Four posts ago, while writing “What It Was Like Working On
Phyllis”, I mentioned how actress Cloris Leachman was temperamental. Actually, closer scrutiny will reveal that
the temperamental person in that post was yours truly. Cloris Leachman was just
flaky. But “flaky” is a First Cousin to
temperamental, and a lot of actors are both.
Why?
First of all, we should remember that people in all lines of work are
temperamental. I imagine there are
temperamental dentists. Though I
wouldn’t like to go to one.
“You reject regular Home Care, and then you come to me with that mouth?!? I’m pulling all these teeth! And without anesthetic! See how you like that, ‘Mr. Too Busy to Floss.’”
There are temperamental stockbrokers:
“It goes up! It goes
down! It goes up! It goes down!
For one day, couldn’t the damn stock market just stay in one place!!!
There are even, I imagine, temperamental psychologists.
“You’re CRAZY!!!!!!!!”
But it’s not as likely as with actors. The career of acting attracts temperamental people, partly because no other occupation
would put up with them, and also because, in the roles they play, actors are often
required to display colorful emotions.
It’s the perfect job for them.
Acting is where the temperamental go to get paid.
But it is also the career choice itself that makes actors
temperamental.
Actors deal with rejection on a hyper-regular basis. Sometimes, their temperamentalism is just
payback.
“I remember when I was an ‘Extra’ and they wouldn’t let me
go to the bathroom. I know you just said
‘Action!’, Mr. Director, but I am going to the bathroom right now!”
Everyone on the acting “Food Chain” is frustrated. “Bit” players want to be featured players,
and featured players want to be stars.
And stars want the best scripts, not the ones Sandy Bullock turned
down. “Although, Dear God, if I could
only get one of those…”
Temperamental people take their frustrations out on somebody
else. Invariably somebody whose salary
is a fraction of their own.
For the “Thank you, we’ll let you know” and they do and it’s
“No” people, there’s the inevitable question of “Why them, and not me?” Though there is insecurity even for the
accepted, as in “Why me, and not them?” or “Why wasn’t it me sooner?” or “How
long will it stay me, and then stop being me and become them?”
A newer, younger, cheaper
“them.”
You can see where that temperament could come from.
And then, there’s what’s involved in the process of acting,
should you ever be lucky enough to acquire a job. Imagine the insecurity of being someone whose
“face is out there” as employed actors who are about to complain are wont to
remind the endangering ingrates, nestled safely behind the camera.
Actors in front of the camera have no control over what they
look like, what they say or what they do.
The script puts you in a wig and a pair of tights, and forces you to
deliver overheated unspeakabilities like,
“You may chop off my head, but when I’m gone, thousands will
arise to take my place. The Foot
Soldiers of Justice will live on forever, marching to the fore wherever the
Forces of Malevolence rear their duplicitous heads, subjugating the downtrodden
and the defeated yearning to breathe the healing air of Liberty. The lights may be dimming, but some day,
those lights will shine again, and the world will reawake, smiling and
laughing. The birds will sing again, and
the Bells of Freedom…”
Somebody! Get the
axe!
Actors are frequently not only called upon to deliver such
inanities, they have to “sell” it, and make it believable. Imagine if you opened your mouth and nonsense
came out, and you had no control over it.
Embarrassments are escaping from the lower part of your face, spewing
foolishness the audience identifies with you. And there is nothing you can about it. It just keeps coming out.
And then, the final cut, and it is indeed the Final Cut, in the editing process, the director can
manufacture a performance out of all the pieces of the various “Takes” they
required you to do, making the finished product, not an organic performance but a compilation of snatches and
moments cobbled together – not to your, oh no – but to somebody else’s predilection.
That would make
you a little grumpy, don’t you think?
After all your efforts, after all you put up with, the years
of struggle and subservience, watching inferiors raised up while you languished
unappreciated in the shadows, after causing heartbreak for your family, and enduring
ridicule from your peers where it took monumental courage to stand up and say,
“Yes, I am an act-or”, you are forced to pull on some pantyhose and recite
garbage?
No wonder actors are temperamental.
Yikes! I just made a
persuasive case for terrible behavior.
As Fagin sang in Oliver,
“I think I better think it out again.”
In the meantime, a year’s sentence to Logic Prison, for “Egregious
Misuse of The Argument Format.”
If logic can be used to excuse egregious behavior, reasonableness
will lose the shimmering incandescence of its once respectable luster.
Man, that’s a
mouthful.
But at least it’s my
mouthful.
1 comment:
Except... they could always go and get a real job. Flipping burgers in a fast-food outlet doesn't do a lot for your self-esteem either, but no-one makes an accommodation for a temperamental fast-food employee - they complain and get them sacked.
It's because people make allowances for actors that they throw hissy fits. Yes it's a stressful, humiliating job but taking it out on the drone who gets a fraction of your wage, is even more stressful and humiliating for said drone.
Less understanding, more condemnation! For actors, not as a general rule for society :)
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