It’s a funny thing, my memory. If I meet you, I can remember every detail about you down to whether you had your shoelaces tied. But I will be damned if I could remember your name. This … whatever, isn’t just with names. It extends to titles and lables…. I can remember song lyrics but can’t remember the name of the song let alone the artist or band that sang the song. I remember stories and the character, though I won’t remember their names unless it’s obvious. I’m a sucker for a good story. I’m a sucker for a bad story. Tell me a story and I’m all ears. Tell me a story and I’m all yours!
It’s a bit frustrating, though I’ve learned not to care, when people gossip about this actor in that movie, and that actor in this TV series, and so on and so on. It’s not that they look down their long noses that are all bent out of joint at me for not knowing who did what, or what did who. What’s a bit frustrating, … let’s change that … What’s rather sad, is that in all the gossip, no one talks about how good or bad the story was. It’s all about the actor, who directed it, who produced it, who wrote it… I think the only reason I would even know who the actors are, is because everyone will bombard and judge me with it. But the moment I talk about the story, the deer in the headlights look over takes everyone, they hold their breath and begin to panic just a bit before the subject is quickly changed to a facebook post of someones half eaten breakfast.
If you watched a movie, or a TV series, and all you can remember are the actors, then it was a BAD story, and the actors didn’t do their job. Think about it. An actors job is to pull you into the story and make the characters come alive, and the story so real that you feel that you are living it! The actor themselves are merely vehicles, transportation, for your imagination. The tragedy these days is a kin to taking a trip to see the wonders of the world, the pyramids, Petra, the Great Wall of China, etc… Then when you come home you only really remember the bus ride, so that’s all you talk about.
So take it as a compliment if you are an actor and didn’t win that paper weight that looks like a naked person, or that door stop with brass balls on it. It means that you did your job, and you did it well.
The 3rd Coyote 