With over 30 years of acting experience, it was my work in motion capture for the game Heavy Rain that first ignited a lifelong mission to develop techniques that allow me to transform into any character, making me unrecognizable even to myself. I felt like I got into a state of flow towards the end of a theatrical run in spite of my method, not because of it. It was even more difficult in TV and film.

Like many actors, I was frustrated with the gap between motivation and action, methods that kept me in my head, and created a block between “Being” and “doing”. It was clear that the established methods I had learned remained unchanged in spite of fifty years of Behavioral Psychology.

Now, more than ever actors and creators must be able to differentiate their work from AI synthesis. Average performances and average experiences that are predictable and a recycling of previous work will no longer have any currency. AI is already able to perform “good enough” for most consumers in short scenes, paragraphs, standalone images - it won’t be long until 70% of all film is generated by AI, a greater percentage of verticals, soap operas, procedurals all generated by AI.

My teaching, writing and production has become my refusal to be satisfied by average, and instead pursue creating experiences and performances that are live and embodied - performances that raise the hairs on your arms and the back of your neck, provoke unbidden tears, and leave an audience with a unique memory of a collective intent - to experience being human, together, complicated and ridiculous, conflicted and convicted, mortal and beautiful.

Live is the last scarce resource. Let’s be surprising. Let’s play - in the now, and the now and the now.