I like the term, “Suggestibility.” It sounds a bit like “Vulnerability,” and reminds me of hypnosis. It makes me think of dreaming while I’m awake and taking actions.
Everyone’s suggestible. You had a guest for dinner last night, remember? And she ate too many of those olive appetizers you set out. She loved them and ate nine or ten.
When an actor is genuinely engaged, her facial expressions and gestures come from her inner experience. I call this Honest Animation. It’s not imposed from the outside. It’s not just the actor’s natural performance mode. The expressions seem to spin from the inner agitation. The actor genuinely feels the desire and frustration of the character’s predicament and her gestures and facial expressions pop off of that Engagement.
Keep coaching yourself to confront what’s here in the moment.
As actors, we mix the Actual with the Imaginary. We look at the other actor, who is an actual person, but we imagine that they have the intention of harming us, or seducing us. If I kiss her, I enjoy the actual lips of the actress, but imagine that she has the power to arrest me.
