The other day, I was at the Barnes & Noble at The Grove in Los Angeles with my wife and Matthew Perry. Well actually, Melanie and I were in one area and Matt was in the cooking section but hey, we were in the same store. In any case, I ran across a neat quote, thought of you (the collective "you"), and wanted to share it.

I was browsing through an interesting book called In Character: Actors on Acting. The premise of the book is that the author/photographer met with actors, gave them short scenarios and then took photos of their reactions. "Your daughter has announced that she wants multiple piercings...your wife makes a speech at your 50th wedding anniversary party..." That sort of thing. Some of the images offered really interesting glances into a performer's personality and sensibilities (Martin Landau -- wow). Others...well, not so much.

One of the actors profiled was Jason Alexander and, following his photos, there were a couple short paragraphs. Jason discussed that it's sometimes frustrating to him to be cast in the way that he is. Though all of his characters obviously represent a facet of his personality, he's much different than the bigger than life characters he usually plays. He's actually quite shy and sensitive. He ended it by quoting one of his acting teachers: "It's the irony of your life. You have the heart and soul of Hamlet and the body of Falstaff."

That reminded me of what's so great about theatre. An actor can play just about anything on stage. The audience buys into the fantasy, no matter how far out it might be. In film and TV, it's much moe difficult. You need to be physically right for a role or quite often the audience won't buy into it. They want realism, or at least a reasonable facsimile -- rather hard for the actor who is capable of expressing far more than what lies on the surface.

Well-said Trevor. Well-said! :)

-Jon