About Arlene Schulman Expertise As a professional director, dramaturg, acting coach and actor for over 25 years in the NYC/NJ area, I can help with questions on acting technique, character development, audition and rehearsal techniques, dealing with directors and stage managers, what directors are looking for, and other aspects of the acting and directing professions.
Experience A professional director, dramaturg, acting coach and actor for over 25 years in the NYC/NJ area, I have directed in professional, university and amateur theatre and have directed and acted in dramas, comedies, musicals, Shakespeare as well as collaborating closely with playwrights in the development of original plays and musicals.
Organizations SSDC associate member Advisory Board - Isle of Shoals Productions Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America associate member Shakespeare Association of America The Shakespesare Institute -
MA "Shakespeare & Theatre" candidate, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK
Expert: Arlene Schulman Date: 2/29/2008 Subject: Actors and Emotion
Question When I watch a given actor in a movie I swear to myself that they are able to experience more emotions than any typical person. Do actors learn new and different emotions that most people never use in much the same way that Shakespear had nearly twice the vocabulary of the average person today? Also how many emotions are out there anyways?
Answer Hi James,
No, actors don't have any more emotions than the rest of us. They are just people after all. They do, however, perhaps learn to express their emotions more visibly than most of us do, and learn very specifically how to access their own emotions so that they can express them in ways that we can identify and understand.
I doubt anyone has ever counted emotions, simply because everyone would identify and express them differently. There are certainly different degrees of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, frustration, and more, and each of those different levels could be said to be a "different" emotion. But what you call them is up to you and, no doubt, different from what someone else might call them.
It doesn't really matter how many emotions there are, because good actors don't first identify an emotion and then decide how to express it. They "live truthfully in the imaginary circumstance of the play". In other words, when they are on stage they act as if they were the character living in the circumstances of the play, and, as such, they actually feel the emotions the character feels in those circumstances. They don't have to identify the emotions, just as you don't identify emotions when you feel them. You don't say, "okay, I'm going to feel sad here - now how would I do that?" You simply react to the circumstances you are in and feel what you feel. The actor learns to do the same, but as the character not himself.
