Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Acting! Why Stepping Into Someone Else's Shoes Changes Everything
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What happens when shy, self-conscious people discover they can transform into someone else through acting? In this captivating conversation between three veteran Australian actors – Annie McCubbin, Lucinda Armour, and Deborah Galanos – we explore the profound psychological journey of becoming an actor and how performance art builds confidence, resilience, and empathy.
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Introduction to Acting Journeys
Speaker 1At about the age of seven I discovered that I really wanted to be an actor, but kept it quiet because it was a very fantastical goal At the time. I didn't think it wasn't serious.
Speaker 2At seven, I would think not. You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though. I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day.
Speaker 2Well, hello, smart women and welcome back to the why Smart Women podcast. This week I am in barrel with my two very good, long-standing old friends, not old as in old, but old as in known them for a long time Lucinda Amour and Deborah Kalinos, and we have popped into a bar to have a little chat about the process of acting and why we all, at some time in the distant past, decided to be actors. Hello Deborah, hello Annie, hello Lucinda, hello Annie, hello Deborah.
Speaker 1Hello, lucinda, I love both of you. Hello, annie, hello.
Speaker 2Deborah, hello Lucinda, hello both of you. So I guess the question is how did we all wash up on the acting shore and how's it gone for us over the last I?
Speaker 1don't know, 30 years or 30? Plus, plus, plus.
Speaker 2How long has it been?
Speaker 1Over 30 years, probably 40. I was 12. You long. How long has it been? Over 30 years.
Speaker 2Probably 40. I was 12.
Speaker 4You were 12 when you began to act. I was 12 when I did my first Australian Theatre for Young People class.
Speaker 2Wow, oh, my God.
Speaker 4Hugo Weaving was in that group. Stop it yeah and this was at the old NIDA buildings, for anyone who might remember when NIDA was on the University of New South Wales campus.
Speaker 2Okay, so for our overseas listeners. Nida is Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art. There is NIDA in New South Wales and there is WAPA, which is the Western Australian Performing Arts in Western Australia, and also the VCA right. Vca and many other really good institutions. So these are the places that young people go when they decide to embark on their acting careers. But what made you what? You were always interested in acting, lou. I was always interested in acting.
Speaker 4I was very shy, so I think a little bit like an asthmatic getting into the water to swim. Yes, um, my parents encouraged me to do drama and I remember very clearly being in in year one, so you know, the year after kindergarten, yeah and um, and not being chosen for a little class presentation and begging my teacher to be in it.
Speaker 4She was very mean spirited lady, this one nice and I said I um, my mummy said that I can do drama classes. And she said you, you, drama, you've got to be kidding me. And oh, my sister came into the class from kindergarten to ask for some crayons and she retold my sister the story. She said can you believe what your sister said?
Speaker 3What yes?
Speaker 4I remember that, but there was no drama classes for children in Sydney at the time, there was only elocution.
Speaker 1That's right, and I did elocution as well.
Speaker 4Yes, so did I, and Trinity style Me too, you know poems and narration.
Speaker 3Oh, I forgot about that.
Speaker 4Yes, yes, and so you could do that. I did a little bit of that, but as far as creative drama, improvisation, play, building, teamwork, all of that, the Australian Theatre for Young People was the beginning of it, as was Shopfront in Sutherland and you ended up actually being a tutor at the Australian Theatre for Young People. I went straight from being a student to an assistant tutor, to a tutor, and I was there and still am involved with that organisation. It's been a huge part of my life.
Speaker 2It's interesting that I had completely forgotten that I did speech and drama Trinity College Helicution, because I spoke too quickly.
Speaker 4Ah yes, that's right, we were all meant to speak. Have very lovely voices.
Speaker 2And good articulation. Yes, exactly, and my mother packed me off to Miss Blown in Valgala. Yes, miss Blown, miss Blown and I spent years and I did all the exams. Yes, you did, and I did a Stedford's where I stood up going. How now?
Speaker 4And, as you know, Deb and I both sort of adjudicated a Stedford's. So what about you?
Speaker 1Deb, how did you start? I did the same thing. I started at about the age of seven. I discovered that I really wanted to be an actor, but kept it quiet because it was a very fantastical goal. It wasn't something that you verbalised at the time. I didn't think it wasn't serious.
Speaker 3But my aunts About seven? I would think no, About seven, and I knew there was sort of something sort of you know poo-poo about it.
Childhood Acting and Elocution Lessons
Speaker 1So I had aunts that were speech and drama teachers and that's exactly what I did. I did speech and drama and elocution lessons and I went through all the grades. I've got all my diplomas right through to the fellowship and I taught as well and I've adjudicated, like Lucinda has and I did that all the way through school and then started doing. I joined a small agency that had extras.
Speaker 2What do you mean by an agency? A small acting agency Just for listeners, because people are unfamiliar with the industry. A small?
Speaker 1acting agency that had sent people off to be extras on films.
Speaker 2Yeah, and what does an extra do on a film?
Speaker 1They're sort of people in the background and they don't have any dialogue, or occasionally I'd have a line or a word or something, and I did that for a little while.
Speaker 2And how old were you then?
Speaker 1I would have been 18, 19.
Speaker 2And did you do that? Did you join an agency? Well, I did that through the ATYP.
Speaker 4We had a lot of amazing directors who were very involved in our work Gillian Armstrong and so on so they would often bring in students from the ATYP just to be extras. We never got paid for that. That money went to the company because it desperately needed it, so we volunteered and so we were in a number of films and commercials and things.
Speaker 2Standing in the background, not actually speaking.
Speaker 4Yeah, not actually speaking. So every film that you see that has, you know, a busy crowd in a, in a hallway or something. They're all extras extras yes and um, and you know it involves some skill.
Speaker 2You know you can't just stare at the camera you have to know, what you're doing, that's right, you know you don't have any power on set, that's for sure yeah, in fact I know, in the amount of television work that I've done as an actor, that people are quite disparaging, aren't they about people? About the extras? When actually they're an essential part of the process.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 2So what happened? You were doing that, deb, and how did you? Because you ended up going to the National Institute of Dramatic Art.
Speaker 1Yes, I remember when I was about 16, I was still in high school and I wanted to audition for NIDA, the National Institute of Dramatic Art. It was because I was in Sydney and I wanted to go to. Well, I just wanted to check what it was like.
Speaker 2And I think I was. Did you have a driving? Oh yeah, Desire to be an actor at that point.
Speaker 1Yes, I did, but it was sort of in the background. You know, it was something that I had in the the back of my mind because I hated the idea of me being an actor. The elocution lessons were different, because that was all about speaking properly and again, I was shy To be a business person.
Speaker 4That's right to be a teacher A teacher.
Speaker 1A teacher was wonderful. Or a delightful lady of society. That's right, so you could speak nicely. So I could well. I had a lisp, which I still have a little bit of, so I went to elocution lessons for that and also because my aunts were teachers, and, uh, I did a steadfast and that was to this day. I don't know about you, but I find that the most harrowing, frightening experience doing in a steadfast yes, so let's the judge the judging of it.
Speaker 4So let's explain what an a steadfast is Doing. An a steadfast yes, the judging of it.
Speaker 2So let's explain what an a steadfast is. I don't know if everyone is familiar, but you stand in a like on a stage.
Speaker 4So there are dance, a steadfast, music, a steadfast drama, a steadfast, so you are being judged. So, if you are a dancer, you are on stage, you are in the ballet competition for ages, blah, blah, blah blah, and you stand on stage and you, you do your ballet piece and you are judged, and on your capability?
Speaker 3yes, and you.
Speaker 4It's a competition, it's a and so with drama, it's harrowing your life, it's harrowing and so for a child to get up there and sometimes, you know, have to deliver a little monologue or a poem and for them to fill the entire hall with their voice and to be seen, it's, it takes a lot of courage when you're seven or eight, and I think, though I mean because I can remember having to do, how Now Spirit, with a Wander you and playing both characters. Of course.
Speaker 2Over hill, over dale, over bush, over briar over park, over pale, over flood, over fire, playing both characters and turning back like I'd been one character.
Speaker 2I turned to the right. Very well done, tia be. One character. I turned to the right very other way and I did very well at those. But you're right and I guess, interestingly enough, in terms of confidence and what it means to be an actor and how we overcome our fears, and we know now in in in the psychological space, that fears, um, only can get hold of you if you avoid the thing that makes you frightened.
Speaker 2So I guess, in a way, we're all standing on a stage being moving towards the discomfort, moving absolutely and having somebody evaluate you and of course we all hate judgment and maybe failing, and yet all of us had that experience in our well, in our primary school years.
Speaker 3Not on the sporting field, none of us on the sporting field, which is where most children experience it.
Speaker 4Actually, that's true. That's a really good point. So it's a different context.
Auditioning for Drama Schools
Speaker 2Yes, but interestingly enough, yeah, because I'm not sporty but I'm creative. We're all creative. So what happened? So you were doing your estetivus.
Speaker 1I was doing estetivus from the age of seven and so you entered. So you had to apply, you send a form in and pay, and then you would.
Speaker 4It's a lot of money involved.
Speaker 1It was like $7 or something for an entry for one particular session and then you would. Then, if you won, when you were younger they would award you with trophies or medals. But as you got older it was very good. You used to get money, so I used to do it to win money to earn money, and when did you audition for NIDA? Okay, so when I was 16, although they have no record of it.
Speaker 3Oh dear.
Speaker 1I went as a 16-year-old, with this very long flowy dress, which was ridiculous. You were still at school Playing Juliet, and I thought I was so wonderful. Don't tell me.
Speaker 2Hang on. You turned up at the audition with a long flowing dress on. Yeah, yeah, Too funny it was hilarious.
Speaker 1I think I might have even been. I was nearly 16. Did you have a cornet hat?
Speaker 4on. How did they even? Did you lie about your age? I think I lied about my age.
Speaker 1Of course, I didn't get through the first round at all and I was devastated. So just let me explain when you audition.
Speaker 2So for the National Institute of Dramatic Art and with all these sort of illustrious training All these elite schools? Elite schools. You have an audition process whereby you audition and then there's a culling process, and then you audition again and there's another culling process. It's deeply, deeply, a deeply destabilising process. Oh, yeah, yeah, you have to be very resilient.
Speaker 1Very yeah, that's the beginning of the resilience that you build up as an actor over your career.
Speaker 2And then what happened? You didn't get in because you were like 12.
Speaker 1And I looked through the records when I actually got there as a student later on I said I was here when I was 16. They went. We have no record of it.
Speaker 2Because they expunged it from the collective memory, because I didn't make it.
Speaker 4What was she doing in that long dress?
Speaker 1The horror, the horror it's embarrassing, because often people will audition several times.
Speaker 2I did.
Speaker 1I never got in, so we have a mutual friend who auditioned seven times and got in on the seventh time.
Speaker 2Wow, that is some commitment, I know.
Speaker 4And he's still in the industry, and so how old were you when you got in?
Speaker 1I was 22.
Speaker 4So you were at university? My memory is yeah, I did three years.
Speaker 1So I went to uni and did the respectful thing of arts law. It was a smart move, though, but that was because you know you didn't. You weren't really supposed to be an actor. You had to go and do a serious degree. No one wants anybody to be an actor. So I did arts law for three years, and then I failed my law subject because I couldn't understand it. It was so dry, and I told my parents that I was devastated that I'd failed. And I said, looks, okay, I'm going to take a year off, finish all the diplomas, that I was devastated that I'd failed. And I said, look, it's okay, I'm going to take a year off, finish all the diplomas that I hadn't finished for speech and drama and music, because I was doing, I was teaching piano as well, and I'll do all that and I'll work, and then I'll go back the following year. So I want to take a year off.
Speaker 2And then what happened?
Speaker 1I took a year off. I joined a part-time drama school in Ultimo called the Academy of Social Dramatic Arts or something.
Speaker 3Jesus, god almighty, adassa, it was hilarious, glad it was social, though it's good that it was social.
Speaker 1I was in a very serious class with Anthony Wong, who's still acting, and Marian Butler, who's now a very wonderful, celebrated Australian playwright, and in the other class was my husband. Stop it With people like Kim Wilson and Naomi Watts.
Speaker 4Wow.
Speaker 2These are all Australian actors that probably are, Definitely no. Our European listeners won't know, but I'm sure the American listeners would know about Naomi Watts and what happened. You went to, so I went there for.
Speaker 1Yeah, I did that for a year and it was a part-time drama school and I got involved in every play that they put on, if I could, because at school, like you, I wasn't allowed to. Well, like I wasn't in any plays, I was too shy, I wasn't good.
Speaker 2Isn't it interesting about the shyness?
Speaker 4I wasn't shy by the time I was 14.
Speaker 3I was in a lot of school plays, so you worked out of the shyness. Yes, I worked out of the shyness.
Overcoming Shyness Through Character Work
Speaker 4I remember quite clearly being at the ATYP and I have to remind young people. Yes, thank you. Sorry. When, feeling like I was about to have a heart attack, I was so overwhelmed and nervous yeah but I finally worked out that if I lost myself in a character, oh wow, then that I wasn't nervous anymore okay, so let's just unpack that, because that is wonderful, interesting.
Speaker 2So you were shy, you were nervous, you thought you were going to have a, a heart attack, which is of course what happens when, uh, when, we're going to fight flight. Um, you get increased heart rate. There's a series of chemicals that flood the body. So you'd gone into that and you'd worked out that when you immersed yourself in a character, yes, what happened?
Speaker 4I, I think I remember quite clearly just being always so tentative about getting up, not wanting to, not wanting my group to perform like and I see this in students now then pushing other people down to the ground, like no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to do it, and I was one of those.
Speaker 4And and then I remember doing something that got people laughing ah, wonderful and and I kind of didn't know where it had come from and I went oh, that feels nice. And then that took over. And then I realized if I could go in with big characters, play extreme characters, and I also quite clearly remember if I played men, isn't that interesting, wow. If I played the status and power of men, then I felt confident on stage. So I often played men when I was improvising.
Speaker 2And yet you're such an incredibly female female. You was a person.
Speaker 4But if I had a choice between playing a mother and a father, I would always play the father.
Speaker 3How interesting and that gave me.
Speaker 4I felt very powerful, Even though my daddy was nothing like that. He was a gentle man, but I felt powerful playing an archetypal male.
Speaker 2It's interesting, you say that because David, my husband, who you obviously both know extremely well, has always felt himself to be extremely underconfident and sort of nervous and found his way to holding status and being confident through playing like Henry Five.
Speaker 4Exactly.
Speaker 2Yeah, and it's interesting. I wonder if it's the.
Speaker 4so I wonder, Lucinda, if it's the physicality or the language Both and yeah, or the language, or the vocal, both, and yeah, I think the whole thing. And just being allowed, permitted as a 12-year-old, to say things I wouldn't dare say in my real life To tell someone they were bad, to tell someone they were horrible, to say no to, um, you know, to attack somebody, which of course, you can do when you're improvising safely, um. So it's very important for young children to have drama in their lives because they get to act out all the things that they are too timid to do in their own life.
Speaker 2and I think that's such a great point because we talk a lot on the podcast about how women are socialised to be nice, compliant, quiet, pretty agreeable. And how do we I mean for us actors, you know, maybe this was our way to climb out of that in a safe way. That's such a I'm going to say that again maybe this is as actors we have found a way to actually embrace those qualities we weren't allowed to through character 100. And what about you, dev? So you got into nida yeah, 22.
Speaker 1I I remember feeling a very similar thing that lucinda was saying about getting into a character in somebody else's words, someone else's script, that the responsibility wasn't necessarily on me because I was speaking somebody else's words and so that gave me the the, the license to fly, almost, and that feeling of just just being bigger than I am on a stage. That was an extraordinarily addictive feeling, and and and the.
Speaker 4The power you feel in that moment, yes, but it's genuine power. It's not yeah, it's not a gloating power it's not anything can you unpack that. What do you mean? I mean it's a genuine power and that you feel just lifted. The audience has lifted you. You are almost transcending yourself in that moment. But it is that metacognition you are, you're aware that you're acting.
Speaker 4You know that you're there. You haven't lost who you areacognition you are. You're aware that you're acting, you know that you're there. You haven't lost who you are or the purpose of why you're there, that there's a line coming next and then I have to cross the stage.
Speaker 2All of that, all that technicality, is still there, or should be yeah, and isn't that an interesting thing, that you have got awareness, aware while being immersed?
Speaker 4exactly yeah so you're in it yes and you can.
Speaker 2You often um, you are, you can sort of no, no, we get worried about the use of the word emoting, but you are connected emotionally and you are the master of it.
Speaker 4It's not the master of you, and that's and that's where acting can get precarious, as we know, emotionally yeah when the emotionality takes you over and you're not in charge of it.
Speaker 1That's super interesting, isn't it? It's a wonderful feeling, because it's almost like you're at one with the audience, you're at one with the universe.
Speaker 4At that moment it just feels completely. If the cast is with you and you're together and the audience is with you. There is no better sensation. It doesn't happen all the time. No quite rare, but you know there's no fakery. It's like everything is just there what is that?
Speaker 2that goes on because I know we've all felt it when you hold the audience in the palm of your hand yes right you know yeah what do you think that is Deb?
Speaker 1I think there's a connection between the character and yourself in terms of empathy and compassion and when you really key into that and when you've really got a strong handle on what that is through the language and wherever the character is in their journey, in the particular play or whatever you're doing, or even in an improvisation, and then the audience comes along with you and they understand and are agreeable about where you are, kind of thing. In that moment, that you sort of all go on this journey together. It's a very sort of what do you call it sympathy.
Theatre vs Film Acting
Speaker 4Yeah, I do remember there was a story from Laurence Olivier, lord Olivier, who was, you know, he's long gone, but was for many, many decades considered the greatest classical actor on earth. Certainly, yes, won Academy Awards and so on. I'm trying to recall the play, but I can't recall it. It was a classical piece and I think Sir John Gielgud went to the theatre that day to see him and Olivier's performance was overwhelmingly brilliant, uh, to the point where I think the cast clapped him at the end oh, wow and Gielgud went backstage and Olivier was crying in the dressing room and he said you know why?
Speaker 4that was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen you do. What are you crying? Because you're happy? He said no, I'm in absolute despair. And he said why? He said because I know. I have no idea how I made that happen oh, so interesting I can't replicate it yeah, you can't. I can't do it ever again. You can't replicate.
Speaker 1I can't do it ever again. You can't replicate it, that's why, theatre. It's almost a bit magical, isn't it?
Speaker 2Yes, it is magical, so you both prefer theatre to television and film.
Speaker 1I prefer theatre because it is that that every night it is different. You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know if you're ever going to hit those magical moments in the. So you don't hit those magical moments every night. You can't possibly do that because there's so many. You know elements at play, but you strive to tell the story and be as truthful as you can and know what your process has been, what the rehearsals have been, and you know all that work that you get on stage and then forget and trust that it's there and then go on this journey with the audience and it can be magical. And some that it's there and then go on this journey with the audience and it can be magical, and some nights it can be absolute shit but absolutely absolutely can be terrible that's the.
Speaker 2That's the risk and I think people don't get that. Do they that? Like? For the amount of theater I've done, I have never, ever, how a show goes for how long? An hour and a half, whatever two hours a couple of hours. Um, I've never once been in a performance where something didn't cock up somewhere.
Speaker 2Oh, always Somebody always makes a mistake, which means you have to be. This gets back to this idea of sort of which the corporate speakers follow, that you know you've got to be agile and you've got to be resilient. Well, every night you walk on stage somebody, something is going to happen. Yeah, I've had people have heart attacks in the audience.
Speaker 4Absolutely Someone carted out.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean someone's collapsed on stage.
Speaker 4Someone's laughed at a moment where no one in the audience has ever laughed before.
Speaker 2Yeah, and it just throws you for a silly second and you want to stop the show and go.
Speaker 4It's not funny. What are you laughing?
Speaker 1about, or moments where it was funny the night before and nothing happens. You know, you're not supposed to wait for the laugh and it doesn't happen. Oh yeah, you have to be really aware. Now, that's an interesting moment, isn't it?
Speaker 2when you're used to getting a laugh and then the laugh doesn't come, and so then what happens is actors start pushing yes. Instead of just playing a moment, they start pushing for the laugh because we're quite dependent on the laugh, aren't?
Speaker 4we well the structure of the piece. Now it's just like we're reliant on it and do you, do you prefer um theater to film? Yeah, 100. I mean I've done. I've done nothing like as much film and tv as the two of you. I've done enough um and but I don't think I'm particularly good at it.
Speaker 2Why do you say that? Because I think you would be.
Speaker 4I know, as I said, with the character thing, I have always struggled to just be myself on screen, always closer to myself, and I'm not saying I think I'm terrible at it, but I've never been as comfortable in it.
Speaker 2In the medium? No, and what do you mean?
Speaker 4you struggle to be yourself well, I just think, with the camera so close and the nature of it, you need to be um, even even with the greatest character actors, even with Meryl Streep and Tilda Swinton and, you know, daniel Day-Lewis even with the greatest character actors there are out there, they have a stillness on screen that I struggle with um I. There's too much going on in my face and I would agree.
Speaker 2I'm the same because, um, actually you're all of us, I think, are highly expressive in our faces. There's that jazz music starting up again.
Speaker 4I know right, it really does.
Speaker 2I think we are very expressive in the face and, of course, the television film medium it just has to be swirly.
Speaker 4Timely it has to be timely and it is difficult.
Speaker 2Can I tell the quickest little story A friend?
Speaker 4of mine played a juror in Evil Angels, the Meryl Streep Sam Neill film, which I think was also called Cry in the Dark overseas.
Speaker 2Yes, in the US.
Speaker 4And he had been a theatre actor. Theatre actor, theatre actor had really done nearly nothing. Yeah, and all his film friends said just do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, do nothing when the camera goes across your face. So he was sitting there doing nothing, nothing, do nothing do nothing when the camera goes across your face.
Speaker 4So he was sitting there doing nothing, nothing nothing, nothing going, do nothing, do nothing, do nothing. And Fred Chipsy walked up and we said is that the director? Yeah, you're doing really, really well, but I just need to give you a note. Can you do less? Oh wow, and he said he nearly died because he thought that's as little as I've ever done?
Speaker 2how could I do less, less? So just to explain, there's sort of language that we use in the theatre where a director will say that's really good, but can you do less of it? Can you minimise it? Can you make that smaller? That is an absolute classic. And he already thought he was doing nothing. I know because your face.
Speaker 4Just it's such a technique isn't it To just be still?
Speaker 2To just be still, but still be connected. What do you reckon, Deb?
Speaker 1But I still think that theatre actors make the best film actors. Do you reckon Theatre-trained actors?
Speaker 4Sure, I agree.
Speaker 1Because they understand the basics they've learnt from the foundations.
Speaker 2And what do you think the basics are, the basics learnt from the foundations and what do you think?
Speaker 1the basics are Just going right back to script and understanding a character's point of view, and then the writer's point of view, and then being able to work as a team. So what you're?
Speaker 2talking about is getting a script. This is for people who've never, ever gone near acting in their whole lives, so you'd be handed a script or a play yeah, a play. And I think what people think is then you start saying things, or people that know nothing about it would think we get a script, and then we began we begin to act it out and trying to sound like what we think the character sounds like, which is not right, what we have to work out as actors yes is what is the intention correct?
Speaker 4Yes, absolutely Of the character, exactly.
Speaker 2And what are they trying? Is that right?
Speaker 4And what action they are trying to have on the person they are with, and so what do you mean by that?
Speaker 4By that I mean, instead of thinking, oh, my character is sad in this moment, I will play them as being sad. So a general wash of sadness yes, when we know, as actors, that sadness can be frustration, anger, disappointment, contempt a whole pile of things dragged into one, instead of playing sad. If you're in a scene with another character, what am I as this character who's feeling despondent? What impact am I trying to have on the other person?
Speaker 2So if you're playing a scene with me, instead of just playing sad and looking sad. You might think what are you trying to do to me?
Speaker 4Yes, so if you and I were playing a couple who were breaking up.
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't want to be married to you, Lucinda. No, don't you?
Speaker 3I think you might really.
Speaker 1But, if we were playing a couple that was breaking up.
The Magic of Live Performance
Speaker 4I can't just play sad or angry. I need to imagine what impact am I trying to have on you so that you say, no, don't leave me. I love you, but you don't. So what do I do when you don't say that?
Speaker 2Yes, okay, and I guess to get to that point where you play an action, what we call properly trained actors- we call action playing. You need to understand the history of the actors, right?
Speaker 4Yes, Of the character. The character.
Speaker 1Not the actors. Yes, yes, who they are. You need to understand the history of the character.
Speaker 2Yes, so how long have we been?
Speaker 4married. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2You know what?
Speaker 4happened. Why, so, how long?
Speaker 3have we been married. Yes, yes, you know what happened. What's the obstacle to our happiness? All the whole thing.
Speaker 2And that is the difference between trained actors. We analyse a script we analyse a play.
Speaker 4Break it down.
Speaker 2Yes, yeah yeah, yeah, as opposed to just bad television acting, which is just get the script and learn the lines and just deliver them.
Speaker 4Yeah, and I'm always astonished with you know we say bad television acting with those young actors that might go into what we might call a soap opera how quickly they get good.
Speaker 2You have to. Yes, we're just pausing for a minute to hear a word from our sponsor.
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Speaker 2And what do you think makes them good?
Speaker 1I think, just the relentless repetition of doing the work every day. Yes, so you can pick up very bad habits, but often they're surrounded by a lot of very experienced actors, and so if they listen carefully and they observe, they're picking up great things from very experienced people in the industry, and you can't help but learn as you're there. I think.
Speaker 4I would hope that they do. And if they want to improve yes, Not all of them want to improve Well, that's true. But if they want to learn, then they do sort of you know, suck it up.
Speaker 2So what keeps you two in the industry? Because you're still, you know.
Speaker 4I'm not, I'm teaching, but you know I'm very, I feel connected to the industry, yeah what do you? Teach. I teach drama across 84 schools in Western Sydney.
Speaker 3Not enough. Can you count them all? No, that's right. No, that's right.
Speaker 4I'm not 84 at a time but there are 84 opportunities.
Speaker 1No 84 is a charge. She oversees 84 schools.
Speaker 4It's extraordinary, western Sydney being the part of Sydney that people might consider the most migrant, heavy or most working class part of Sydney.
Speaker 2So do you have a lot of kids that are English as a second language?
Speaker 4Absolutely 100% and, more importantly, they have no access to the arts. Yes, and more importantly, they have no access to the arts.
Speaker 2Yes, okay.
Speaker 4so in Sydney, new South Wales, australia, the preponderance of immigrants who speak English as a second language are out in the western suburbs of Sydney, and that's where Lucinda does most of her teaching, so when we take them to the theatre, this might be not only the first time they've ever been to a play, this might be the first time they've ever been in Sydney.
Speaker 4Wow, so they would come from the Western Zaroops you get on a bus, come into the Opera House or a theatre, yep may not have ever seen it to the point where we've had students say am I still in Australia? Wow, so, but that's, you know, that's another issue altogether but so for us it's very, very important for us to give them this opportunity because it opens up their world view and it opens up their lives.
Speaker 4I'm not we're not complaining that their parents, who are working incredible hours, have not taken them to the opera house but you know if we can give them that opportunity, if we can take them to the theatre, they it just opens up a whole world they didn't know existed and, of course, as we know, the purpose of the arts is to reflect society back on itself.
Speaker 2If you have no access to the arts, then you have no comprehension of anything outside your own, the context of your own life. And what about you, deb? You still actually act in the theater. We saw you recently in we are many, many things.
Speaker 4But we saw you with the sydney theater company in sweat, sweat, no no no, no, the last, the last shakespeare.
Speaker 1Oh um timing.
Speaker 4Of athens timing of athens, oh and unbelievable, absolutely extraordinary.
Speaker 2We, we loved it. We thought you were amazing, that lead actor, and what was so, damien Ryan Before we get on to Deb, what do you think was so good about that?
Speaker 4production. Well, Atonement of Athens, historically is one of Shakespeare's plays that is never done, very rarely done, considered a problem play. It's a draft. It's a draft. It's still in draft form and some people some contention around whether he wrote all of it.
Speaker 3Somebody wrote it. Yeah, somebody wrote it, that's all that matters.
Speaker 4But the astonishing thing around that production and around the vision of that production was yourself and Damien Ryan's astonishing performance of Testament.
Speaker 2It honestly was astonishing.
Speaker 4Where Annie and I both thought what made it so extraordinary was that he was 100% thinking at every moment. You saw the character thinking. At no point did he ever say anything that looked like he knew that was what was going to come out of his mouth. Everything was always in the moment.
Speaker 2And that's an interesting thing we talk about as actors is not saying the line right, like you knew you were about to say it because in the moment, like at the moment, we're having a conversation, the three of us I don't know what I'm going to say next. Now, that sort of freshness and approach to saying a line is really difficult if you've been saying the line every night for weeks, right, or perhaps months. Months or years, and yet there was a freshness and an immediacy in his performance and in your performance.
Speaker 1Thank you.
Speaker 2He morphed.
Speaker 1He must be tired at the end of it he's exhausted, but he's always wanted to play time. I think, and I think it was an extraordinary tour de force for him. I think, and I think it was an extraordinary, you know, tour de force for him. He also morphed, like he created the script, because Shakespeare and Middleton who he was writing it with Hang on who's Middleton.
Speaker 1Thomas Middleton was a playwright at the time of William Shakespeare and they think historians think that they were trying to either. You know, groom a new playwright that was going to be sort of the chief playwright in the UK and Shakespeare was going to retire. So they wrote together and they wrote a couple of things, but this was one of the plays that they wrote together and a lot of the scenes. Some of the scenes are repetitive and we think that you know it's a draft.
Speaker 1So they'll either use that scene or use this one, or morph the two together, sort of. So Damien massaged the script. So what do you mean by massaged the script? So he used the existing first folio whatever it was that was published of this particular play, which is why it's never done, because it's not really.
Speaker 1It doesn't look like it's finished either it's more just a social commentary, yeah and it doesn't feel like a finished play because it sort of ends very abruptly and these sort of scenes in between, in the middle of the play that are sort of repetitive and don't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2And you can clearly see Middleton's style of writing, which is a little bit more just, not as exquisite as the Shakespearean text that we're familiar with the good stuff like the Hamlets and everything else, yeah well, so I mean for the listeners, you know, mostly if you think about Shakespeare, you think about, you know, hamlet or King Lear, right, king Lear, yeah. Macbeth, those sort of plays. I don't think we really think about Timon of Athens.
Speaker 1No, not at all, and he never. It was never performed in his lifetime. No, it was literally in a drawer, like in his desk. Oh, that's a great play, but that's because.
Speaker 4Damien has. Well, also in the hands of the wrong people it could be really shitty. Oh no, in the hands of the wrong people it's unwatchable. Ok, so that's a testimony to what they managed.
Speaker 1And I know that the Royal Shakespeare Company in London have done a version of it not as good as you guys oh my god, I don't know.
Speaker 2I'd love to say that I reckon what you guys did is probably unmatchable.
Speaker 1I mean he really did rewrite the ending to a great extent, where it's almost a different kind of play, but he wrote it with social comment in mind.
Speaker 2Yeah, so he wrote it in terms of modernizing it and making it very relevant for an audience which made a huge underlying premise is that, no matter how much you know, wealth and accolade you have. So many people with wealth and accolade are not happy. That's right, Because they're not connected to themselves.
Speaker 1He tries to buy his friends and then when he needs help, his friends aren't there for him, so unless we were ethical, we'd lead ethical and moral lives and we're going to be miserable.
Speaker 2So I would just so love it, because there is so much for us to talk about, about acting, but I'm aware that we're sort of nearly at 40 minutes and I wonder if you girls would do this for me again and have more discussion.
Speaker 3Yes, absolutely, I love it.
Speaker 2I think there's so much relevance to do with acting and the craft of acting and just, I don't know, living a good life.
Drama Education and Social Impact
Speaker 1I think, also what it teaches you as a life skill, which is why Lucinda teaches it and why I occasionally teach it as well, because I think it's an extraordinary. I think it should be compulsory all the way through to Year 12.
Speaker 2Well, can you imagine all the shy kids?
Speaker 4But it's also possible in our education system in New South Wales for children to go from kindergarten to year 12, having never experienced drama Absolutely. Because the drama component of the curriculum might just be showing them a video.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 4And we have to be very, very careful about the idea.
Speaker 3What do you mean? Oh, that's awful yeah but it just.
Speaker 4You know, there were ways around it for teachers who were also terrified of teaching it which is not their fault. They've gone through Teachers College, they've gone through university with two hours of drama training and then they're asked to teach it. They don't know how, any more than they know how to teach music. So you know we need it for expression empathy. Absolutely, you know we need it for expression empathy.
Speaker 3Absolutely.
Speaker 4They cannot be bullies if they have walked in someone else's shoes in drama in a safe place, or let the passive child play the bully and give them some strength.
Speaker 2It's just so right, isn't it? When you think about the amount of othering that is going on about? I know, in the States at the moment, there's just the most terrible upswing of anti-immigrant sentiment. And, to your point, if you have played someone that is not you, yes, exactly. If you have experienced a life that is not yours. It's like the same reason why we should all be reading good literature.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 2And what they say is that is that you know, forget doing personal growth courses read a really good novel.
Speaker 4Yes, be immersed in something. Yeah, be immersed in something, be moved, yeah, be moved so would you come back again?
Speaker 2absolutely, um, this is really how much yeah? I'm paying them big dollars honestly come on, never enough.
Speaker 4I'm paying them big dollars Honestly.
Speaker 1Come on, never enough, I'm paying them big dollars.
Speaker 2It's been really expensive, but I think it's been worth it. Well, thank you so much, Debbie and Lucinda.
Speaker 2Thank you, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I hope the recording works in this bar. Thank you so much, listeners. I hope that was an instructive, relevant and interesting discussion that you just listened to. Wherever you are in the world, stay safe, stay well, keep your critical thinking hats on. Talk to you soon. Bye, thanks for tuning into why Smart Women with me, annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style.
Speaker 2Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know. It's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny.
Closing Thoughts and Farewell
Speaker 2This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
