2002-04-25 - 12:10 a.m.

tough in a good sort of way

Acting workshop was tough, but good. I've been trying all week to make myself emotional. To bring up strong emotions at a moment's notice. To get out of my head and, you know, fucking *feel* things for a while.

Remember the little monologue I did in the car Sunday night? I tried to use that to get myself

worked up, pissed off. I tried for like five minutes prior to the scene starting and I couldn't do it. I flinched. I backed off. I'd get to the brim, I'd start to feel it, to feel the physical effects of that kind of upset, that degree of anger. Then I'd get scared, and it would evaporate. There's this thing when I'm performing, like I have some secret mode my brain goes into that it tries to cut all that off. I can *pretend* the emotions, but when I'm in front of an audience, I don't seem to want to feel them.

So the scene was better than last week, but not great.

But then we're discussing and I tell ActingCoach what I was trying to do to prepare and how I flinched, and I just said "I was thinking about my relationship with my father, and bringing up some of the worst times", and suddenly there was this flood of emotion. I was a hairs-breadth from crying.

So he had us start the scene over.

And for maybe thirty seconds I was there. I was raw and available, and who the hell knows what

was going on with the character, but I was emoting like a motherfucker.

Then I lost it. I started trying to remember the next line, or think about what the character would do or who knows what, and I lost it again.

But it feels like a breakthrough. I proved to myself that I can do it. I just need to be able

to do it on demand.

Tough.

But good.