Components
Having Lightning is made up of six segments:
- From Sigmund Freud to Ricky Gervais: A Survey of Approaches to Acting
- Getting out of your own way (see Operation Pizzicato)
- Turning Your Body into a Lightning Rod (see below)
- Scene Study
- Participating in the world through acting
Turning Your Body into a Lightning Rod
1) Want things :: with your Eyes
These are all the things your character will ever “want”, in order of necessity: Safety, Freedom,
Love, Respect, and Power. As an actor and artist, you must determine, very honestly, how exactly
you value each of these things and why they are as important to you as oxygen. What would you
sacrifice for each? Locate your desire in your eyes.
In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of psychological needs for human beings after
studying people like Albert Einstein and Frederick Douglass. His theory suggests that until you
have met the needs at the bottom of the pyramid, you cannot focus on meeting the higher needs.
Ultimately, each human being seeks self-actualization at the top of the pyramid. Every character
you play will be somewhere on this pyramid. Where they are determines how ferociously they must
fi ght for what they want.
2) Breathe Truthfully :: Lungs
You don’t feel it, but your brain performs a very quick algorrhythm whenever you are about to
speak. It knows the size of your vocabulary and it knows the thought you need to express, even if
it doesn’t yet know the words you will be speaking at the end of your sentence. Miraculously, you
always have exactly enough breath in your lungs for every sentence you say. This process is subverted
when you act, and when you lie. If someone is having a horrible day and you ask them how their
doing, they will take in enough breath to tell you all about their problems, but then just say “fine”
and empty all that extra breath out of their nose. If you want to win at poker, listen to how your
opponents are breathing. What you must do as an actor is not only learn your lines, but learn
your breathing. Learn where to breathe and how to fully support your text. Think of your words
as cannon balls that fi t snugly into the barrel of the cannon, with no extra breath escaping around
them as they fl y out towards their target.
3) Listen :: Ears and Ribs
This is much harder than it sounds. This is the part actors spend their entire lives thinking about
and learning. Actors who always deliver their lines exactly the same way are only doing half of
their job. They’re not reacting. The subtle terrain of getting what you want tends to shift and
change every time you do your scene. However your scene partner says his line, that’s what you are
responding to with yours. Think of it like jazz. You have to know your lines so well (and be thinking
of them like arrows in your quiver with which you’ll aim at a moving target, not text off of a rolling
teleprompter), that you are not preparing to say them during your scene partner’s lines.
You listen with your ears and your ribs. I had an acting teacher who was trying to explain to us
the difference between comprehending something and apprehending it. She approached a student and
directed him to “be scared”. As the student did his best, she explained to us that he was merely
comprehending the concept of “being scared”. Then, she smacked him, hard, across the face. He
was extremely startled. She then explained that, despite himself, he now apprehended being scared.
Comprehending is above the neck, apprehending is below. You must get to the point where it
doesn’t take a sudden act of violence to get you there. Listen with your ribs. Let them reverberate.
4) Make your scene partner feel something :: Hands
On stage or in film, you achieve your desires as determined above by making your scene partner
feel something. As in: Make him feel guilty so you get back the power he drained from you by
cheating on you. The writer will take care of putting you in a scene in which you want something
from the other person. Your job is to fi gure out what that is, and go after it by desperately trying to
make him feel something. Remember, acting is not about what you feel, that’s your scene partner’s
job. Acting is about making your scene partner feel something, so you get back one of the above
objectives (Safety, Freedom, Love, Respect, or Power). Endow your hands with this power.
5) Let the Language Rip Through You :: Mouth
Vowels drudge up emotion, and consonants organize them into action. If your director wants
“more feeling” (this is a terrible direction, by the way), achieve this by expanding the way you feel
your vowels. If he wants more aggression, inflate the consonants and you’ll be on your way. Let the
language rip through you. This is why we cry at the opera.
Stage actors act primarily with their mouths, film actors primarily with their eyes. In either case,
you are saying words that you did not write, and are trying to make them sound like your own.
Often you will grapple with the fact that, when speaking, we tend to put the important words
towards the beginning of sentences and trail off the rest. In writing, the important words often
come at the end. You must master the art of making the latter sound natural. It requires more
conviction than Americans are used to speaking with. We usually fi nish each other’s sentences, and
establish a short hand. Not so when you’re acting. In performance, characters say what they say with
conviction, knowing exactly who they are.
So you must get inside the text. Do this by penetrating the imagery. The audience will listen not
to your words, but to the images attached to them. So you must offer up these images with your
mouth. Your tongue is the paintbrush, your nouns and adjectives and verbs and adverbs are the
paint. For every line you have and every word you say, you must determine a specifi c image of it for
yourself and this image must fl ash through your mouth as you speak. Like cartoon word bubbles
with pictures in them. Every word must sound like you are inventing it for this context. Like no one
has ever said it before.
Circle all the image words in your script (nouns verbs adjectives and adverbs). Go through it
stopping at each one and saying it fi ve times, imagining what it looks like on a very personal level.
6) Play it Strong and Wrong :: Gut
There is never one right way of doing anything, so stop looking for it. Be willing and excited to do
it “wrong” to eliminate all of the ways it should not be done and get them out of your system. Try
things in the wrong genre. You never know what hidden gem of insight you will happen upon. Most
importantly, commit 100% to whatever choice you make, or are given by your director. Your gut
has no regard for how you will “come off” doing something, it just wants to do it. Listen to it.
7) Play the Positive :: Heart
This is how you win the empathy of your audience. Not by being admirable, or attractive. By
playing the positive. Don’t make him pay for cheating on you, win your dignity back the only way
you can. Don’t put the arrogant to shame, create a better, less arrogant world. Villains too must
always play the positive. Given their lot, they are making the best choices they can. No matter what
your character is doing, it can always be chalked up to striving for something positive, and that’s
what we pay to see you do. Your heart must always feel like it’s rising.
8) Be Unattractive :: Junk
Most young actors are unwilling to do this, and therefore have a limited range. Tragically, they
miss out on the parts of acting that are the most fun: doing icky things in front of people who paid
to see it, being the asshole that ruins the party, displaying for all the hypocrits the true ugliness
of petty emotions. Always dwell in what is despicable about your character. It’s so much more
interesting than what is admirable. Your loins should be ablaze with emotional mischief.
9) Relax your asshole
I know this sounds a little bizarre. But I’ve seen actors do non-stop warm ups and relaxing
techniques, constantly stretching and doing yoga before they go on, and then the moment
they do, you couldn’t pull a pin out of their ass with a tractor. Clenching buttholes ruins more
performances than any other physical factor, and most actors don’t even realize their doing it. If
you remind yourself once you begin to relax in this way, you can’t stay nervous. And your source
of energy will drop down to the groin (from up in the stomach where it’s useless). Then you are in
charge of your body, and you’ll remember why you have arms.
10) Hit the Bricks :: Feet
Auditions are not your shot at stardom. They are your calling card. And should be as plentiful and
expendable. They are not measures of your talent, and therefore you can decide if you’re cast or
not beforehand. Then simply conduct yourself that way. Walk in as if you already have the role,
but you haven’t told them about some serious scheduling confl icts. They’ll pick up on this air of
confi dent-yet-slightly-out-of-reach and will trip over themsleves offering you the role.
Optional Additional Components
Having Lightning can also include any and all of the following segments:
- Getting Shakespearean Poetry To Rip Through Your Body
- Plot Analysis for Actors
- Stage vs. Screen Acting
Intended Audience
Having Lightning is intended for actors of stage and screen.
Booking Information
If you would like to book Having Lightning at your theatre or university, please contact:
Booking
Operation Pizzicato
4655 Kingswell Avenue, Suite 208
Los Angeles, CA 90027
or call (212) 252-2768
or email booking@operationpizzicato.com
