The spiritual side to acting has always been quite clear to me.
While it has helped my acting, it has also sometimes created resistance in my pursuit of roles.
Since the early ages, religion and spirituality have always enacted a “like attracts like” rituals in order to connect with a particular energy.
In today’s modern movies and theater (and video games, for that matter), not too many people think about that, but it works in a similar was as the rituals from thousands of years ago.
Sure, they talk about violence in movies and messages behind television shows, but the actual energetic aspect of these artistic creations is not an awareness that is widely recognized.
It’s like a giant moving dreamboard for the collective.
There was a time in Los Angeles when I was going from acting roll to acting roll to acting roll… At approximately one acting roll per month.
During this time, I played in a variety of different productions, from horror to comedy to romance… And the parts I played has just as much variety.
As I stepped into the roll and as I focused on the world of the character and how she was effected by that world, I started to see it bleed into my own reality. I started to feel the energy of the world on a constant basis.
If I was involved in a horror movie, my awareness of horrible happenings (like those on the news) went up. If I was in a happy romance, my number of successful dates went up. If my character was unhappy in romance in the production, then those dates had an unsuccessful rate.
There are two parts to this concept.
The first is that a script (television, movie, play, etc) is a prayer and a ritual in its entirety. As an example, the play I just finished was a romantic comedic farce with a happy ending for everyone except for one character who lost his girlfriend to another guy.
This prayer/play was run twice or more times per week leading up to the production in rehearsals, every day of the week before the production, and several times on the weekends during performance weeks.
What was the energy of the prayer/play? Playfulness and a bit of sexy romance coupled with the glamor of the 1930s as well as a lot of miscommunication and fast moving scenes and situations.
That has also been the energy of my life in the last few weeks. (Which is awesome for me, by the way!)
And the prayer became especially strong when observed with an audience.
The second part of the concept involves the specific roll one embodies.
Usually for me, it is something I already embody or something I want to embody.
That wasn’t always true. I used to get EVERYTHING! Every roll you could imagine!
But unless I am really drawn to a particular roll or project for anther reason, I now avoid any roll that embodies prominent characteristics that I do not want to pull into my real life.
So if the acting roll in this play had been an alcoholic, I probably would have passed on it.
Luckily, she was a rich and famous and well-loved actress, and although she was self-centered, she never questioned herself and her motivations. Living inside the brain of that character was very nice to try on and is why I like acting. It has been healing to me because I think it has brought out characteristics in me (Leslie) that were laying dormant but that have helped me a lot since emerging.
The character I played even got to the end of the play with the man she always wanted, with a great starring roll with two famous and successful producers running the show, a huge contract with tons of great perks and LITERALLY wearing a gorgeous white dress that made me feel like a princess. (the end of the play wasn’t a marriage, but the dress implied a happy long-term romantic coupling, in my opinion).
These are all things I would be THRILLED to have in my real life as LESLIE. 🙂
As you can tell, I gave a BIG YES when I was asked to do this roll, and not once did I question the energies it would bring into my life.
And I must say, doing this roll and this play was an utterly ecstatic experience for me.
Which is how prayers should be. 🙂
~ Peace ~
Indigo Leslie