Truth in our Craft

I started acting when I was around 15. I thought that being an actor was being a professional liar. I mean, how couldn’t I? People pretend to be other people and emotionally convince us things that are happening that aren’t real. When I started to take my acting more seriously, I had an acting coach staunchly disagree with my proposition. He told me, “If you aren’t telling the truth in your performance, then you are doing it horribly.” I had no idea what he was talking about.

When I was older, I moved from Virginia to New York City and started reading and studying philosophy alongside my film craft. I was walking into the New York Public Library to work on a project, and I saw a statue of Socrates outside. I had never noticed it before, but something else caught my eye. Above Socrates, it said, “But above all things, Truth, beareth away the victory.” Initially, I thought, “Just another baller-ass quote from Socrates.” But when I started to work on my project, I kept thinking about it, and it made me remember what my acting coach had told me. I am now beginning to understand the weight of his proposition. It’s a rule that doesn’t just apply to the actor but to everyone who touches the production, telling the truth. Though some may think otherwise, people have an excellent notion of when you are not genuine, trying to subvert the truth. The casual audience member may not know the ins and outs of what happened to a film just by watching it, but they may be able to point out when they feel it’s a lousy performance, a bad story, or even bad direction. I believe they subconsciously know the creatives in charge aren’t being honest with their efforts, they are being lied to, and no one likes being lied to.

Now, does this mean all we have to do is be truthful, and BOOM, our story is Oscar-ready? Not necessarily, it’s one part of many within the process. Think of it as a skeleton; can we only live off the skeleton? Of course not! We have a lot of other parts that are crucial to us. The story must be good, the direction needs talent and patience, the camera needs prep and calculated direction, etc. But there is still that structure that all these things are built upon, that is telling the truth.

It’s our job as artists to follow the logos of film. We tell stories because we must, I can only speak for myself, but many of us put blood, sweat, and actual tears into our work. Why would that detail, the tears, and the sweat, be necessary? It’s because we are insinuating a genuine effort to tell a story and tell the truth. Now, is it the capital T “Truth”? Maybe not, but at the very least, we knew we weren’t lying to the audience, and that was all we could strive for.

Remember in film and life, “But above all things,  Truth, beareth away the victory.”