Tension and the Actor

Have you ever wondered why so many famous actors do such foolish things?

Get caught bopping some groupie, perhaps, or get caught in a car with a known prostitute, in flagrante delicto.

It's not just sexual. Actors say foolish things, do foolish things, marry foolish things... do every act that sane human beings don't seem to do.

So why do they?

Contrary to what some might say, I believe it's because actors seek conflict - tension.

The greater the tension on stage, the better the actor performs. At a point in the tension, the props disappear (in the case of film, the camera disappears), the set disappears... all that's left is the character, taut against the antagonist, which may even be the camera.

The actor lives for that moment of unification; art, science and inspiration in a fraction of a second.

In the absence of that tension, the actor seeks to re-create it, not always successfully.