I When I was a child, such outbursts would have seemed unthinkable. Indeed, if Harold Wilson or Ted Heath had given way to any such lachrymosity it would have been enough to provoke a debate as to their suitability for high office. But times have changed, and now not only politicians but also hardened sportsmen such asJohn Terry and Andy Murray are happy to let the tears flow in public. And no wonder, for in an age when so much is regarded as crafted and contrived, weeping is one of the hardest emotions to summon on cue for the purposes of artifice, and thus the most trusted.
But tears are also fickle creatures. I found myself unable to cry at my own mother’s funeral, yet in more recent times have found myself weeping copiously at memorials for relatives or work colleagues whom in many cases I barely knew. Context is everything.
Like laughing or blushing, crying is therefore a difficult process to summon at will. In my experience, female actors tend to be more adept at summoning tears to order than men (as, perhaps, in real life); yet it all depends on the individual.
I recall once filming an emotional scene in an ITV drama opposite Martine McCutcheon, who seemed when I arrived on set to be in convivial mood, joking with the camera crew and making frequent high-spirited calls on her mobile in between takes. Yet the moment the cameras rolled her eyes filled with huge limpid tears, which curled down her face without ceasing until the director yelled “cut”. I was shocked and bewitched by her artistry – but it was a supremely convincing and affecting interlude.
When the tears fail to appear to order, there are inevitably ways and means of kick-starting the process. Instant Tears eyedrops is a product carried by all reputable makeup artists, while in extremis a quick rub of your eyes with hands fresh from handling a chopped onion will get you through. At the very worst you can bury your head in your hands, thus obfuscating from view your biological shortcomings.
But, in my experience, most people when overwhelmed by tears are expending their energy in trying to stay in control – and, as with Obama, witnessing this inner struggle can often be the most moving element.
remember the moment as if it were yesterday. In 1982 I’d returned to my home town of Brighton one Sunday from Bristol, where I’d been appearing in a play, to visit my ailing father, who’d suffered a stroke and was convalescing in hospital. He’d been expected to make a partial recovery, yet at the end of my visit a senior nurse had taken me aside and informed me softly that he had only days to live. “It’s time to prepare yourself and your family,” she’d concluded.
I’d driven down to the beach, the only place I could be alone while I marshalled my tumultuous emotions. After several minutes of staring numbly out to sea, I’d erupted without warning into a series of keening sobs that seemed to well up from some hidden place deep within me. Yet at the moment when my weeping was at its most convulsive, I heard a tiny part of my actor’s brain whispering to me, “Remember this – this is what it’s like. This is what to aim for if ever you have to replicate it in a role.” It was a chilling realisation, that even in the midst of my heartbreak, my professional self was already cannibalising the mechanics of my grief for artistic and financial gain.
I was reminded of this event upon witnessing the tears of President Obama on Tuesday night as he contemplated his failure – so far – to amend gun control laws in the US. Make no mistake – his tears were genuine, anyone could see that, hot and wet, born not only of sadness but of burning frustration at his political impotence. And to see them creep up on him when he was least expecting it, reminded me of just how potent such moments can be.(Michael Simkins)
Link: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/06/obama-tears-actor-inner-struggle-real-emotion
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