Film Courage: What does always have something to look forward to mean?
Jocelyn Jones, Acting Teacher/Author: I want people to take the reins of their own life
like a horse and point it in the direction that they want it to go what if you want to
go east you have to go like this and go east so that was another thing my father gave me
he said josh you always have something to look forward to and it's very important because it
it helps you to believe that you are creating your own life I'm going to we talked a little
bit about The Artist's Way [Author Julia Cameron] and they have an artist's date and that you take
yourself on an artist state and I remember being involved in the artist's way and I loved it
but I was terrible at getting the artist's date in because we're this is going to call my attention
and that's going to call my attention and I have to be at this appointment and and we busy
ourselves out of the artist state so to always have something to look forward to is part of
being responsibility taking responsibility for your own joy it's very important that we take
responsibility for our own vibration if you're a creator creativity and joy go hand in hand there
is a school of thinking that is the more pain or the tortured and stuff all these artists are great
artists are tortured people I just don't don't buy it I find it an indulgence I believe joy and
creativity go hand in hand so we're responsible for for creating that in in as in teaching in
my classes my students will tell you they get morose and they come to class and they're like
so hard and auditions and there's no jobs and now they make you film yourself and they just
walls of complaints and it's some of them have been around for 20 or 30 years and they're tired
of the industry and they have a whole other level of complaints and I asked them things like when
is the last time you took a day in nature when is the last time you did something fun
when do you plan thing so I make them make joy lists I literally make them with this one guys
so do you have to go and next class bring me 10 things that bring joy you like doing them
and he came back he had one he had one thing on the list golf and I went okay golf
great next week two more and he kind of pulled himself up and when you do those things when
you look forward to turned out he liked the softball so he went into a softball league and he
played in a couple of games and he came out and he was like that's his jam man that made him happy
I'm not I'm far from a pollyanna but you're responsible for your own happiness
so when you first you have to know what you like make a joy list because you can't put things in
the future if you don't if you're not looking forward to them it's not something you love
that's going to bring you joy so first make a joy list if need be and then you put those
things on the calendar three times a week why not people go one or to stay forget one order state
it's your life put things on your calendar to look forward to that you want to do you want to go to
Europe you don't have any money say yourself I'm going to Europe in a year and two months
in the October of the la la year I'm going to and where am I going to go and get specific just like
artists just like actors you have to get specific I'm going to France where are you going in France
well research that I'm going to these two places in France great where are you going to stay
and when you start getting specific just like you create a part that's just like creating a part
where are you where where are you going to stay all those kinds of questions are the
same kinds of questions that artists and actors ask you answer all those questions you put the
date on the calendar you start a little savings fund and what sorry to seem airy fairy but the
universe is going to contribute to that because you are now operating at a higher vibration
and that's where inspiration comes in sure and on the flip side not to be tumorous but it can
work that way in the negative absolutely absolutely if you when you constantly worry
you will attract things that will contribute it's really benevolent though it's really like
oh did you want to worry okay let me help you out with that it's there's no good bad or indifferent
about it it just is and if you complain then you'll find more things to complain about
we're so complain-y and meanwhile we're so blessed we really I have to say to my husband all the time
we're complaining we're complaining about ridiculousness here we're complaining about
who's gonna cook the Salmon tonight what it's like let's we have salmon let's cook it let's celebrate
you I think you said in the book that some of your students they think there's a career that
they want but really it's someone's career that's already out there and they're and they're in a
sense emulating that but they need one that's true for them yes yeah there was I have students that
and I think it's natural they're very taken with she's a singer she wants to be Madonna,
he's an actor he wants to be James Franco or they they see these people it's a little bit of a love
affair because there's a lot of admiration that goes on in the arts and certainly in acting and
so they they fantasize what it would be like to be this person and there's nothing wrong with fantasy
but it's not going to get you what you want your dream your dream is not fantasy when you can
see yourself in the picture Madonna for instance that's a very clear concept of her career she
had to have seen it she saw the costume she saw the hair she saw the makeup she saw the voice
she saw a presentation Marilyn Monroe the same thing so it's just a tiny shift over
to what is that for you what is that for you if you want to be that kind of actor which is
to create a whole kind of an image thing there are different kinds of actors there's
Cary Grant actors and Marilyn Monroe this is a personality that you kind of create for yourself
that sells that's a little old-fashioned and then their character actors who have a much broader
what does that call arc of of who they can play and and some of them can we never recognize them
every time we see them because that's their goal is they want to enter so far into character
that we don't recognize them but when they're really good they're still tethered they're still
tethered they never release once you release it becomes act-y you're playing at something
but when you loan your heartbeat your breath your nervous system to an entirely different character
who then you tweak the nervous system and it's a little bit different and you tweak the energy
this one has lots of energy this one is tired or exhausted or ill but you're still tethered in on
that energy line it's as if this character's energy where you're lying you're feeding it
does that make sense I think so yeah so do you think most people want to be the persona
or there's some that definitely want to be there they want to be the persona they want to be
admired because we're living in a really narcissistic society right now and narcissists
don't admire each other they don't they're not necessarily kind they're all of their attention
their thinking is on themselves so we're in a very thinking society not a being society not
energetic being society but a thinking society and that's why I talk about meditation so much because
I was just talking to a car a guy who drove me in a car and I was talking about you just have that
little separation because he was telling me like I get cranky and I don't know my family and I go
can you just look at it just look at it if you can what meditation gives you even if you do it five
minutes a day it gives you the understanding that you can step outside your thinking which is all
sorry ego it's not we we can't do without ego we have to have ego it's not a terrible thing it's
just out of balance we're just like all about ego and thinking but if you can step out a little bit
just like that much you can look and see oh I'm thinking this or I'm behaving that way or I’d
like to change this I had I get cranky sometimes over I'm not going to get into why but we're all
imperfect and I was getting very cranky with my husband we were working together and sometimes
I'm cranky when we're working together we're writing together oh no it doesn't go that way and
he's such a beautiful human being and suddenly I took a little step out of myself and looked
at myself and went she's really Jocelyn do you have to carry on like this this is kind of mean
and abusive and why are you doing it and so I looked at my husband just because I could make
that little separation and said I'm really being a snarky aren't I and he was so loving and dear and
looked at me and said can can you can you help it can you just step out of it and go well I’ve
stepped out that's about as far as I can go right now but then we laughed so what was the question
well is it almost like an outer body experience so there's the persona actor which when they
walk in all eyes are on them and then there's it sounds like there's the chameleon who can
really become almost another person yeah and and I think the question was do most actors want to
become the idea like if I just absolutely adore Cate Blanchett yeah and and want to become yes
everything that she does and I realize wait a minute I'm wanting to emulate her
I'm not trying to be the best me the apples and oranges type of thing it's it's all from the
same question it's why I wrote the book there's no connection to self there's no connection to
self so as a teacher I could say to them you're fantasizing what do you want for you what is
your career do you want because they also along with that fantasizing of being Cate Blanchett or
any one of them you want their career so you want a movie you want to be a movie star people don't
think about theater as much people don't think about television they don't think about creating
their own movies make your own movies what is it that you want to do because nobody's asked
them that so you have to be asked and you have to continue to ask until what happens boom boom
boom something happened only you can answer that question and only you can answer that question
with your own nervous system with your own responses so really what we need is because
we need to lead people back to themselves in their own point of view and their own autonomy
because even with the chameleon actors often they're acting out of unhappiness they're
trying to escape themselves and so they can do this magic trick of really entering
but they're not very happy as people I'm for like let's let's let's have a little fun in life
because we're not here very long and I want to set an example I want people to set an example that
this can be fun because right now it's really dark and one last thing if I may before we move on and
that is if I and I'm using let's say the Cate Blanchett analogy but what if that's not my type
what if I want to be that type but my type when I walk into a casting office
is someone completely different and so I'm trying to become an orange when I'm really an apple
how do I reconcile that with myself as an actor right first you have to check on the heartbeat
is it do you really want to be Cate Blanchett do you really want to play those parts or are you
fantastic are you wishing you looked differently and if you really want to play those parts you
can find a way there was a model I grew up I was a really bad model but that's another story
but I worked with some around some very good models and twiggy was a big deal eyelashes and
stuff we looked sort of alike but there was a woman named Penelope Tree who was a model
and she didn't really have the face of a model and but she wanted it she had a heartbeat for
it it was a real thing for her so she created a face with Kabuki she made a white face with
very extreme makeup and she wore very geodesic kind of narcissistic geometric clothes and she had
poses that no one had ever seen like she was very just odd strange poses she created her own thing
she was a huge hit why because it came from her imagination like madonna it came out of
her imagination she saw it you have to be able to see yourself in it if it's not from your own heart
you're never going to get there here's another example I'm not going to mention her name but
I trained with a beautiful actress I love this woman who wanted to be capelin she wanted to be
a movie star and she was never going to be a movie star she was from kind of coal mining she was salt
of the earth babe that sort of was recognizable to all of us and my teacher who was Milton Gotzelos
he was very hard on people I don't believe in being that hard either but he was very
hard on her and he kept telling her you're not going to play these parts you're not
going to stop doing scenes from these parts because you're not going to play these parts
you're salted the earth and finally he said he he hit home with her maybe it was the sixth critique
maybe the tenth critique and he looked at her and he said is Anna Magnani not good enough for you
and she didn't know who Anna Magnani was and so she went and she looked up Anna Magnani
and she realized what he was talking about and she realized the wealth of parts available to her as
a character actress and she's getting goosebumps she started working and she hasn't stopped since
she's in everything she's in everything so it is finding but it had to ring in her heart she'd
look at Anna Magnani and go oh I feel it I see myself in it you have to see yourself in it.