Half Smile

The story with the guy who called me a prince is an interesting one.

I remember first meeting him in providence at a theater. He was introducing himself around after being hired to work with us on a play, and he deadlocked eyes with me and softened up his voice and said (slowly and methodically) "Hey Tom, I'm Jonathon...it's really nice to meet you." All the while staring at me in the eyes with a bit of warm recognition. It was completely intoxicating. I thought to myself, "Jesus Christ what a nice guy!" I was not only convinced he was a kind-hearted person, I was absolutely sure of it!

I was at that time, of course, unaquainted with the ways of the professional actor. The acting stereotype that I had become familiar with was the collegiate actor. Very much the same as in the passage in Franny and Zooey, where the girl talks about how obnoxious and obviously fake all of the Yale drama students are. They come out to the lobby after their show to greet their guests, still caked in their stage make-up and try to behave unselfconciously and graciously. The collegiate actor is, essentially, completely self-involved and incapable of hiding it.

The behavior of the professional actor is far more insideous. It turns out that Jonathon was not a very nice person, in a number of ways. While he was in Providence working on the play, he broke up with his fiancee back in LA, slept with a friend of the directors, impregnated her, and told her to get an abortion but refused to have anything more to do with it (ie pay or console or attend). He would constantly bitch and complain in a way that was very childish, and he would refuse to do anything he didn't specifically want to do (which sounds solid, but for an actor, not listening and taking notes from a director is an enormous problem). What really started to single him out as a pretender, was when I would pay close attention to how he would introduce himself to other people. He was doing the same thing he did to me!? That fucker! If everybody gets greeted like that, it means I'm not special? He was pretending to be kind and gracious?

So...yeah. It has taken me a while to diagnose what is at the heart of these people's behavior. And I'm not sure if I'm to the heart of it yet still. But this guy Jonathon seems to be honest on first meeting. He seems to be forthright and kind. And yet I have seen him far too many times compromising himself on those qualities which he presents so self-assuredly. The lifestyle of an actor requires you to meet hundreds if not thousands of people whom you must impart some sense of kindness, honesty, and intelligence. These "meetings" are often short, chaotic and superficial in context (does he look right? sound right? tall enough? blah blah blah). The professional actor must then push all that it is within themselves that is "good" up to the front of their personality. By that I mean, they don't play coy and allow time for a relationship to be built based on growth and understanding over time. They have 10 minutes to prove to you how worthy they are, and they need to make sure you know and remember them. I think this may be why they appear to be so incredibly obnoxious and ovrebearing. Not only must they please everyone, they must do it in a very short period of time.

I don't know where I am in the conversation now, but I'm glad I put that out there.

Thoughts?