“All’s Well That Ends Well”
(Guest blogging for ActorsAndCrew…)
I watched an actor give a mediocre performance recently. He knew it and we knew it. But when he stepped forth for his curtain call, there was no doubt in his mind: he had been fantastic.
He smiled broadly, nodded to all corners of the audience, whispered “thank you, thank you,” and clasped his hands together in grateful prayer as he folded his body. And as I walked out of the theater, what stayed with me about this actor was not the shakiness of his work, but a feeling that he had, in fact, been fantastic.
It’s an old trick, of course, but worth remembering: leave on a high note. Think you just stank up the room with your audition? Smile brightly as you exit. Sure you just blew the meeting? Shake hands as if you’d just been handed a check for a million dollars. Whatever the case: leave on a high note.
The opposite is also true. I’ve seen people undermine themselves by displaying their own dissatisfaction. I remember seeing some lovely work on a difficult scene last year in a class, only to watch the actress collapse in a heap of self-loathing when it was done. She’d been good… until that point. Then we all had to agree with her: she was terrible. After all, she just told us.
We can’t necessarily always give the performance of a lifetime, and there will be days and evenings when we’re going to stink up the joint. That’s fine. But we do have some measure of control over how it’s all perceived, and ultimately, it’s all about perception.
People will believe what you believe. So believe you’re damn good. Especially at the end.
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Edoardo Ballerini is an actor and a writer. He has appeared in over forty films and television series, including Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos and the indie hit Dinner Rush. He was last seen on Theater Row in New York in “Honey Brown Eyes.”
