Nothing new here in good ol’ Munich. Still studying daily for my upcoming exams, and the library life isn’t that exciting. I can’t wait until they’re over (which will be Friday, February 1st at 17.00). I can’t wait to sleep in again, see my parents, my sisters and my nephews again, have a love-life with the lover again ;). Missing all those things quite much. When I have upcoming exams I stay in Munich, I’m at the library at 8am, staying until about 7 or 8 pm. Almost no talking (except when the Lover and I study at home and explain things to each other. Good study method, btw), always looking down on your books (my back and neck and also head hurt so much). It actually drives you crazy after a few weeks (me at least).
I read, that after Heath Ledger got the role as the “Joker” in the new Batman movie, he practiced his role in a hotel room for about a month. He described the joker as a “psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” (taken from wikipedia). Imagine practicing a role like that. What a job. Pretty tough. If I were an actress and had to play a role like that (or any role where you’re a rapist, mass-murder …) I think I’d go crazy in my head. Totally. If you want to play your role good, for the time when you’re making the movie, you have to be the role, you have to be a different person. At least that’s how I imagine it (I must say, I really have no idea of how the movie-business works). No wonder the actors take medicine (of whatever they take). *sigh*
Or what do you think about this? Could you play a role like that? Do you think it somehow would affect your life?
I’d probably just get incredibly paranoid and jumpy as I went about my daily business.
x
I can’t even begin to imagine how to “become” a character, probably the best reason I have not to be an actress, hehe. Anyway, it must be an incredibly pressure on the actors when they have to get into their characters to do a good job in the movie they are working on. I feel very sad about Heath, and it is scary to think that many other young and talented actors might be probably experiencing all that craziness.
For high school, I went to a school with an incredibly good drama program, and we were taught to act method. So, yes, I can imagine. I remember one project we did, which dealt with teen suicide. We were a 4 piece ensemble, it was a 20 minute show, and only the boy and I had any time laughing. It lasted for about 1 minute. The scene before, we were crying. Then we had about 60 seconds of cheerful dialogue, before we had to start crying again, and stay that way for the duration. The other 2 had to cry every instant. I don’t know which was harder. I do remember it being draining, and we often fell asleep in our afternoon classes, because we wore ourselves out in rehearsal. After we realized the effect that emotion has on us, we made sure to take often breaks, to laugh and run around a bit.
I can only imagine the effect of playing such a twisted character, in method, without any breaks. Sometimes a character can battle with your own personality. You need to squash your own thoughts and actions, and that can be very stressful.
I think it all depends on the personality of the actors. There are people who wouldn’t be affected by it at all, who can simply slip into a roll, and there are other people who have to find the role in themselves to act it.
I have no experience in acting, therefore I can’t tell how I’d feel… But I think I’d find it interesting.
people in the entertainment area have it hard but i just think that some people don’t think that far cause all they see is what is in the movies and not what the person acting it out is doing. Personally I would not want to act out anything or be in that kind of business, too much media and criticism.
Maybe… I often fantasize about being a different person. Build a lot of “what-if” type of questions. Bu mainly I think I’d find it challenging. After all a good actor is one who can make him/herself appear to be someone completely different on screen.
Without knowing much about the actual techniques of acting, I think it would be possible to play a role like that and not go crazy…isn’t it because Heath was a Method actor, and Method involves becoming the role? I recall reading a Laurence Olivier biography where he was described as a physical actor – he got into his role by dressing up for it, by using makeup and prosthetics, etc, rather than getting into the mindset…
i could never play such thing.. i can imagine reading about a character, feeling things, relate to a character and then slipping into another role… but there are actors out there who are true cameleons… (like Edward Norton for instance!)
[quote comment=”11018″]i could never play such thing.. i can imagine reading about a character, feeling things, relate to a character and then slipping into another role… but there are actors out there who are true cameleons… (like Edward Norton for instance!)[/quote]
Ed Norton is one of my favorites, he’s great.
No.. seriously having to be someone else would just mess me up. Once you start having to do something over and over again i would think you would actually start thinking that way and acting that way in your actual life. I could never do it to much stress!