The Next Adventure

I don't like to play favorites.  By choosing a favorite, it somehow feels like I'm implying a lack of affection for the unchosen, when that certainly isn't the case.   Every chance to act is a gift.  A bless-ed opportunity to just play and call it a job.  Be it on a television show, a stage or the random off-beat web series that no one will ever see, I cherish every last little moment I get to do this crazy thing that most people only dream about.

But if I were to pick a favorite -- a best of the best -- there is one that juuuust edges out all the others.   In my most humble opinion... it would be film.  Movies.  They are my deepest, most passionate, most unending love.  For all of my life I have adored everything movies.  I've loved watching them, quoting them, rewatching them, laughing and crying to them, imagining being in them, and finally actually being in them.  I love the precision, the fantasy, the intimacy, the spectacle... all of which you can achieve on film to a level other mediums can only dream.  You may say, "But but but.. television can achieve some of those things!"  But I say, unless you're a series regular (and even then, perhaps not) TV production is so fast, there is very little time to "prepare" a character.  You are mostly hired to be you, just in someone else's outfit, language and situation.  While I believe that to some extent you're always hired to be you (a notion that deserves it's own post entirely), the extended schedules of film production allow for a little deeper exploration of self and story. 

And so, my dear readers, I have been in heaven this last week for I am preparing a role in a movie.  I have haunted my usual spots -- a certain public park, a certain cafe -- drinking coffee and endlessly pouring through the script looking for deeper and deeper layers.  I love how there are little things that shift in me when I'm prepping for a role.  I reach for a different gum or tune to a different Pandora station, something inspired by my new self.  The self I will be twelve hours a day in front of a camera starting next week.  I love all the discovery and the ever so subtle way that every role changes me.  Sometimes it's temporary, others more lasting, but it's always an adventure... which is the entire reason I do what I do.  A chance to act (in any medium) is a chance to live the adventure of another life. 

And that is my favorite thing of all.