Hyper Realism in Acting
As you will learn in your classes, there are many different approaches to acting, and it’s important to try them all so you can choose which one best suits you. When it comes to watching films, I find myself enjoying the ones that mimic life and stay true to a persons character. People have flaws, but that doesn’t make them a bad person. If you take a look at your script and find an unappealing character, it is your job as the actor to make this character relatable and true. In order to do so, I find that the best strategy is to make them as human as possible and to do that, you have to give them human like characteristics. If you play this character in a true manner, then the viewer won’t see them as a flawed character, but as a flawed person. The writers and actors in the movie “Her” starring Joaquin Phoenix did a phenomenal job in that regard, so much so that even the AI seemed human at times. You could tell that the inspiration for those characters came from real people and their struggles came from real experiences because everything that happened was so relatable. You also couldn’t be angry or disappointed in any of the characters because you could feel what it was like to be in their shoes. That is the power of great acting and great writing. To not hate the person who hurt the main character because the viewer felt that their actions were justified is a powerful thing that I find we do not see enough of.
Hyper realism in a more technical sense can be used in the speed in which the actor delivers the lines. If we look at reality, when we are arguing with somebody about something, we will splurt out our words because our brain is thinking quickly and we want to defend our point. But when we are relaxing at the beach, or star gazing, and we have a slow and relaxed conversation with somebody, we take the time to say things exactly as we want to say them because our brain doesn’t feel like it’s in survival mode. Knowing that, it makes you wonder why so many actors will take time to carefully say each sentence with almost a beat in between them during intense scenes, meanwhile, saying their lines one after another when in a casual conversation. Actors that do this do not mimic reality. You are supposed to look at a scene and imagine how it would play out were it happening in real life. Imagination is an actors most important trait. Like the man my cat was name after once said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Another key that is crucial for hyper realism to work is everything that comes before the scene. You have to become a camera expert, but not in the way you think. For you. the actor, the only thing you need to think about is what the frame looks like, what angles are being used and what eyeline looks best. You usually ask those questions before the rehearsals. During the rehearsals, you think about all those details and for the take, you get lost in the art. The reason you have to become an expert at those things is because nothing can be on your mind for a good performance. You cannot be thinking about whether you’re doing too much with your face because you’re not sure how close we are or whether we can see your eyes because the object you’re supposed to be looking at is too high. Those issues must be fixed before you start.
The next key to hyper realism is to be able to look inside yourself for emotions, experiences and traumas that could help you portray a character. You also need to learn empathy because you haven’t gone through everything your character has. Empathy will allow you to feel someone else’s pain. You can then use it to make your character more human and to yourself relate to your character. There needs to be vulnerability. An actor who is not vulnerable will never be able to portray a character truly because they will not allow themselves to feel what the character feels and so on not be able to become the character. It is a difficult thing to let your mind be filled with your own or somebody else’s traumas, and an even harder thing to do it in front of people who might ask you do to things differently. This will happen because your vision of the character, not matter how true it is, might not be the director’s vision, and in a film, the director has the final word.
The first step in hyper realism is to allow yourself to feel. Whatever’s been troubling you lately, or making you happy, take a second to explore that feeling. What it means, what it feels like, how you react to it. Get to know yourself and your reactions. Become familiar with those emotions so you can learn to control them instead of being controlled by them. Once that’s done, try to implement those same feelings to a different situation. It doesn’t have to be a scene just yet. You can imagine them happening to someone else and explore how that makes you feel. Get better at being better. What I mean by that is, practice empathy for someone else in your same shoes. Whenever an emotion sparks in you, capture that moment and use it. When you feel ready, you can try using it for a scene. Try to come up with the scene yourself. This will better your imagination at the same time. You’ll be the master of the situation so it will be easier than an existing scenario. Practice those feelings in this new scene you created until you feel you have mastered it. When you feel you’re ready, you can start using this exercise for your general acting and, if you’ve succeeded, it should come to you fairly easily, because you’ll be so accustomed to all those feelings that you maybe spent your entire life prior to this rejecting.
To rewind a little bit, the preparation you have to do before the first take is; learning your lines so well that you could recite them while doing something else (without intention, just the naked lines) and knowing the frame and how that’s going to affect your performance. When the director calls action, your only job is to let yourself feel and become.
Just like that, you have mastered hyper realism in acting.
