Why Actors Self-Destruct

ow many times have you read about an actor destroying himself? Probably, if you even glance at the headlines of the supermarket tabloids, you see it quite often. Did you ever wonder why?

I never do. For, in my own small way, I am one of those people.

Now, I probably should explain. For the last 12 years of my life, I have engaged in a hobby referred to as Live-Action Role-Playing (hereafter acronymed into “LARP”). It is a combination of theater and role-playing games, where the participants dress in costumes and act out their characters instead of sitting around a table rolling dice. A sort of “Let’s Pretend” for the people who never grew out of it.

People have said that I’m good at it. The jury’s still out as far as I’m concerned; I’m self-aware (and perhaps humble enough) to admit that I have no idea if this is true or not, but enough people have told me such that I am willing to say it’s at least partially true. Just the other week I was praised for my ability to change characters as easily as another might change clothes; I had indeed done this but was not aware that the effect was so easily noticed. So, I started to wonder why this was so. (Danger, danger, another blog entry in the making!)

I am a student and admirer of the school of acting called “the Method”. For those of you who don’t know, “method” acting is projecting your own memory of an emotion through the filter of a character. If your character is supposed to be angry, you call upon a time when you were angry, and use that raw emotion to fuel your acting. I instinctively was drawn to this type of character presentation (indeed, I thought I’d discovered something new until my high school drama teacher told me otherwise) and have refined the technique over the years. I’m no Robert DeNiro, but I’d like to think I’ve done well for myself.

So, the other week when people were commenting on my ability and gushing praise about it, I started to wonder; what made me so good? Why was my emotional portrayal better than someone else’s? What gave me the ability to shed one persona and take on another with the ease that others shed clothing and don another set? After some pondering, I realized my gift lay in my emotions.

Compared to some people, I’ve been through a lot. I’m not trying to claim my life has been shit or that I have a right to some sympathy, just that I’ve seen and done a lot interesting stuff that many people (particularly sheltered, socially nervous gamers) have not tried. I’ve seen the peaks of ecstasy (in one case, literally). I’ve been angry enough to kill a man. I’ve been down and depressed enough to kill myself. In that agony and ecstasy, I draw my strength as an actor.

Example; the session of LARP that I referred to in the beginning of this post, I had to play two characters. Without going into too much detail (you don’t need an explanation of Werewolf the Apocalypse to understand the point I’m getting to), here’s a basic rundown. The first character was a bitter old soldier-type who was returning to his old comrades after a long absence, who was not greeted with the warmth he expected. He’d made some questionable decisions when he led this group of fighters, and after some time had passed and the stories had gotten garbled, people viewed him as the bad guy. (Whether this was a correct opinion or not is somewhat beyond the scope of this post.) Since he had risked his life to lead them, and had suffered to protect the sacred ground they all defended, he felt misrepresented and maligned. He was bitter. He lashed out. He took refuge in bitter cynicism and bleak depression. But at the core of it all, he was indignant about being judged by people no better than he was.

Now, I’ve been there in my own life. I have felt those emotions. When the moment came to portray my character’s reaction to this situation, I drew on that life experience. I projected that feeling of anger/hurt/betrayal through the construct of an old soldier who had seen more war than he could really handle. Sure, I screamed and yelled (anger is an easy emotion to portray) but it carried the timbre of pain; someone who is taking refuge in anger but really just wants to cry. After that character’s defiant exit, I switched personae.

The second was a calm, disciplined warrior, faithful to both his cause and his religion, who had chosen to do what was right because it was right, not because someone else told him to. This persona was more of a challenge for me; I am not by nature a faithful or religious person, and here was someone who believed in his faith down to the marrow of his bones. Despite all that the world had thrown at him (and without getting into too much detail, believe that it was a lot) he believed that his deity would come through for him.

The characters that my first persona despised, the second liked. I went from projecting venom at these characters to giving a gentle nod of respect. I have believed in things strongly before; I have had faith (and in my recent life, my faith in the all-powerful is stronger than it once was). I drew on this conviction and portrayed it to the group at large.

The point I’m getting to is that to make a character work, you have to bring your heart into it. They have to feel as you do; they must have a heart or they are not believable people. Some people talk of “getting out of your own skin” when you act, but I vehemently disagree. You have to get deeper into yourself to make your character believable. To act, you must bare your soul to your audience.

This is why actors are self-destructive; they are searching for the muse of emotion. They must know how it feels to experience the agony and the ecstasy. They must know love, and they must know betrayal. They must be the hero and the villain. To be an actor is to be curious about every facet of the human condition; every experience, every pain, every pleasure becomes a color in the palette of an actor’s ability. And this (I can tell you even from my own relatively limited experience) is not easy to do if you want to retain your sanity. For the other half of the equation is the ability to come back to yourself once you are done acting.

Not everyone can do it. And not everyone can do it all the time. Some can get out but not in, and some just can’t handle the strain and implode from the constant risk-taking their perspective demands. And some are just plain unlucky, and the risks they take end up killing them.

I wouldn’t say that it’s a conscious decision on an actor’s part to place themselves in risky situations just to be better at characterization. It’s an instinct, a state of mind, a perspective. Some people have it and some don’t. Whether I do or do not is definitely open to debate, but it’s how I do what I do and I don’t plan on changing anytime soon. I enjoy having a large body of experience and emotion to draw on when I act, and I think it’s worth the price.