You either believe an actor or you don’t.
This is the tenet that encompasses the system of work for actors that was created by Eric Morris.
Morris is an American actor, author and acting coach whose work spans around five decades now.
To bring truth into the actors work, he must first of all know who he is, which means acknowledging his own personal points of view about everything and expressing them, feeling all kinds of life, colors, distractions, impulses, and changes of emotions. In short, Morris created hundreds of exercises which worked for the actor to achieve a state of being – feeling and discovering all his life’s elements and doing no more than what he feels. Being is the only place from which one can create organic reality.
Having established this groundwork, the actor must then work on his instrument – his body, intellect, emotions, and voice to fine tune it and prepare it for work. There are exercises that free the actor from inhibiting and insulating blocks so that he is more vulnerable and accessible, thereby allowing himself to release all the creative talents held inside him. This also gives the actor the ability to push his own buttons to prepare himself for his work based on how he feels at the moment and how far or near he is to the requirements of his acting work.
When the instrument is ready, the actor can now work on Craft. The Morris system of work for actors incorporates a simple yet powerful process that answers the actor’s question of how to bring truth into his script or material, on three categories of craft: Obligation, Choice, and Choice Approach.
Obligation answers the question “what do I want to feel in this particular scene?”
Choice, on the other hand, answers to “what is that real person, thing, place, event in my life that would make me feel that way?”
Choice approach is “how can I make this person/thing/place/event real so that the emotions that I felt before can be evoked again?” There are 26 choice approaches that an actor can learn and use.
The Eric Morris system of work for actors is always based on truth. And since it uses the actor’s own truth, his work is always organic and unique to him. The availability of so many choices and choice approaches afford him to be able to create different results so that his work is never stale and predictable even when using the same script. And since he works with realities, the truth in his emotions will always show in his body, his eyes, and his movements – facets that can be captured even by the closest or tightest cinema shot.
Achieving truth in acting lecture led to a free demonstration wherein thespians Ann Villegas, Leo Martinez, and Gina Alajar agreed that artists are born – the rest are made over a painstaking process through time.
However, it does not follow that innate talent may be exempt from seeking greater perfection, along with meeting the professional demands that must and should accompany raw aesthetic skill. Undergoing the same learning process with the rest can be rewarding. It is actually the mark of true professionalism.
In whatever field, a real professional can be easily identified by his insatiable desire to learn and his intolerance to mediocrity. One cannot expect less from the acting profession because the vision of a creative artist transcends the material, thus enabling him to explore and express the depths of the human soul with profound clarity and insight.
Besides this, he is capable of grasping techniques that will aid him in his continual exploration of himself and his environment. All three successful artists of Philippine cinema who acted as facilitators share in the vision that the Actors Workshop Foundation, Inc. wishes to realize in its aim to professionalize the movie industry.
Highly structured workshops are made up of exercises designed so the participants can fully and precisely express themselves truthfully.
Leo Martinez summed it up: “The truth in acting is simple lang. You have to be true. Magpakatotoo ka lang sa sarili mo, brother. Sa nararamdaman mo. You will be able to act in a manner na as if you are not acting at all.” – Maria Eleanor E. Valeros
