The boy before the masked man

Great acting requires self-awareness, imagination, discipline, and courage. Furthermore, every person possessed these qualities in varying degrees during childhood. However, as life’s cycle progresses, we inherit and develop social masks to adhere to or rebel against the status quo, which places a state of dormancy or hyperfixation on many of the qualities mentioned above. Inheriting and developing social masks is a part of the human condition, but we are seldom afforded the time and energy to reckon with it in our everyday lives.

Dissecting this phenomenon as it pertains to my personal life has been, and is continually becoming, the cornerstone of my acting process. According to Sanford Meisner, “acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” How does an actor apply those seven words on the stage and screen? What is truth? What are the criteria to verify this definition of acting? And what does any of this have to do with our cycles of life? The Boy Before the Masked Man examines these questions and explains my acting process.