Psychology of creativity: Acting

Acting and creativity

Here, we will talk about creativity. One of the most creative professions is acting as a psychologist.

We have always been interested in what goes into the science and the art of acting. If you think about it, you can't be a descent actor if you don't have a good memory.

Memory:

Obviously if you're an actor you need to deliver dialogues. You need to memorize large body of script. And in addition to that you need to not only reproduce literally the words of the script you have to do that with the right kind of emotion.

So, an actor not only has to memorize the lines but also have to deliver his lines with the right emotion.

Emotion:

Now what does that mean the actor also has to master the art of experiencing. First experiencing the different emotions that are there in the character's repertoire.

So, if there is a character and the character is shown as sad the actor has to experience first, they have to experience the sadness. If the character is happy the character has to experience the happiness.

Now if you think about it, it is only after experiencing it, that they can express it.

So now in order to express the emotion, they have to be able to study how an emotion is expressed externally.

Example:

So, for instance I could be sad, but I may not show it. How does an actor show to their audience, one that they are sad and they're showing it. So, there could be a situation when they're not only sad but also visibly sad they're showing their grief and sadness, and then let's say there is a character who is sad but who's not showing their sadness and is in fact pretending to be happy. So that you can see the complexity that is required in acting when you're showing emotion.

Physical movement:

Then there is the other aspect and that of physical movement. We all know that many film industries in the world require their actors to be great dancers from Bollywood to Hollywood, actors are multi-talented.

So, we've already talked about having a good memory, we've already talked about having the whole range of emotional experience, we've already talked about expression of emotion. But then there is the ability to dance, the ability to perform. When we talk about bodily intelligence, we can look at actors who've performed as boxers.

Example:

For instance, we know that Sylvester Stallone's movies, involving boxing track sports and so on.

There are actors who play wrestlers, they're actors who play different kind of sports also. So, you can see that not only do they require to be expressors of emotion and delivery of dialogue and to be talented at expressing themselves, or and also having great memories they also have to be good athletes, good sportsman, good dancers, and then there is the subject of body language. When they act is emotion only expressed through words obviously not, so they also have to be experts at body language. Many actors in fact study people similar to the characters that they have to perform, they observe wrestlers, they observe athletes, they observe boxes, they observe singers, they observe pianists, they observe guitarists, they observe politicians, they observe whatever roles they have to perform. They make detailed observation, then they practice you know their bodily gestures, they practice the way they express their emotions, they practice the way these people talk, and then they mimic all of that in their characters.

Thus, what you find is that there is a whole synthesis going on. They reproduce an entire personality that exists outside of the world. No wonder actors are so highly paid, because they have to be multi-talented.

In fact, I would say that's perhaps the most highly paid profession in the world. And that tells you something about the premium that societies place on entertainment and acting.

Ability to switch roles:

But now let's talk about another future that actors have and that is the ability to switch roles. Sometimes it is the ability to switch roles across films or theater.

Example:

So, for instance in one movie you are playing the role of a hero and in another movie, you're playing the role of a villain great and another one you play a really humorous person, in another movie there might be a slapstick kind of role, where you are just clumsy and acting like a buffoon. So, you could be doing all of these different roles in different films, so you need an entire range entire repertoire of different kinds of roles. But then sometimes you have to switch roles within a movie, sometimes you have to switch roles within a play itself. So, you're playing the good guy and suddenly something happens, and you turn into a bad guy.

I would consider that to be a particularly different psychological phenomenon not much work has been finished to study the science and the art that is acting.

But I would invite you to think about it how studying the acting profession could be an amazing opportunity for a psychologist to study creativity, the nature of creativity, and what goes into the making of a creative person.