How to Protect Yourself Emotionally as an Actor

Let’s talk about protecting yourself emotionally when you’re an actor. 

As a coach, I'm always telling people “More pain, more pain, more pain, you need to bring more pain to your work.” I want to clarify that this doesn’t mean torturing yourself. You don’t need to be the tortured artist. Matter of fact, it’s really dangerous to you to be continuously re-traumatizing. I want you to protect yourself emotionally. It’s difficult for you to open yourself up emotionally if it’s going to be dangerous to you. So how do you get vulnerable, especially if you’ve had trauma? 

Try Therapy

First I would suggest therapy. It’s different than acting class; acting class is not therapy. I think acting class can be therapeutic, but it is not therapy. If there’s something that you haven’t worked through, therapy’s the place to do it.

Memory Techniques 

In class, you can use techniques like emotional memory where you can pull up and use your imagination, or use an actual memory you have to connect you to that emotion. I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT USE YOUR GREATEST TRAUMA. If it feels traumatic in any way, do not use it. It isn’t necessary and can be damaging. 

If you’re doing a difficult, emotional role long-term, it can wear on you and you have to be careful and protect yourself. Do the things that you might need to do to avoid getting pulled into a depressive state, even when you’re acting. 

Music, Meditation, and Prayer

You can listen to music that makes you happy. If you’re a person who likes to meditate, it’s a wonderful thing to do before or after a heavy emotional scene. For a person who prays, that’s something else you can do. Sometimes it’s helpful and fun to put on a song and dance it off. If you’ve got a pet, spend time playing with them and having fun.

Live Truthfully

I think that there’s this fallacy that if your character is suffering, you need to be suffering as well. I want you to live truthfully between “action and cut.” When that’s over, while it might not be immediately available to you, I want you to laugh and snap out of it. There may be some residual, icky feeling that you and your character are going through, but it’s not healthy to stay in it and marinate in it. I want you to be able to stay safe, so don’t allow it to overtake you. The sign of a good actor is not being miserable while you’re acting, and nobody wants to watch an actor in pain for two hours! Even if your character is struggling and suffering, it’s not going to be for the whole movie so give yourself a break. Understand that emotion is not like a light switch that you can turn on and off. Let it go when the take is over.  

Remember that people on set are going to be trying to comfort you, even if you’re doing an upsetting scene where there’s lots of emotion. The crew doesn’t want to see the actor unhappy. They’ll want to come over and try to cheer you up, so understand that that’s them trying to deal with their pain and not wanting you to be hurting. You want to give voice to these characters and make it truthful for them. But if you’re having a really hard time, I want you to leave that on set and be able to take care of yourself. 

I hope you’re protecting yourself emotionally. It’s very important, I’ve seen too many actors traumatized by acting classes or a process that didn’t consider their mental health. 

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