How do They Do It? Crying on Cue

You're watching your favorite TV show and suddenly a character is crying. Real tears are rolling down his/her cheeks. Ever wonder how they do that?

It's frustrating for actors who can't cry on cue (and I used to be one). Interestingly, since I stopped acting in plays and started writing them, crying has become easier. (Funny how the pressure subsides when you don't have to do something. Right?)

After loads of acting classes and working on something called sense memory, I started to realize that memory involves only part of the story. But we can start by talking about what sense memory means.

When you experience an upsetting or traumatic event and remember it, your body will typically remember it too. So if someone hit you when you were a kid--say, you were picked on by a bully--you might feel like crying when you think about that episode. Or if a beloved pet died, you will feel like crying when you think about it.

Remembering that and placing it in your memory bank can help you (if you're an actor) to get those tears rolling. But I think you also need to keep your emotions close to the surface on any given day and that's a lot harder. Actors in television shows or movies are surrounded by crew members and lights and theater actors are in an even more artificial environment.

Those actors need to start out by getting themselves into a quiet place emotionally, and if memories don't do the trick, they need to think about "what if" such and such a think really is happening--a breakup, death in the family, whatever, and go with it.

Easier said than done, I know, but I have found (late at night in the dark) I have been able to do it. I think it's harder to do in the middle of the backyard at noon, say, but I think I have managed that too, on the right sort of day.

I've heard that actors are like the rest of us, only more so, and I think that's what it means. Where do actors get their emotional abilities? I believe it's from early childhood and it's hard wired. Take a look at a child having a tantrum or crying, and you'll see how emotions really work. Everything is critical to a child, because kids rarely (if every) learn how to control their emotions until they are older.

The trick to being an adult actor, though, is to turn those emotions on and off. It can be called a talent or a gift--but it's also a craft, and one that can be learned (if you have the talent).

No idea why I woke up thinking about it--but I'm still admiring actors who cry on cue.

Crying girl photo: Max Charping