Good Is Not Enough

Going moment to moment in your acting doesn’t mean, “Hey, do some moments if you can. But feel free to skip what you don’t understand. Yah, just go right past anything that doesn’t make sense; it’ll be fine.  And no need to finish.  Yah, don’t work on the whole scene, or all the scenes.  It’s cool.”

It actually means, “Dude, you have to do ALLLLL the moments.  You can’t skip ANY moments.  You skip a moment and we immediately stop buying what you’re doing.  It’s over.  No callback.  No job.  You have to be in it the whole time.  Not just some of the time. You need to tell the WHOLE story.  Not just part of it.”

And the great news is that you can do that.  It’s not hard.  It’s just a different mindset.  Instead of thinking some is enough, start thinking “I’m gonna do it all.  Always.”

One of my new fave movies is BRIDGE OF SPIES.  Everything about that movie was great.  The Cohen Brothers’ writing, Spielberg’s direction, Tom Hank’s characterization, Mark Rylance’s genius – it was all great.  We need to become accustomed to expecting greatness from ourselves all the time.  We are currently, perhaps, accustomed to getting by with good.  Let’s just change the goal.  To great.  Always great.  Do it all.