“As an actor, your performance is always a reflection of how you feel about things. Not just what’s on the page but whatever you are feeling in the moment — your issues, as we might call them today. And you don’t always know what you feel until you’re in the scene and delivering the lines. But what you’re doing is always an expression of yourself.”
— Al Pacino,
Sonny Boy
The older I get, the more I think about that part in Kung Fu Panda where Po becomes dejected after finding out that the highly-coveted Dragon Scroll is blank. He finds no special inscriptions for esoteric powers. Just a piece of glossy paper, in which the viewer could see their own reflection.
Po starts to question his entire kung fu journey thus far. Maybe he really is just a nobody. Maybe his late leader, Master Oogway, wasn’t so wise after all, and was probably just tripping balls when he made the Dragon Scroll. Most of all, he gives up the hope of saving his village from the danger that looms ahead.
Po comes home, and that is when his adoptive father, who owns a noodle business, reveals to him the long-held secret ingredient to his famous noodles — which is, also, nothing.
This seemingly unrelated revelation makes Po realize that there is no secret ingredient in kung fu either. If there were any, it’s the belief in yourself and the value that you can bring through your own experiences and learnings. With this newfound inspiration, Po rushes to save his village.
I’m sharing this story, because Kung Fu Panda is the shit. Also, because the same concept applies to art.
Doing creative work would be so much easier if there were guidelines or step-by-step procedures to replicate the great successes that have come before.
But there is no secret ingredient to creating art. No formula. No blueprint. What works for another person might not work for you. Ultimately, you’re on your own.
That’s what makes art an art, and not a science.
Only you can figure out what you have to say in your art, because no one else has lived your life, except you. And it’s on you to figure out how to go about saying what you have to say, in a way that applies only to your art.
Al Pacino, one of the greatest actors of all time, attempts to share his advice for aspiring actors in his memoir Sonny Boy. But of course, he has nothing much to say.
“I don’t know what I can say to any actor that would be of service,” he writes. “Because like a lot of things in life, it’s so personal. If I had to, I would suggest you just do it over and over again till it gets inside you somehow. Hopefully it does, but to be as honest as I can be, most of the time, it won’t.”
“In the end,” he continues, “I can relate to the inscription on ol’ Charles Bukowski’s gravestone: Don’t try. I really think I know what he means.”
I probably wouldn’t say don’t try. Just don’t try too hard. It’s not about imitating others or painting by numbers. It’s about putting as much of yourself into your art, in the best ways possible.
Izzat Zailan 