PERFORMANCE: The Actors' Roundtable: "Humility" (Part 1 of 2)

Each week for the past 10 weeks, Paden Fallis has posed one question to a group of professional working actors from a variety of backgrounds. Our goal is not to demystify the work of the actor or explore their careers, but to dig a bit deeper into their artistic working process. This is part 1 of 2 in the final question of this initial series. ACTOR’S ROUNDTABLE: HUMILITY (PART 1 OF 2) If there’s one thing I love to see in the work of an actor, it is sincerity. If there is one thing I hate seeing, it is arrogance. I’ve always believed that the only way to approach the work is with a healthy belief in your own abilities combined with an even healthier dose of humility towards the work. All of you in this roundtable are accomplished, talented, and serious about the work you do. You’ve all experienced great successes and accolades. Your passion and commitment are why you were chosen for this ongoing discussion. So, the final question posed to you is this: how do you stay humble?  - Paden Fallis, Performing Arts Contributing Editor

MANON HALLIBURTON I think in order to stay humble you must choose to be that way, as well as having a “real” interest in people. If you truly love people and want to know how they tick, you will focus your attention on getting to know them on a human level that has nothing to do with the work. I was fortunate to grow up with a professor who taught people from every culture and country you can imagine, and I was always exposed to that as a child. The more unlike me they were, the more fascinating they were. I stay humble because I have a genuine love for people’s differences. Maybe that’s why I became an actor in the first place. I think in order to be humble you have to just “be” and practice it every day to some degree.

NATHAN KLAU For me, I think the more appropriate question is, “How do you NOT stay humble?” After 18 years in the city, any “big head” I might develop from the occasional good audition or performance is quickly shrunken by the sobering reality of some showbiz truths (that clearly don’t apply to Sutton Foster): I will always be looking for the next job. Even if I do great work or get a great job, it doesn’t necessarily take me further up the ladder of success. It’s ultimately just a credit on my resume and I’m often back to square one. Because I live in the international center of performing arts known as New York City, there are inevitably going to be many people who do what I do just as well or even better than I do it. Every actor runs their own business and sometimes that’s exhausting. Auditioning is the vocation; work is the vacation. The list of showbiz truths can go on and on. Essentially, to be in New York and to be an arrogant, entitled actor, is to really not see the forest for the trees in terms of your place in the bigger picture. I stay humble because 18 years as a struggling actor in the city have beaten me into a pulp of humility. Also my Jewish mother tells me that arrogance is an unattractive quality.

MARK ORISTANO As the great George Burns was fond of saying, “The key to acting is sincerity. And once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” I’ve often thought, as I look back at my own career and watch the careers of others, (including my daughter Stacey, who has gone on to great success in TV on shows like Friday Night Lights and Bunheads) I think there is a key developmental moment in a good actor’s career. We all begin because we like the whole “Look at me, I’m on stage” thing. But at some point, if you’re really going to progress, you have a role in a show where you realize that, if you do this correctly, you can actually help people understand things that are going on in their own worlds. I think this is the moment where you make the transition from show-off to actor. Accordingly, I am currently working on a book with a pediatric heart surgeon and I had occasion to speak to a large group of actors at a fundraiser for a six-year old cancer patient whose mother is a wonderful musical comedy performer. I spoke about Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, where I’ve volunteered for 16 years, and I showed a photo I took of my friend, the heart surgeon. I told the assembled actors, “Take a look at this photo and let it burn into your mind. It’s a surgeon, performing a heart transplant for a two-year old girl. (Pause for effect.) The next time you’re tempted to go on Facebook and complain about how tough your tech rehearsal was, remember this photo. Because this surgery went on for over 14 hours, and there were no breaks.” In other words, it’s great to provide entertainment for people, and it’s a great thrill to know you can make them laugh. But at the end of the day, it’s only a show. Leave it at the stage door, have a beer, go home. Take the work seriously, not yourself.

ERIKA ROSE Arrogance isn’t my problem and humility comes easy. What’s hard for me is staying positive, believing in myself, and being brave. I spend a lot of energy and effort on anxiety and fear. Fear has been my full-time job the past two years. If I put as much effort into my career (or any kind of action related to the business at all) as I have on the “what if’s” and the “I can’t’s” and the “why me’s”, I’d be so far ahead. I went to Ghana this past August and this Ghanian Rasta named Zewu told me, “Your only job is to fulfill your God-given destiny. You don’t need to believe in God to know that an infant’s destiny is towalk. A bird’s destiny is to fly. If children gave up when they fell and decided they weren’t meant to walk, there would be a lot of adults crawling on their hands and knees today. But children don’t give up when they fall, because it’s their destiny to walk. You have a destiny too and your only job is to fulfill it. Don’t crawl because walking or flying is hard. All you have to do is keep trying and you will walk into your destiny. God didn’t say you wouldn’t have bruises on your journey to this destiny, but as long as you keep going forward, you’ll fulfill it.”

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Manon Halliburton is a regional theater actress who has worked all over the country. She has also appeared in television shows such as Law and Order and The Sopranos, and recently shot her first film this past year and closed August Osage County at Kansas City Rep to rave reviews. She lives in Kansas City with actor Bob Elliott.. Nathan Klau’s touring credits include Jersey Boys, The Lion King, Forever Plaid, and Anything Goes. Regionally, he has worked at Goodspeed Opera House, Arkansas Rep, and Theater-by-the-Sea. A native of West Simsbury, CT, Nathan graduated from Yale University in 1994 with a degree in History and Theater. He hopes to use it someday. Mark Oristano has worked a 30-year acting career in and around a 30-year sportscasting career, which included stints announcing for the Houston Oilers and Dallas Cowboys. On stage, Mark has appeared in works by Shakespeare, Mamet, Simon, Albee, and his own work, including his one-man show, And Crown Thy Good: A True Story of 9-11. Mark lives and acts in Dallas, Texas. Erika Rose is a Helen Hayes Award-winning actress living New York City. Regionally, she’s best known from her eight years of work on Washington, D.C. stages.

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