film acting vs theater acting

 This is the story of how I lost respect for film actors, theater audiences, and art. 

I had the pleasure, a decade or so ago, of acting in a major role -- the antagonist -- in an indie feature film, a pretty good movie that got an award at a NYC film festival, and full of excellent young actors. The story included one major role for an older character, and that was mine. 

The movie I played in was almost all young actors of impressive talent, skill and dynamism. They were paid SAG minimum I beleive. The director, limited by his budget, offered me the role of villain, an older character, probably because I'm not really an actor, so he could pay me a stipend under scale and not have to deal with the exorbitant fees of the older actors in town. 

The acting market in NYC is a double market failure. The city draws swarms of talented aspiring actors which glut the supply and makes for so few opportunities and keeps wages so low that after several years of working multiple jobs and achieving little despite incredible talent and dedication, even the most talented give up and go back home to Kentucky to bring up kids in a normal, undistinguished American life of obscurity. Their burn-out departure leaves only a very small few in the metropolis who were able to survive as actors, so few that these, now older, are in high demand and cost a lot. 

Fortunately for the director -- and for me -- had seen me in a few videos I made for a friend's business, knew me personally, and so asked me to play this role for a nominal fee. I'd never been in a real movie, much less play a major role in one, so I jumped at the opportunity.

I didn't mind taking a pittance. I would have done it for free, but I felt that doing it for free would segregate me from the crew somehow, so I took a small stipend, something like $150 -- small change. The true reward for me was the opportunity to be in a movie, try acting, and learn about the movie process from the inside. 

Immediately after finishing the movie, a stage director -- another friend -- asked me to play sundry parts in her adaptation of  The Iron Heel, Jack London's socialist sci-fi fantasy. It included one major character and a couple of brief caricature bit parts, but the part that drew me to the project was the role of narrator. She'd written this role in rhymed couplets, so deftly and brilliantly that after reading once through the opening speech, which was quite long --several pages -- I knew most of the lines already, and after just a second reading, knew it altogether by heart. 

I learned several important surprises in this experience of film and theater acting. For one, film acting is thoroughly alienating. There's no audience except the crew and they are busy with their own work. There's a bit of ensemble work among them, but nothing like what happens in a musical ensemble in which each member is listening and reacting in real time to everyone else in the ensemble. 

Since there's no audience, there's really no fun or excitement. If one camera take doesn't work, another will be better. The stakes are low. The director is watching and may be appreciative, but that's your boss, not the audience you want to entertain, tickle, arouse and move. 

And there's all that waiting. 

It's incredibly boring. Film actors cannot possibly be doing this for enjoyment. The only reasons must be for fame and fortune. I came away with an extremely low opinion of film actors. I accept that we all want to be recognized for our talents, and film acting is a talent, and some of them are extraordinarily talented, so I guess I can't judge them too harshly, but it's not a job I'd be proud of. 

On the other hand, theater acting is nothing if not fun. I expected it to be exciting too, and worried about stage fright, but there's actually little anxiety on stage. Unlike reading music in performance where any error in your line will be heard, so the stakes are high for your every pitch, in a play, there's little reason to worry about your lines, since you know the story, and the content of what you're on the stage to say, you could always make up some words that would do just as well as the script, and what words would you then choose? The first ones that come to mind will no doubt be the ones in the script. There was no stage fright. When not speaking on stage, it's a bit boring. I'm not sure of my lines -- it'll come to me when I hear the cue. But entertaining an audience? What fun! 

We had an audience feedback after the curtain. Here I lost my respect for the audience. They all especially loved one of the bit parts. But for me, that was the easiest. I picked an accent, and hammed it to the hilt. And that's what the peanut gallery loves. And not just the peanut gallery. Everyone. 

And that's what art is all about. It's a kind of circus trick. You learn to entertain, and the audience loves it. This is not hard to do. It's not hitting your head day after day trying to master physics or econometrics or god forbid organic chem. It's just tricks.