Can’t access anger in your acting?
So many actors struggle to play anger.
It makes sense, though, right? Throughout your life, you’ve internalized messages about how you’re supposed to handle anger and other big feelings. So, when it comes to playing a role that asks this of you, you come smack up against your blocks and it’s a challenge to let go, especially if you’ve become a “pleaser” in order to cope.
Even though it might be painful, lean in. Work in therapy and with a great coach. I promise even if it feels bad — the payoff is reallllllly good..
CLASS CLIP TRANSCRIPTION
Sarah: I can feel that part of you that holds back, and I have a feeling there’s some work for you to do around your rage. And maybe repressed rage, and some stuff that, maybe old stuff, and it could be, you know, doing some writing or thinking about moments when you made decisions around what rage meant, you know. Decisions from, examples you had of what anger and rage…mean. What it means to be like that. We often make, you know, early life decisions about how we want to be based on the information we got, you know.
Student: Yeah. Seeing my parents fight was so terrifying.
Sarah: Yeah, so terrifying. Yelling, rage, right, so some of us end up as the pleasers, you know. Wanting to be nice and people to like us. And then we have to kind of…a lot of this work in here is the undoing of some of that stuff, so that we can fully express and be fully human, and also just heal some of that stuff, you know. Those were the things that I…I think in my early twenties, I really wish that I had heard more, like knowing how much…and my acting teacher used to say, you know, Larry Moss always used to say, “People don’t get careers for two reasons, or three, really. Technical problems, emotional problems, or a combination of both.” And I really think that the emotional side of things doesn’t get worked through enough. Because we just, there’s stuff that we’ve become hard-wired to avoid. We don’t even know we’re doing it. So working in this way is so good. It’s gonna feel like shit and you’re gonna find a million excuses to do everything else. But it’s really good.
Student: It’s good.
Sarah: It’s good, it’s really really really really good.
