Blog

    I was talking to my mom the other day – who’s now 79 years young and has seen a lot in life. Survived a lot. And worried a lot. She was telling me how she was lying in bed the other morning trying to recall someone’s name and couldn’t think of it, whichRead more

    Hasn’t it all been said before? Probably. But I’ll try again as I was reminded of the obvious while sitting in on a casting session recently. I think it’d be helpful if actors put post-its all over their house reminding them of these simple truths. 1). I know actors think that the auditionRead more

If you boil life (and acting) down to its most basic, what is there? Love. Gratitude. Forgiveness. Letting go. (Sure there’s power and sex and conflict but if you think about every story ever written – isn’t the ultimate message about love or some permutation of it and the higher states of being that allowRead more

  Love. What else is there? Why are we here? Why do we feel compelled to tell stories and reflect back to humanity what it means to be human? Why do we sit in dark theaters with strangers and watch performances that are specific and individual, yet universal at the same time? Well if it’sRead more

I’m a good kisser. Let’s just start with that. Yet I recently made out with this guy who told me that I wasn’t kissing “correctly”. Or maybe he didn’t say it quite like that, but by stopping me in the middle of a kiss and instructing me as to where and how I should proceed,Read more

  Construct: an idea containing various conceptual elements; typically one not based on empirical evidence. We have so many constructs built around life. What success looks like. And love. And happiness. And fulfillment in our work. And how show business works. And what’s possible for us. But what if we realized that those very constructsRead more

I’ve lectured about this innumerable times and my new book has a chapter completely devoted to this subject and yet life keeps showing me (and therefore I must keep reminding myself), that when we “wait” we’re really postponing possibility. Possibility of what? Everything. For love. For creativity. For insight. For experience. For failure; which givesRead more

I’m the king of over-share. I didn’t even know what that word meant a couple months ago, because I realized that ever since I was a kid, I’d express things that most people would think were “private.” But it just felt normal for me to express my truth. And I think if you watch children,Read more

  I had a student I was teaching in Australia recently who had a watershed moment in his acting. And it did create a watershed. Being vulnerable might do that to you. He realized that he’s been “acting” – meaning self-generating – rather than simply being – and allowing himself to be affected in theRead more

  Nobody talks about this because I think we often feel we’re supposed to have the same feelings for something that we had when we first stumbled upon it. When something’s brand new it’s intoxicating and captivating and joy-filled. It’s almost like innocence because the discovery of things within that thing seem never-ending. A hobby.Read more