As we head into award ceremonies across the globe for the big and small screen, one question we might ask ourselves within our own life is ‘To act or to not act this year?’. I don’t mean literally act in the sense of on stage or on screen but what can acting teach us within our own life? After all, life can be full of drama, where we are expected more often than not to perform many roles such as being a parent, teacher, manager, student, athlete, friend, and often playing many of these roles at the one time. Furthermore, roles are likely needed to be performed in both personal and professional settings. Here I will mostly consider what acting may teach us from a psychologist's perspective.
One concept of acting that I am often fascinated by is Method acting – with Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep being some of the well-known faces to walk this pathway in the shoes of their on-screen character. A Method actor, just by consequence of undertaking a certain type of training allows the actor to awaken the psychological life of a character (Verducci, 2000). Basically, Method acting is a group of techniques actors use to create in themselves the thoughts and feelings of their characters to achieve and ‘strive to create lifelike portrayals’ (Bandelj, 2003).
Some of the techniques involve emotional preparation by doing sensory and emotional exercises and improvisation where actors are also trained to actively listen. The technique, even though it was not coined Method acting at the beginning, was invented in the early 1900s by Konstantin Stanislavski who is the father of modern acting. His desire to “live” a role rather than “perform” a role has influenced every acting technique we know today (Ates, 2023). Although several strains of Method acting exist, such as Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner’s take on it, each are connected with a common belief that 'an actor begins his or her work by discovering and making the inner emotional and psychological life of a character real to naturally flow' with the internal and external feelings of what is happening in the moment (Verducci, 2000).
“The door of the human heart can only be opened from the inside.”
So what has all this to do with psychology?
Let's consider an example of psychology in an applied setting. A lot of the time when working with a client or lecturing a group of students it’s important to consider when is the right moment to speak or to listen. Or in a personal setting, when a friend is in need, it’s important to consider when to offer advice or when to just listen. Similar to being a Method actor it’s not just about speaking the lines but more importantly about saying them at the right moment and with the right feelings, and this involves putting great importance on how we listen in the moment.
We also may have to make a judgement in the moment whether the scene as we have envisaged is actually connecting with the other person (i.e. is the student playing their own part by engaging with the moment and their work? Is a friend really taking on board what you are saying). If not, why not? Sometimes this means we have to go off script to connect and improvise by venturing into areas where we may not necessarily know what will happen, which is often called ‘Knock on the Door’ improvisation in Method acting (Krasner, 2012).
As artist William Holman Hunt said, “The door of the human heart can only be opened from the inside,” whilst actor-teacher Lee Strasberg expressed, “Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality.” As psychologists we often have to help a person express the reality they are feeling and then help them frame it in a way that creates a better outlook. Therefore, as psychologists we must often embrace those unexpected knocks on the door and see them as opportunities.
"As psychologists we must often embrace those unexpected knocks on the door and see them as opportunities."
For example, while we are students, or when communicating our work to our professional colleagues, we have to do presentations to showcase our academic work. I think we all know the feeling of acting on the stage during a presentation and having all our lines learned to such a degree that we know the beginning, the middle and the end and just wanting to get to the exit door as quickly as possible. And yet we all know that we have to wait to answer questions; that it almost feels like waiting for that knock on the door. This is where Method acting could really be an example of how to just live in the moment and get the most of what can be achieved.
When I look at my own experience as a Sport Psychologist, the concept of Method acting is one that can be used in a way to understand situations in which I work. A common type of situation I find myself in is the many team meetings where I often feel people will not say what they really feel, or will put on a performance that hides those feelings. Yet hanging on the wall behind them are pictures and notices of the core values that their organisation is built upon. These often includes honesty, integrity, and people being encouraged to bring their whole self to the workplace. The latter is something achieved by using our vulnerability to unlock creativity, connection, and performance (Robbins, 2018).
On the other hand, I know I have also acted in similar situations, and not in the Method sense because simply it was impossible to bring my whole self to the moment because either I was not ready to share, or the other person was not ready to hear the truth. Perhaps we can unlock even more of our potential if we consider if it is possible that a Method actor can be more real than we are in scenes of our daily lives? Who is the actor? Us? Who is the real person? The Method actor?
Having this perspective could potentially help practitioners to open up conversations about acting or not acting in our lives and where vulnerability may be playing a role. In my own research on vulnerability in elite football we often find that while a person may feel they are walking one pathway, in reality they were walking another, meaning they are trying to be two characters in the same moment, i.e. saying one thing and doing another.
This can be summed up by psychologist María Ruiz de Oña who often describes her work in elite football as “Everyone wants to change everyone, but often no one wants to change themselves first: the coach wants to change the player, the player wants to change the coach, the sports director wants to change the coaches” (Ruiz de Oña & O’Neill, 2017). Therefore, it’s often not about changing the scene to paint a picture that suits us; often it’s about seeing new information within the scene in front of us that we may have missed.
And the Oscar goes to...
Anyone who tries to put their true self into ACTion as much as they can in all aspects of their life. Of course, it’s not easy. In fact it may be the hardest role of all. But we all need more superheroes in our life and not just on the big and small screen. Furthermore, you never know who you might be inspiring.
Biography - John O'Neill
Currently, John is undertaking a PhD & Sport Psychology Lecture at the Psychology Department in Mary Immaculate College. John and colleagues are investigating how vulnerability can be used and implemented as a psychology education concept for coaches, players and other departments throughout a elite football club environment.
References
Ates, A (2023, January, 16). The Stanislavsky Method of Acting. Backstage.
Bandelj, N. (2003). How method actors create character roles. Sociological Forum (Vol. 18, pp. 387-416). Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers.
Krasner, D. (2012). Strasberg, Adler and Meisner: Method Acting. In Twentieth-Century Actor Training (pp. 147-168). Routledge.
Robbins, M. (2018). Bring your whole self to work: How vulnerability unlocks creativity, connection, and performance. Hay House, Inc.
Ruiz de Oña, M. & O’Neill J. (2017). The Gaze Through Psychology: Learn How to Create Learning Environments for Your Football Teams. Librofutbol.com.
Verducci, S. (2000). A moral method? Thoughts on cultivating empathy through method acting. Journal of Moral Education, 29(1), 87-99.
