There are things out there that are far beyond our comprehension.
Just imagine what early Sapiens would have thought if they saw electricity, or nuclear, or someone using their phone to watch a video that teaches them to program a computer. Whilst they fly a rocket ship with their mind.
I feel great comfort at what we have to come.
Lose your headphones 3 minutes before arrival.
Then have a chit-chat with a person.
Just to remind yourself you can.
Today I went to an audition for the first play I’ve been excited about in a year and a half.
It was almost a success.
Except I arrived a week early.
Idiot.
Mild Relief.
As I came out of the theatre’s toilet, I happened across a corridor. Lined with pictures of past productions, past greats, and, because it’s Hampstead, past risks. It took me 15 mins to leave.
I felt more refreshed and energized than I have ever felt coming out of a toilet corridor.
I’d forgotten. What it means to take risks. To get it wrong. To say fuck you. This is me. This is us. People standing there, in front of you, saying, I will not be cowed. I will fly.
Success.
Good thing I arrived early.
Outloud – what’s your phone number?
If you know your lines so well you can reel them off like you just did your number, you will have done 95% of the acting work that is required of you.
Tell me that number again.
The other 5% of the work is what gets talked about in Oscar campaigns, and we can get to that after – but it’s mainly chalk.
Learn your friggin lines.
I used to think I learned my lines well. But I had been doing it wrong for almost 10 years. Now I try to know them as well as I know my own date of birth. 19th of shut the hell up.
Learn your lines, then learn them again. Then, start learning them. Then you are 50% of the way to arriving at a place where you can begin to learn them. Then you should actually learn them.
What’s that phone number again – this time please in a Scottish accent whilst imagining throwing your phone at the face of the person who’s closest in the room to you. Then slap your butt.
Learn your lines like you’ve known them your whole life.
Only once you’ve done that, can you start mucking about.
But don’t learn them for self tapes.
Abraham Lincoln said:
“Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.”
What happens if you go in with “I am going to convince you I am your muse?
Not, “I am your muse”.
“I am going to convince you I am your muse.”
I’ve recently become a Dad.
Good advice tells me I need to nap.
But I don’t wanna nap.
There’s too much excitement to be had.
Naps are stupid.
Three days ago I was tricked into a nap.
I will not forget it.
I feel close to my daughter.
One day, someday coming, someone will tell me what they really think of me.
And I will say “Ha, I knew it!”
And that will be the end of that.
Weightlifters will use chalk to prepare themselves for the lift.
And there are many different brands to choose from.
It’s very easy to get caught up debating the prep: This way, not that. That way, not this.
Different styles through different miles.
What’s really important is that they are there, in the arena, putting everything on the line.
The brand of chalk is a nonsense.
The courage is real.
But it’s hard.
And that’s the game.
It’s all a game. That’s all it is.
Play it accordingly.
Or don’t.
Up to you.
Have high expectations whilst you are preparing for it.
Have sky high expectations whilst you are preparing for it.
But when the event comes, let them go. They will only hinder you. If they start to be met you will congratulate yourself prematurely and die. If it starts to go south you will trip up and die.
Your preparation will save you, if you can find a way to stop your expectations assailing you.
Do everything you can to let them go.
Your hard work will lead to your victory.
It just is.
There are the hard parts of movies – the moments you flinch, you wince – you might pause the film (generally ¾ of the way through) and think, god this is painful. Maybe you walk away from it. Maybe you keep watching but you have a little check of your phone.
Whatever you do, your glass half full knows the truth: Once you get through the rough, it will probably end well.
But it still hurts. It’s still uncomfortable, it is still the hard part of the film.
When I was a kid, I remember skipping past these uncomfortable parts, the bits where the goody lets his friends down, or the couple break up. I would skip them and get right back on schedule with the good bits.
And I still do now – today on the plane, I had to pause Jerry Maguire, at the tough part, look out the window, and wait until the wince had left my system.
In the hard, uncomfortable moments, it will get better, but it’s tricky to remember. It’s fine to pause, to take a breath to get through the pain.
But we are not children any more. Something deep down knows we can’t skip it. To skip it would be being dishonest. Would do us a disservice. We have to go through those uncomfortable moments to get to the good part.
In fact, the good part is not the good part until we’ve been through those moments.
Don’t skip them.
The good bits will cease to exist if you do.
Do the heavy lifting ahead of time.
You will thank yourself later.
Rule #1:
Be kind
Rule #2 :
Do everything in your power not to be intimidated by all that comes with filming, unless this contradicts rule #1.
If you haven’t been told not to – fuck it – do it.
Because why not?
If you fancy a question or two from multiple policemen, sit in Leicester square for a while mumbling your lines under your breath whilst making a tally.
Don’t be late.
If your going to be late, don’t take the piss.
Someone once complained to his wife, Margot, different Margot,
“I don’t like my hair when it’s this short and patchy”
“So why don’t you grow it out?” said she
“Now there’s a thought” said he
We should not fear the days when things come easy.
It’s tempting to worry that because something is going smoothly, because it feels easy and there is a distinct lack of resistance, because the work is, dare we say, fun – that it is somehow lacking.
It must be sub-par.
Our lightness of spirit today is a sign that we are doing something wrong, that we are not taking things seriously enough, that we need to get stuck in some mud in order for this to be worthwhile.
But a hard day does not guarantee work that we are proud of.
The meaningful thing is that the work has been done. We got through that hard day.
Days which fly by, where you enjoy the work, the company, the process, also don’t guarantee work we are proud of, but neither do they indicate that it will be work that we are not.
The meaningful thing, again, is that the work has been done.
I have been tempted at times to believe that in order to make something worthwhile you must suffer. And I have acted accordingly.
In those moments I forgot that one third of The Creative Process is
“This is Awesome”.
Maybe the hard work has led us to the point where we can now enjoy it.
It would be a mistake not to.
The Creative Process is natural and necessary to travel through when contributing anything new and worthwhile to the world.
After a big flop at the box office an American director found himself lying in a hospital bed. He had just come close to an overdose from cocaine and prescription drugs that had smacked him nearer to death than he had ever been.
Soon, a very good friend came by and insisted he clean himself up – mostly because he cared about him, but in part because he needed him to make his film.
The director was the only one who could shoot it, his pal insisted, it couldn’t be anyone else. It had to be him. “Clean yourself up.”
His friend had been asking him repeatedly for 4 years, please direct this, and each time the director had said no, he didn’t want to. It wasn’t for him.
But on this occasion, something about his friend’s persistence moved him and he finally relented and agreed to shoot it.
His American career was over anyway, he thought – he might as well do one final movie and then move to Europe to spend the rest of his life making small films.
Raging Bull was released in 1980, cementing Scorsese as one of the most important American filmmakers of his generation. His persistent friend, De Niro, won an Oscar and inspired countless actors with his performance as the boxer Jake LaMotta. The two have so far made 10 features together:
Mean Streets
Taxi Driver
New York, New York
Raging Bull
The King Of Comedy
Goodfellas
Cape Fear
Casino
The Irishman
Killers of the Flower Moon
When you find your muse – a person who believes in you, who loves your work, the person who inspires you to make more of it – Do everything you can to keep them close.
Hold onto them.
You will make your best work with and for them, and they will, in turn, keep you alive.
What would you prefer:
a. You feel the work you do is of good quality, but you are unhappy in your self everyday.
b. You think the work you do is of average quality, but you feel good about yourself most days.
Or are they mutually exclusive?
Shaving is a perfectionist’s nightmare.
I care that I missed a day.
But it has given me an excuse to write for two.
Watch the “greats”.
What would you do differently?
Do it.
Terrific.
Moving on.
We trick ourselves into thinking there is a definitive truth.
That’s good acting.
That’s bad food.
But who’s to say it is.
Who’s to say it isn’t.
To presume there is an accepted truth about taste, would be to deny everyone else their experience of the world, and make it one person small.
It didn’t last for ever.
Things got better.
Thanks for asking.
It bears remembering:
If you are working through a painful something something, have no fear:
You will be moving on to the next number shortly.
“This is you forever.” the fucker says.
Nope.
Itsnot.
Imagine the camera as the front row of your audience.
When it’s a master shot the performance is to an audience who are sitting where the camera is.
When you are on a close up the same.
There’s only one row.
If your audience is sitting two inches away from your face – how does that change what you do?
Don’t worry about the rest.
You don’t like me? You don’t like my work? You don’t think I’m Right for it? Oh there is a right or a wrong is there? And I got it wrong? Funny how? Like haha
We get told Don’t take it personally.
And yet it is personal. It’s Art. Of course it’s personal. It has to be personal. We work hard, We make our choices and then We show up, despite our fear, despite our challenges to get there, we show up and we say here you are. I’d like to show you something. I made this.
“Don’t take it personally”.
Are you saying it’s not to do with who we are as people? Our personality? Oh, I seeeeee, my mistake. It’s about how we look, is it? Our mannerisms? The shape of our face? Our height? Our accent?
“It’s really not personal”
Now, I’m not saying don’t Get over it. We must do that. God forbid we don’t Get Over the (insert any number over 0) rejections a year. It is a skill, and a necessary one, to get on with your life. To get through a hurt.
But that’s not what I’m talking about.
What I’m talking about is strangers making us feel like we are not good enough. That we don’t know what we are talking about. That we have made the wrong choices.
And then telling us we shouldn’t feel what we feel.
Of course I take it personally…
Don’t placate me nonsensically.
What if we took feeling personally and directed it back at the powers that be. The ones who are picking us last on the football court at school and then telling us we shouldn’t take it personally. What if we said hold on a moment, I am going to take it personally. I’m going to take it fucking personally.
You don’t want me?
Well, fuck you then.
I’ll show you.
I’m going to show you just what I can do. I’m going to show you who I am. What I am. What this age can do. What this nose can do. What this height can do. I’m going to show you who you missed out on. Me. Personally. You fuck wit.
Don’t take it personally.
