onstage you
have to forget. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JUDITH OHIKUARE is a former

producer for TheAtlantic.com.

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