If This Guy Can Do It…

When I’m not working on a movie or TV show, I have the privilege to teach Committed Impulse somewhere on the planet. One of my favorite things about class is that there’s often a handful of non-actors who attend. We’ve had entrepreneurs, journalists, real estate brokers, nursery school teachers, musicians, firemen, yoga teachers, internet marketers, lawyers and accountants enter the open doors of Committed Impulse. Non-actors love Committed Impulse because it’s fun, they find their day-to-day lives become easier, and they strengthen their ability to be a star in their chosen field of interest

( Not to mention, they make a whole lot more money after training in CI).

Non-actors also have an inherent advantage over the trained actors. For one, they don’t have any acting baggage to trip over. They haven’t collected an arsenal of performance tricks and techniques to give the illusion of being “real” and “natural.”

One reason I love having the non-actors in class is they make my job easier. They teach the professional actors how to create passionate and entertaining work. The internet marketer just follows the principles of Committed Impulse and the result is they’re vibrantly alive, present and incredibly compelling to watch. They’re also having fun. Remember fun? The professional actors are often stunned by the simplicity, spontaneity and clarity that the non-actors create because they’re free of bad acting habits.

In the movie Arbitrage I worked with Richard Gere, but I also worked with Graydon Carter. Here’s a guy who’s been editor of Vanity Fair magazine since July 1992 and has won every award a magazine editor can win. Acting in movies, however, is a relatively new experience for him.

We had just finished shooting a technically complex scene in the Plaza Hotel. It was close to ten pm, and I was introduced to Graydon and his iconic sweeping gray hair.

A producer ushered us over to a round table in the corner of the Grand Ballroom while the crew disassembled the lighting scaffolding above. Graydon, it became clear, had agreed to do the part in the film as a favor to the producer and the Jarecki family who were financing the film. The esteemed magazine editor proclaimed to the producer that he would be on set until 11:30, as promised, but then he has to leave. Early morning meetings. The clock was ticking, and shooting a scene in a moving car is no simple task. This’ll be interesting.

The director, Nicholas Jarecki, asked if I would work on the scene with Graydon while the crew mounted the camera inside the car. Graydon and I ran lines, talked about the scene, and got to know each other.

Mr. Carter had no concern for how he would look in the scene, or how good his acting would be. He just wanted to shoot it and get home. Somehow, completely refreshing.

In the scene we’re being chauffeured through Manhattan and I reveal my discovery of a major detail that had been hidden in the midst of a four hundred million dollar business deal. I show Graydon’s character some documents that reveal the sneakiness of Richard Gere’s character.

To give my acting partner an extra boost of security we snuck some of the script pages into the documents I hand him in the scene.  This way he could always analyze the ‘document’ if a line wasn’t on the tip of his tongue.

We got in the car about forty five minutes later and started shooting. The scene had a wonderful playfulness and subtlety to it. His work was awesome. He just had fun, played in the scene, and had absolutely no attachment to the outcome. It was such a great lesson. And, as I suspected, when 11:30 rolled around we still had more to shoot. At that point Graydon Carter was having so much fun, if he missed an hour of sleep – it was worth it. We wrapped close to 1:00 am, hugs all around.

So, that’s my lil story. What about you? Are you an actor? An entrepreneur? Both?

Ever get caught up in the result and forget to play?

Do tell.

Big Hug,

Yer Pal Joshy Pais