The Moment I Realized I'm Not The Best

The Drowsy Chaperone

I, like many actors, tend to have a big ego. Can you blame me? The essence of show business revolves around us. How we look, how we smell, how we hold ourselves, how tall we are, (in my case) how short we are…and also how good you are at creating an engaging and truthful experience on stage or in film. Growing up, I’ve always wanted to be an actor. I’ve wanted my face on the posters, I’ve wanted to be on the DVD’s and more importantly, I want to be the best actor I can be. The only problem is, I left high school already thinking that I was the best.

Ridiculous, right!? But let me paint the picture for you as to why I thought this. I had already had what I consider the best senior year that I could have possibly had. I was the student body president, I had a successful run as Man in Chair from The Drowsy Chaperone, I won first place at State Drama with Becca for a contemporary scene and I had been accepted into the USU acting program which only accepts 12 people every year. Reading over that it’s like I was at an all you can eat buffet where each platter helped in filling my ego. I assumed that I was the best and that my natural talent would be enough to get me through this education to get me to Los Angeles where I could become a successful actor who was capable of moving the world to the edge of their seats! “USU is so lucky to have me, I’m going to be the one who launches this program to the next level.” ….What an asshole, right!?

Flash forward to second semester of my Freshman year at USU and my Monologues class. It was here that I was introduced to Leslie Brott. Leslie…for a lack of a better word…is one of the most complex people I have ever met. She can be hilarious one second and then a fire breathing dragon the next. She’s caring, but that doesn’t mean that she’s going to put up with any bullshit. Needless to say…it was almost destined that we were going to butt heads, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. It was because of this butting of heads that I started to grow.

Monologues class is mainly focused on auditioning. Basically what happened was I would go up in front of the class and the cohort and stand in the middle of an empty stage while all of their eyes burned into me. After I overcame the initial fear, I would do the one thing that I knew how to do best…

Pull out every acting cliché in the world to try and avoid getting a note from Leslie. 

If you can think of it, I did it. I would yell, I would put my chin down to try and make my eyes look bigger, I’d pull out my smile, put my hands on me hips, walk very angrily, point, whisper for stakes and more or less try to act like I was on a TV show. This resulted in tense, rocky line delivery, down endings, a labored reading and an experience that was anything BUT believable.  

Needless to say…this cliché technique very rarely every turned out to great….okay, strike that. It NEVER turned out positively. Class would always end with Leslie yelling at me to “Just say the word! Say it like you mean it! You’re play acting, because you don’t believe in yourself, your character or what you are doing!” I’d put on a smile in class (most days) while on the inside all I could think was “This is bullshit. None of this makes sense”. I absolutely refused to accept that it was my fault. “The method is flawed! It’s ridiculous to think that you have to think out every single line!” Basically, I still had this thought in my head that I was a great actor on my own and thus I didn’t believe a single thing that Leslie was telling me. This led to frustration on both her and my end. The culmination coming when she finally had to get down on her knees pounding the floor begging me to go bigger! I looked at Leslie and told her that I had no idea what I was doing wrong. To this Leslie said “The problem that you’re reaching is that you think the method I’m teaching you is bullshit and you don’t believe me.” She didn’t blink. She looked me square in the face almost reaching my inner soul. To this, I grew some balls, looked her right back and told her “You’re right”.  This point would prove to be one of the most helpful experiences from my first year in actor training. It even came up in my end of the year evaluation when Leslie said “I really appreciated the day you had the balls to say ‘No, I don’t believe you’. You want to do all the new stuff without giving up your old tricks. Your old tricks are cliché and crappy. If you got anything this semester. You figured this out.”

And she was right. I did start to realize that…keyword was “start” to realize that.  This was the pin that popped my head and helped in starting to bring me back down to Earth. It wasn’t until the start of this past year while reading An Actors Work by Stanislavski that I realized…I’m not the best. If anything I am so far away from being the best it can’t even be measured. It’s not like it was some terrible epiphany of “Oh, I’m so terrible! I suck at acting! I will never amount to anything! I’m going to be stuck wearing a transformers suit on the Las Vegas strip!” No…It wasn’t anything like that. My epiphany was more like this.

As I lay in my bed finishing a chapter on An Actors Work, everything just clicked. I know that sounds An Actors Work follows a young actor named Kastya as he and his peers go through the Moscow Art Theatre which is a type of conservatory where they are pushed to their limits while being trained on the craft of theatre. It follows them on their course of studies in a journal format.This book completely altered my perception of the training program I’m in. Here I was thinking that this is the culmination of my acting. Everything I create here has to be beautiful, polished and utterly perfect! And this my friends…is the root of my villainous ego and the creating of my huge ego. I assumed I was at a higher level than I am actually at. This was the moment I realized that I am not the best. My friend Kenny only helped me in reiterating this for me when we struck up conversation at a birthday party for my buddy Kurt. I always assumed that Kenny hated me so I was shocked that he was talking to me. What would follow was some of the best advice I have ever received.

cliché and impossible, but there is no other way to put it. It was almost as if the past year of being pushed to the limits of my talent, yelled at by Leslie and not having the balls to take risks suddenly all synced together like a perfect puzzle and helped me in offering insight for how to approach this year. If you haven’t read it,

“Be where you’re at. Don’t worry about the future or the past, you are here, you are now. This is your training! Take advantage of that. You will never have anything like this again, so cherish it!”

My Acting Cohort. #Classof2018

He hit the nail right on the head. This is my training. I shouldn’t be here to focus on the fame, on being the greatest actor of all time or creating masterpieces in my acting classes. I am here to study. Something that I’ve never actually done, besides the occasional books I would read back in High School. This is an opportunity for me to learn new techniques and to experiment with them and fail big, because I’m allowed to do that! This is the breeding ground that will help me before I learn to go out and play with the big dogs. Granted, I still have aspirations. I still want to be on a movie poster, I

want to be able to earn a living acting and I still plan on winning an Oscar. The only thing that has changed is that I don’t expect all of that to happen to me right now anymore. In acting, I’ve learned, it’s about the process…not the product. The process helps in making the product. I’m happy I’ve finally accepted that. I’m happy that I’m not the best. All that that does is give you a thick skull that leads to you limiting yourself from learning new exciting aspects and move forward on your journey that is life! I’m fine with not being the best…it gives me something to work for. I believe that my Professor Richie Call said it best when he told me,

"Remember to get where you are, to those posters that you're looking at on your wall, there's a lot of ground to cover. You have to work your butt off".