The following essay is written by Robert Sheehan. The actor is currently starring as Klaus Hargreeves on Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy,” whose final season premiered Aug. 8. His book “Playing Dead: How Meditation Brought Me Back to Life” comes out Sept. 5.
The initial reason I began acting had to do with the pursuit of other people’s approval. We put on a play in school for the parents when I was young. The levels of laughter and the religious levels of group joy and connection that I had the power to create in that play gave me a very deep, unconscious motivation to continually recreate that feeling for myself and others.
Later, as an actor in my 20s, I did not yet know this about myself, and I would describe my career as being about making good work and working with good people. But really, it still had to do with getting the approval of other people. I didn’t begin acting for/from myself until I was in my early 30s.
When I was younger, I struggled with the fact that I had become unknowingly in possession of two opposing emotional rule books—one which governed the world of performance, and the other, older rulebook, which governed how I behaved in the real world. In my first-ever proper audition, I showed great emotional vulnerability—an unexpected explosion of tears and adrenaline and fire and a pure loss of self.
And when I was re-delivered back to the audition room, I was the embodiment of two opposing states: intense amounts of exhilaration (exhilaration that I had given my all and knew that I’d given them what they wanted) and intense amounts of shame (shame that I had betrayed the previous emotional rules that I had learned mainly through my young peer group).
How to Audition for Netflix I got a role in that project, and the success of that helped to reinforce a deep, unconscious belief in me that real emotional vulnerability—the kind that allows for the expression of difficult emotions—was only useful in the realm of performance.
In this way, acting became a kind of therapy, a way of blowing off real-world steam and be applauded for it. But it also gradually turned into a kind of performance prostitution. And it wasn’t until I discovered this paradoxical emotional blueprint going on, which had become strongly established in me through praise and approval in my early teens, that I earned the choice in adulthood to become an upgraded kind of actor—one who can embrace the connection directly within himself as a way of connecting with the rest of the world.
Robert Sheehan on “The Umbrella Academy” Courtesy Netflix
Being an actor is a good profession to have, because if one is curious enough, then eventually that curiosity leads back to taking a good long look at the instrument one uses to make money, i.e., the self—the self as a source, being all of the things on the interior side, let’s say. Like the deep feeling of the body, or the sensations of the unconscious desires and unconscious thoughts, as in the ones that happen all by themselves.
With enough practice of investigating and discovering and being permissive both within and out, over time, much more of the inside became visible because it was permitted to. And then, an actor emerged out of this younger form into one that could see more of the sorrow and joy and everything in between—in others, too, and in the characters they were being asked to play. Because they’d seen lots more of the sorrow and joy and everything in between in themselves.
HBO, Netflix + Other Major Streamers Need Talent Now A crucial necessity of an actor is compassion, for all living things, starting with themselves. This is impossible to have if the actor has not suffered and allowed the suffering, both in sorrow and in joy—and not stifled the suffering with alcohol, weed, gambling, sex, or whatever the actor’s vice happens to be.
The permission of all that has a desire to be seen inside of the actor is the actor’s greatest currency. Be wary of letting the desire for physical attractiveness as an actor become the enemy of emotional openness. Emotional openness, and the willingness to explore the depths of all emotions, both beautiful and ugly, is far more valuable to your audience than an actor who is just assuming a beautiful pose.
Remember that, in life as well as performance, when faced with a challenge, the sensations of fear barriers within can initially feel like repellents, but are, in nature, more like invitations. Pushing through them and finding catharsis on the other side makes you a more valuable actor.
As the wise sage Sean Connery once remarked: “Don’t be afraid to make a c**t of yourself.”
