Clooney It!

I've been doing improvisation since the early 1980's and if there is one thing I've noticed in workshops and performances (with probably at this point, hundreds of people) is that most improv actors have a hard time with over-talking.   There are actually two types of over-talking - one type is actually talking over another person so you have two or more people speaking at the same time.  The second one is simply talking too much.   Actors and particularly improv actors really hate the sound of silence.   I can see if you are doing a play and there is silence for more than a few seconds because then everyone thinks you've forgotten your line.  But in improvisation there are not scripts so silence can be organic to the scene and a way to draw the audience in.  In my experience when you try to pause for comic or dramatic effect, it gets treated like a cardinal sin by your fellow actor, like you are bringing the scene to a screeching halt.   The result is that your scene partner tries to over compensate - the scene becomes very frenetic, unfocused and hard to follow.   Over-talking is a note I've given a lot over the years to the members of the OTC Comedy Troupe.   So a few weeks ago, I decided to develop an exercise where we would "Clooney it" or communicate without really talking too much in the scene to see what happens.   This exercise was named after the master of the pause - George Clooney.   I love George Clooney for a number of reasons (okay ladies, I know we all have our own ideas about why we love him, but stay with me and stop thinking like that with the kids around!).  I love that he's not afraid to let his characters think before they act or reflect afterwards.   It's a cinematic way of acting that can actually benefit stage actors  and non-performers if they just give it a try. 

The Clooney Method (I've coined this term without his permission but he's welcome to call me anytime to discuss it) in my mind centers around a basic concept of film acting which is to "just think it."   I've seen him use it since his earliest days on ER which allows the audience to see how you feel without having to tell them how you feel.   It's a smart way to act but it's not an easy way to perform.   It's nerve wracking to experiment with silence in a live performance.  What if the audience thinks you are boring or you just forgot what you are going to say?   However, if you do it with intention, it's a very intriguing choice.  The thing I like most about pausing is the feedback you get from the audience.  They tell you how much liked it because they could interject their own interpretation into what was going on during the scene rather than having it spoon fed to them.   That's what makes George Clooney such a great actor - he respects his audience and their ability to get what he's doing.   He doesn't have to do it all for them.   The ending of Michael Clayton is a perfect example of this.   After exposing Tilda Swinton's character for the evil lying bitch she is - the last three minutes of the movie have just a couple of lines and a reaction close up in a taxi of Clooney contemplating what he's just done and what he's been through as the ending credits role.  It's a ballsy shot because it gives the audience a chance to think with the character in real time about what's just happened.   It's just one example from a whole range of movies in which his characters take their time to react to things. 

In Fantastic Mr. Fox, Clooney is the voice for a fast talking red fox who tries to stop stealing from three farmers that he's been victimizing for years so he can raise a family.  But despite his wife's pleas, he goes back to trying to get that one last big score.  Think Ocean's 11 but with cute little possums, badgers and foxes.   What makes this stop action animation movie so good is that the characters are not jumping around or singing but will pause to look at each other and blink before they say anything.   It's those moments of silence that are pure comedy gold.   He's perfected it in other movies like The Descendants, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Up in the Air and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (which was his directing debut.)   The "Pause" is something I've tried to incorporate more into my own acting and improv workshops.   It gives the actor a higher status and the audience a chance to reflect on what has just happened.

 In the Clooney improv exercise, I ask my actors to start the scene doing an activity and to not talk to each other right away.  I explain that 90% of human communication is non-verbal in real life and we need to explore how a character is at just being rather than forcing a scene to be funny.    So the actors will be doing something like packing and really exploring their surroundings and their physicality.   They need to show a physical reaction to each other without words.   At first it was hard for some of the actors to do - they could go maybe 20 to 30 seconds without speaking.   But as we did the exercise more and made people wait longer and longer to talk, something really interesting happened.   The pausing made the scenes really funny.  What wasn't said and implied physically was more comical then any one-liner we could think up.   The scenes had a new maturity to them and taking our time to respond just made the lines that were said with a straight face hilarious.    The players watching noticed that the scenes were actually easier to follow since there was not all the usual over-talking to distract from the scene - having the option to "Clooney it" gives the actors a wider range of techniques to pull from during the course of a show. 

In the show The Office, Steve Carrell, John Krasinski and the rest of the talented cast use the Pause on a regular basis.  In fact, most of the time, John Krasinski's character Jim gets the non-verbal reaction shot which is always priceless.   This sitcom mockumentary on life in a fictional paper company captures some extraordinarily moments between the characters which are unsaid.   Pam and Jim's early relationship and missed chances at love stem largely from their inability to actually speak to each other about how they really feel and those almost moments are the ones that are the most poignant.   I think any actor who wants to learn how to act for the camera needs to watch as many episodes of The Office as possible.   If you actually work in an office, you'll see a wide range of office dynamics and business prototypes that makes the show feel so authentic and the little silences feel real.

Now for those of you who are not actors might be wondering how the gift of the Pause might work for you.   How can learning to "Clooney it" make your life better?   I've applied it strategically in my own life and believe me using silence in a conversation can definitely give you the upper hand, especially in business.   My day job is as a fundraiser and I've been doing it for over 20 years.  At my last job, we had a consulting group come on who definitely had the market on condescension and arrogance.    Each week we needed to meet one-on-one with a consultant who would belittle us because their overpriced consulting was not getting the results they were hoping for.   I used to hate those meetings especially with one of the consultants who was about 15 years younger then me with far less fundraising experience.  She was also the daughter of the woman who owned the firm.   She was toxic and difficult to talk to because she would belittle everything you said - I suppose to deflect her own inexperience. It was demotivating for everyone.   However, she had the power to report to the powers that be that the staff was being uncooperative and that's why the their "methods" were not working.   So after doing an improv workshop where we did a status exercise in which you had one character not speak while another was allowed to speak as much as they wanted - I learned that when you don't talk very much you yield much more power.  I decided to try this theory the next day with the young consultant.   She would ask what I had done that week, I would tell her and she would begin to tear me down.   Rather than becoming defensive as I usually did, I looked her in the eye and didn't say anything.   She would ask me if I understood what she had said and I simply replied "Yes" and maintained eye contact.   The silence was very uncomfortable for her.    She would start to talk, repeating herself extensively and using circular logic.   I would simply reply "That's an interesting point," maintain eye contact and say nothing else.   She would talk more and more stopping only to ask me if I understood which I answered "Yes," still maintaining eye contact.   After an hour of her doing all the talking, I left the meeting knowing that she was exhausted.  I was elated.   It had worked in real life and my nemesis didn't know what had hit her.   Interestingly enough, she requested to meet with me less than the other people in the office.   When we did meet, I looked forward to it  - happy to play that little mind game and wear her out so she went easy on my fellow staff members. 

But silence does not have to be used to manipulate people.   It's also great listening tool.   When I've met with a potential donor and asked them what projects excite them and what they have a passion for - I sit back and listen.   I get great information because it's them and not me doing the talking.  When you are not worried about what you have to say - you flat out become better at understanding where the other person is coming from and it can help meet their needs.   The actor Larry Hagman of I Dream of Jennie and Dallas fame has been taking a "talking fast" one day a week for over 30 years and will not speak for 24 hours.   According to him, it is enormously freeing to not have the pressure to speak and you connect to people on a deeper level.   

So if you're tired of feeling like you talk too much and that gets you into trouble, try to "Clooney it."  Give pausing or hell just not talking for a while a try and see what happens.   It can help your acting, your business and can help you listen better to those that are nearest and dearest.  There is an old adverb, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."  So try not talking.  It can help you think clearer and rather then being pushed into reactive-defensive traps that keep you from being able to go to the next level.    Take a cue from George Clooney- a silver fox who is not afraid to use silence to get his point across.  

Happy Place

Maybe you, like me, might have had one of those days, weeks or months when getting your sorry ass out of bed was a huge effort.   You turn on the TV and there's Matt Lauer unloading more depressing news on the economy and how we might be headed for another double dip recession.   The employment figures are dismal which means now might not be the best time to reinvent yourself and switch careers by starting that improv program for at-risk kids you've always dreamed of doing  (Insert your own dream here).   You get into your car and put on NPR which has an interview with an economist who tells you that the world markets are not rebounding as they should and things may never be the same economically in your lifetime.   Your heart starts to beat faster, so fast that you can see the steady thumping through your shirt.   Your breathing becomes shallow, you're sweating profusely and starting to get light headed.   You realize that you might be headed straight into a full blown anxiety attack and might pass out at the wheel on your way to work.   

You pull over into the nearest parking lot, try to catch your breath and try to calm down.   You turn the radio to a pop station just to listen to something different.  Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" blares out of the speakers and suddenly you picture those Glee kids singing their hearts out oblivious to Sue Sylvester lurking in the background.   Your heart starts to slow down and you take a shaky swig from your bottled water.  After a minute or two, you can finally catch your breath.   Rather weakly and barely on key, you join Steve Perry at the refrain: "Don't stop believing - hold on to that feeling - streetlights, people - oooooooohhhhhh!"  A sort of calm takes hold of your body as you continue to try to out sing Journey's front man.   Then it occurs to you - that you need to stop listening to depressing news shows and start listening to Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars instead.   Because while National Public Radio definitely has the lock on probing interviews - you discover that what you really need is a good dose of the Lazy Song during the morning rush hour.    Singing badly at the top of your lungs in your car is just one juicy slice of awesome to get you through your day.  

Finding your happy place can be a challenge in this day and age.  We seem to be so programed for negativity and gloom and doom that being joyful can seem like a guilty pleasure - especially when the internet is primed to really bring you down.  For every laughing baby on YouTube, there's at least 10 rants from the Real Housewives or a new outbreak of violence or disease in a developing country.  I was talking to a group of women when the resident Debbie Downer proceeded to read a series of depressing statistics that she was getting from her Twitter feed.  When I suggested that she might be happier if she was following Conan O'Brien or Jimmy Fallon and watching a sitcom to break the tension - she looked at me seriously and said "Never!"   Why kill that sense of constant righteous indignation with something fun and mindless? 

Here's the problem constant negativity - habitual thoughts and behaviors create specific neural pathways in the wiring in our brains, similar to the way water flowing downhill creates a groove in the earth. When we think or behave a certain way over and over, the neural pathway is strengthened and the groove becomes deeper. Unhappy people tend to have more negative neural pathways -- their minds are literally stuck in a rut.   But here's the good news: new research shows that when you repeatedly think, feel, and act in a different way, the brain actually rewires itself. This means you can change your happiness set point.   Leading brain researcher Richard Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported recently that, "Based on what we know about the plasticity of the brain, we can think of happiness as a skill no different from learning to play a musical instrument...it is possible to train our minds to be happy." 

For me, finding those little moments of happiness in my day can do more for me than a double dose of St. John's Wort ever could.  For instance, on Saturdays, I go to Zumba and then spend the rest of the day in my yoga pants because frankly it's the weekend - I'm just too lazy to wear real pants.   Going to Target with my kids and getting a decaf low fat Salted Caramel latte with a little whipped cream is a sure ticket to my happy place - it just makes me smile.  Taking the kids to the park and jumping around like an idiot is very therapeutic.  Sitting on the carpet and watching movies with the Amber and Daniel is another way I like to spend some fun time on the weekends.  Cuddling with my husband or exchanging really inappropriate "That's what she said" jokes is a simple way to laugh together.  

Many people expect too much from the pursuit of happiness and make themselves miserable along the way.  They think that by finding that perfect spouse will end their days of loneliness, or getting that big promotion will guarantee financial independence, or finally going to Hawaii on the perfect vacation will give them the Nirvana that they've been searching for.  In the end, they end up disappointed because, no person, place or thing will ever give them that sense of satisfaction if they don't know how to find it for themselves.   

In the movie, It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey spends his life regretting never leaving Bedford Falls and feeling like a failure when his business is about go under on Christmas Eve of all days.   He's sacrificed so much to help others and in the end he is emotionally and financially exhausted (as someone whose spent my entire adult life working with charities, I can relate).  He is so tied into finding his destiny once he can leave his hometown that he cannot see all the blessings that have been bestowed on him.  It takes an angel named Clarence to show him what the world would be like if he was not around.   He realizes that it's his wife, family and even that drafty old house that makes him happy not that elusive dream of building bridges overseas.   

You have to find those moments of happiness each day - because if you don't find them for yourself - frankly no one else will.  It's so easy to play a crappy mood forward or to pass on a lousy day at work to those who are near and dear.   One way to beat that is to make some else's day by complimenting a co-worker or the women next to you in the supermarket checkout on her hair or shoes (this is a safe choice even if you're a guy and worried that she might think you're flirting with her - complimenting hair and shoes is not something most straight men do).   When you see how happy a compliment from a random stranger makes someone,  you end up feeling great too.    Those small acts of kindness make your world a better place and can really be a tipping point in someone else's day.   

This parable form the book 5 Habits of Truly Happy People by Marci Shimoff and Carol Kline really brings the importance of happiness into focus: One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people's heads. He said, "My son, the battle is between the two 'wolves' that live inside us all. One is unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self-pity, resentment, and inferiority. The other is happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth, and compassion.  "The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"  The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."  

So do yourself a favor and find at least 30 minutes a day to laugh and spend time with someone you care about - even if it's a pet.  Tell the people that you love simply that you love them.    Watch an episode of The Office after a bad day at work - it will help put things in perspective (because let's face it - we've all worked for a Michael Scott at one time or another).   Happiness can take time to create - but it's totally worth it.  Just close your eyes, take a deep breath and don't stop believing.  

Sense of Direction

"Mom, we've been walking around for two hours - where is the car?" asked Daniel, my 10 year old who was red faced and tired of downtown Atlanta.  "It hasn't been two hours, it's been closer to 45 minutes and I'm pretty sure it's this way."  I replied as we walked down another side street in search of our Honda Civic.  A hot June day was not the best time of year to lose your car with two kids in tow.   So many of the streets in the City Too Busy to Hate look alike and many of the ticketed parking areas are run by the same company and are identical to each other.   "Daniel, be nice, she's doing the best she can," my daughter Amber offered in my defense but the way she said it seemed like a left handed compliment.  

We had started the day down at downtown Atlanta from the highest point - the Westin Hotel - which has a restaurant on the 73rd floor that rotates so you can see for 10 to 20 miles from the top.   We saw people the size of fire ants playing in the fountains of Centennial Park.  We could see Stone Mountain which was about 20 miles away and Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves.  Everything was a picture perfect Atlanta day until it was time to go home.   At the fifty minute mark of the auto quest and after several prayers to Saint Anthony (the patron saint of lost things)  - we finally saw our blue car with the telltale dent in the driver's side.  The sense of relief was amazing.  Once I was in the car and turned on the AC - I drove out of Atlanta finally sure of where I was going. 

I've always been directionally challenged.    At age three I wondered away from a White House tour with my parents and four other brothers and sisters.   According to my mother, I somehow slipped out of the line and started to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.    Apparently the head of the U.S. Archive happened to be looking out his window and saw a toe headed toddler in a paisley jumper sprinting down the street holding my own hand (you always needed to hold a hand crossing streets even if the only hand to hold is yours).  He saw that I was headed away from the White House (apparently other small children had also tried to make a break for it) and sent his assistant down to get me and take me back.   I remember this very tall man with jet black hair on the sides of his head, bald on top and a thin black tie leaning over and saying "May I help you little girl?"   He picked me up and took me back to the White House lobby to my worried but relieved parents and a few Secret Service Agents.

Another time, at age four I wondered away from our camp at Yellowstone Park around dusk.   My parents looked frantically all over the trailer park where we were staying until they found me a few trailers over where I was sitting down with a retired couple eating cookies.  After all if you're going to get lost - be found by someone with a good stash of snacks.   It was not the negative reinforcement that my parents might have hoped for.   Eventually, they started to use one of those harnesses so that at least I was just an arm's length away.  Some people might have called it a kiddy leash, but for my parents, it was a tether to some peace of mind.   

I've often tried to figure out why my sense of direction is so bad.  I've relied on internet services like MapQuest only to be led astray and had to figure out how to get back home myself.   At those times when I simply cannot find my destination, I try to comfort myself in saying that I've discovered the road not taken.  That can be of little comfort when your meeting starts in 10 minutes and you should be 5 minutes away but still have no idea where you are.   When I'm lost, I feel like that scared little three year old walking alone in Washington, D.C.  However as an adult, I have developed the additional skill of being able to weave a tapestry of obscenity as I turn down another fruitless road.   

I've even tried using mobile navigators with mixed results.   I loved that episode of The Office when Michael Scott was trying to prove that man was better than machines and when his GPS told him that the road existed where it was obvious that a lake was, he drove into the water just to prove the machines were wrong.    Sometimes you can't rely on a GPS to get you where you need to go and you just flat out have to figure it out yourself.   Giving up is not an option - you have to find your way home and back to where you need to be.   

What I have found is that by going down the road not taken (mostly by accident) you find another way to get to your destination.   You see things off the beaten path - unique homes, landscapes, lakes, small towns and farms with cows and horses.  You ask strangers for directions and while some are irritated, most have empathy and are happy to point you to the right path home.    In college, I had a group of older men in a not so great neighborhood console me and give me a cup of coffee because I think they would want someone to do the same thing for their daughters.  

I think in being lost, you have a chance to figure out who you are, both the good and the bad.   The bad parts can seem like you never seem to get where you need to go either in this excursion or in life.  Every bad thing that you believe about yourself seems to crystalize in those moments of misguided isolation.  The good part at the end of the road is that you conquer the fear, loneliness, and despair to find your way back from God knows where.   In life, you'll remember to avoid those roads that take you to the wrong places both spiritually and emotionally  

I've never seen the world as a straight and narrow path but with all sorts of trails that can take you to some interesting places.   At the point of utter frustration when I've been driving around aimlessly for an hour or so, I try to calm myself by saying that I'm in a safe place, my guardian angels are with me and how much I'll really appreciate seeing my home once I get there.    I'll give Max a huge kiss and hear my children ask yet again, "Mom what took you so long - did you get lost again?"  I'll smile and say yes and tell them about the pony I saw on this back road that you wouldn't expect to see so close to Atlanta.   When you open up to those possibilities there are times when  you get to see a sunset over a neighborhood lake that looks like a golden pond with touches of pink - and those moments take your breath away.  It's something that you never would have caught on I-85 at the height of rush hour.  

Our excursion to the Westin inspired Daniel to write an essay for one of his first assignments in the 5th grade.   His teacher showed the paper to me at our last conference.    He concluded his paper with this:   "I learned three things that day - my Mom has a terrible sense of direction, the skyline of Atlanta from the Westin is awesome and when my Mom is lost, she has a very dirty mouth."