Perhaps an actor should expect to fall in love.
Because, in a sense, it is part of the job description.
In a way, an actor could say,
“I audition, I network, I memorize lines, and I fall in love.”
We sat down, across from each other – the lights almost blinding. But within them, my eyes found one thing and comfortably focused on another pair of eyes, which blinked me into focus as I did him. They were brown eyes. When our eyes had adjusted, and all we could see was each other, there was something we then had to deal with, which neither of us had foreseen.
“I love you.”
When an actor says it, they have to mean it.
They have to feel it, or you can tell.
You watch a movie and you think,
“This fucking sucks.”
There’s no time for it.
Art that does not come from some manner of truth
Is self-indulgent without being rewarding.
(I don’t want to forget this feeling. When time stopped and all there was… was he and I. In real life he is married and I am living with my boyfriend, and this man and I know nothing about each other.
But an actor’s life is blurred with fantasy, blessed with passion, and cursed with un-satisfiable desire.
I knew that in this room, under these lights, this time set aside for us to act, I knew that I was safe and I was free to experience him. I these
eternal/too-brief
moments, I lamented and he lamented that he married too soon. A mistake had been made, because there was a magic here, a knowledge that came from somewhere else. And desire.)
DESIRE.
.
I allowed myself to enjoy it for a few hours.
But
Like
All
Love,
And
All
Things,
I know it is fleeting.
“An Actor and Love” by Vanessa Cate
Artwork: Drugi by Vesna Pesic
The Show Tell Project 