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Acting Hurts (Recap: September)
I remember being in PE when I was younger and having to do laps around the track.
Every time, somewhere into the run, I would get this really sharp pain in my side.
My breathing would get choppy. My chest would tense up. The pain would get worse, and the farther I went, the more I wanted to stop.
For a while, I just assumed I was bad at running. Not for me. Plus, the shin splints were another problem.
Later, I learned that part of what was happening was I needed to warm up (duh) and the other had to do with...
...my breathing. I needed to control it.
Easier said than done.
Breathing is incredibly easy when you're calm or standing still.
But controlling your breath when you're running is another story:
your heart is beating faster, your body is working harder, your breathing wants to speed up.
And once that pain started, everything in me wanted to react to it.
Slow down.
Stop.
Get out of the discomfort.
Do it now.
Controlling my breathing felt like the complete opposite of what my body was asking me to do.
It took practice. A lot of it.
Sometimes I'd lose the rhythm again. Sometimes the pain would still show up. But the more I practiced, the farther I could go before it took over.
I realized I wasn't going against what my body wanted...I was teaching it something new...something that would carry it farther.
I was teaching it what it was capable of...what I was capable of.
I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
Because acting feels like that.
And I don't just mean being an actor.
I mean actually doing the work.
Acting hurts.
Not literally.
Well...sometimes literally.
The work asks us to stay present while a whole bunch of things are happening inside (and around) us.
You sit down with a scene and immediately start judging your ideas.
You make a choice and then wonder if it's the right choice.
You have a class or workshop you're excited about and the moment starts, insecurity kicks in.
You get an audition you've been wanting, and somehow the fact that you care about it makes everything harder.
You explore a character with painful emotions and your mind resists.
You're on set and the director is disappointed you were cast (true story).
You prepare.
You know the scene.
You know what you want.
And then you hit record.
Your heart starts beating differently.
Now you're thinking about the eyeline.
Your face.
Your voice.
Whether the pause was too long.
Whether the reader gave you what you needed.
Whether casting will understand the choice.
Whether you should do another take.
And another.
And maybe one more.
All of this is a version of getting winded.
Something starts to hurt, and our instinct is to get away from the discomfort.
We change the choice.
We procrastinate.
We overprepare.
We ask somebody else what they think.
We do twelve takes.
We scroll.
We stop.
And, yeah...being an actor right now probably doesn't make any of that easier.
There is already so much uncertainty built into this career.
Add to that the instability of a constantly changing and evolving industry.
Productions are moving, technology is changing the game, and you've got recognizable names like Jack Haven and Heather Matarazzo publicly talking about struggling to earn enough to maintain SAG-AFTRA health insurance.
Like...what?!
So, yeah.
Why wouldn't actors be a little stressed?
Why wouldn't auditions feel heavier sometimes?
Why wouldn't comparison creep in?
Why wouldn't your brain look at a slow month and turn inward?
Maybe it's my talent, my age, my reps, my marketability, my headshots...maybe it's just me.
The pressure is real.
But that's exactly why I keep coming back to the breathing.
Because we can't always control what is happening around us.
We can get better at noticing what happens inside us when it does.
What is your sharp pain?
For me, on that track, the pain told me something was happening that I didn't know how to manage yet.
I think our blocks can do the same thing.
Maybe yours is perfectionism.
Maybe it's distraction.
Maybe it's comparison.
Maybe you don't trust your first instinct.
Maybe the second an audition matters to you, you become hyperaware of yourself and stop actually listening.
Maybe you keep preparing because making a choice feels scarier than researching one.
Maybe you watch your tape over and over until you've completely lost perspective.
Maybe you refuse to watch it at all.
Maybe your process is great until somebody redirects you, and suddenly everything you prepared feels useless.
Maybe your problem isn't even acting technique.
Maybe it's attention.
Maybe you've trained your brain to reach for your phone the second something becomes difficult.
Maybe you've gotten very good at doing productive things around acting without actually sitting down and acting.
Those aren't reasons to beat yourself up.
Because the truth is some actors naturally have a higher tolerance for uncertainty.
Some people make choices quickly.
Some actors can walk into a room, adjust immediately and move on without carrying the last take around with them.
Some people focus easily.
Others have to work much harder at it.
That doesn't mean one person is a real actor and the other isn't.
It means we don't all need to train the same muscles.
So focus on you.
Where do you lose your breath?
Where do you lose your focus?
Where does your process start to tighten?
That's information.
That's awareness.
That's probably where the training needs to happen.
You don't practice breathing by standing still.
It's easy to trust your instincts when nothing is on the line.
It's easy to say you're going to make bold choices when it's an exercise in class.
It's easy to talk about letting go of perfectionism when you don't have to submit the tape tonight.
Then the audition you really want comes in.
Now practice it.
It's easy to say:
I don't need to get it right.
Until you hit record.
Now practice it.
It's easy to say:
I'm going to stay present with the other person.
Until halfway through the scene your brain starts replaying the line you just said.
Now practice it.
That moment is the training.
I want you to start shifting your mindset to observation instead of judgment. Discernment instead of dismissal.
Every time you notice some tension arise, you're gaining information.
You can't work on something if you don't know what you need to work on.
The ability to feel uncomfortable without immediately needing to fix the discomfort.
Those are acting muscles too.
It's like testing different knobs and valves to find a leak (I don't know if that's accurate...I'm not a plumber...but you get what I mean).
The goal isn't to suffer longer.
I think this is a very important distinction.
Endurance doesn't mean forcing yourself through something that clearly isn't working.
If I had actually injured myself on that track, the solution wouldn't have been to breathe better and keep running.
Sometimes you need to stop.
Sometimes you need rest.
Sometimes you need to warm up first.
Sometimes the technique needs to change.
Sometimes you genuinely haven't understood the scene yet.
Sometimes a class, a process, a representation relationship or even the way you're structuring your career isn't working anymore.
Stamina is not stubbornness.
It's awareness.
Can you tell the difference between:
This is difficult.
and
This isn't working.
Can you tell the difference between:
I need another take because I discovered something.
and
I need another take because I'm scared to submit it like this.
Between:
I need more preparation.
and
I'm using preparation to avoid committing.
Those are very different things.
Focus of the Month: Find where you lose your breath.
This month, don’t try to fix the “sharp pain.”
Just observe it.
Whenever you notice resistance, tension, distraction, perfectionism, frustration, or the urge to quit:
1. Write down what happened.
Keep it simple.
What were you doing?
What did you notice?
What did you want to do next?
2. Don’t analyze it in the moment.
No fixing. No judging. No Why am I like this?
Write it down and keep going.
3. At the end of each week, review your notes.
Look for patterns:
What kept coming up?
When did you lose focus?
What created the most resistance?
How did you usually respond?
Think of it as collecting data.
You don’t need to solve anything yet.
First, notice. Then reflect.
Then decide what, if anything, you want to practice differently.
And if you want help identifying the pattern or figuring out what to do with it, schedule a Focus Call and we can talk it through together.
Want to go deeper with this work?
This is a big part of what we explore in Saboteur to Superpower. Because recognizing the pattern is one thing...learning how to respond differently when the pressure, fear, perfectionism, or self-doubt actually shows up is another.
Over the course of the program, we work on identifying those automatic “Saboteur” responses, building practical tools for shifting them, and then applying that work directly to your acting, auditions, choices, and career.
