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[08 May 2014|10:31pm] |
"Character is higher than intellect...
A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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[08 May 2010|11:02pm] |
I grew up as somewhat of a traveling gypsy kid. My parents were hippies who named me "Easy" after how fluid my conception and delivery were. We were always traveling around the South, hitting places like South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, and any other state where sweet tea is the official state beverage. Eventually we ended up in Washington, and apples just don't go down the throat as easy as sweet tea does. I've always found that a glass of sweet tea can work wonders. My father and I would sit on the front porch with a glass of sweet tea on Saturday afternoons and read pieces of Emerson and Shakespeare. Intellect and character were always highly valued in my family, and my parents took every chance they could to instruct us in the ways of knowledge. Besides that, though, we had a lot of fun. There's a lot you can do when you move from city to city, leaving behind nothing and taking nothing with you at the same time. You learn to be independent and resourceful, creative and cunning. You learn to reinvent yourself from place to place. You take on a character and become someone new in every city you reside, until eventually you're not sure which one is really you, and which one is just someone leaping off the a scribbled page and coming to life.
Perhaps that's why I became an actor. My parents were furious when they found I'd decided to pursue acting instead of going to college. My mother had gone to Emerson, and her dream had always been for her son to follow in her footsteps. I chose a different path, however. One that had become accustomed to me in the transfer between cities, states, and characters. Acting and playing a part came naturally and easy to me, which is perhaps why I decided to make it a job. Twain once said that if you find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. My take on it is that if you find a job that fits you naturally, you'll never be working. Each film is just another character to play, another town to live in. Another fragment of who I am. And eventually you start to wonder who you really are, and which fragments are more you than the others.
All I know is that home is wherever you choose to make it. We all play different characters with different people. It doesn't make any one of them any less true to who we are. I always hear people talking about how they just want to be true to themselves, to be the same person with everyone. I think that's impossible, and I'm not even sure it's smart. I've never heard anyone express my beliefs on the matter. That maybe all of those different people you are to those around you are just strands of who you are and what you're made of. Maybe all of those characters are just puzzle pieces that make up a bigger picture. Maybe you're just a figment of who you are with everyone else, a painting with many colors.
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