What is Risk? And How Do I Do It?
I’m writing on my new blog every day for thirty days straight. This is the twenty-third one. I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of risk. “Risk” is a buzz word for the acting and improv community. It seems like everyone has their own personal quote on the idea of “risk.” “Risk big to win big.” “Risk is at the heart of good work.” “If you’re not risking, you’re playing it safe, and a good actor doesn’t play it safe. They risk everything.”When I first moved to Los Angeles, I had a teacher who had us do an exercise. He said “I’m going to play some music and at certain points I’ll count to three and then say “RISK!” and then you make a risk.” Everyone around me nodded in affirmation – and in my head I was like, “Oh no, Andrew, what does that mean?! How do you not know how to risk?!” Anyways the music started and everyone kind of moved/gyrated around and then when he counted and yelled “risk!” everyone either did some type of a jump or some version of a somersault – and I was more confused than ever.What is risk? What does it feel like? Is it really necessary for amazing work? Again – I don’t really have the answers, but I have some trains of thought. Want to join me?
Let me back up. I don’t like posting quotes because I just don’t think you can expect someone to be struck by a quote the way you were at your point in your life. Talking is nice and useful, but like I wrote on my last post, at a certain point you’ve got to get to work. And I think we’re becoming a quote-heavy, action-light culture. We sure talk a game. But do we act on anything?
I’ve been thinking a lot about risk because, as I’ve performed more, performing in general has felt less and less “risky.” I don’t get butterflies before I perform nearly as often as I used to, and from what everyone quotes, I almost think that I’m doing something wrong.Engineers try to minimize risk at every point. They have redundancies so that if one part of their project fails, there’s a backup to make sure that the whole thing doesn’t fall apart. I even heard that engineering companies started doing “pre-mortems” where everyone on the team would list the points where they think their project could fail. I think that’s brilliant. How often do we approach a problem by saying, “where am I most likely to fail?” I want to start doing this more with my acting. But I’d be minimizing risk. So. Does this make me a bad actor?I don’t think that this is the risk that people are talking about. People aren’t suggesting that you risk by coming into a performance unprepared. But then what are they talking about?I think in improv – it’s by exploring areas of your comedy (characters, voices, and emotions) that you don’t regularly play with. There’s a chance to fail because every new thing you try might not be funny right away. And when you know you can get a laugh doing that guy with that voice you always do, then risking becomes a lot more difficult. Ahhh. Now maybe I’m on to something. Risking is trying new things so that you can become a more versatile performer. Yeah. That makes sense.I think in acting it has to be the same thing. You can create most standard characters pretty easily – but how do you get to the level of actors who completely transform themselves from role to role? Daniel Day-Lewis, Christian Bale, Jessica Chastain, and Gary Oldman are great examples. They could fail big doing new characters, bringing new things to their work. But. By expanding their capabilities, they become a more versatile performer. And then everyone can see you doing more roles than your standard “type” that you can play so well.This has got to be what people are talking about. Reaching outside of your comfort zone to play characters that you wouldn’t normally play. You know, I guess most of Hollywood likes to minimize risk too. It takes a lot for someone to cast you in a part that’s far from your normal self. So that’s why actors like Day-Lewis, Bale, Chastain, and Oldman get such a variety of roles – because they proved themselves by learning how to play outside of their comfort zone.
I feel like that kid in class who’s scared to raise his hand when the teacher asks, “does anyone have a question?” I have lots of questions. Boatloads. I don’t always raise my hand to get an answer, but I’m glad I could make some progress on answering this one.
A little epilogue. I love the board game Risk. Thinking about risk made me think about Risk. Growing up I’d play with my brothers and they would usually beat me. But every once and a while I’d win. I’d be ecstatic. I'm not usually one to say "those were the days," but...
