all the worldwide web is a stage The Official Website of Richard Reilly

The Official Website of Richard Reilly

Acting Naturally

Richard's Writings > Acting Naturally > Being in the Public Eye

Synopsis of Being in the Public Eye

You can't be shy and be on the stage. Or perhaps better said, you can be shy, and the stage may be a perfect vehicle for shy people to legitimately expose themselves to the world at large - but you have to be prepared to 'let it all hang out' in public, and be okay with that. I explore this idea over a number of pages. Below is a sample...

Excerpt from Being in the Public Eye

I began to wonder about wrinkles, and thinning hair, and skin tone, and teeth color, and all the bits and pieces that start to go on a body as you pass through middle age. We all face it, but company does not make the "misery" any easier to love. I began to think about those celebrities who have grown old gracefully, who have not lost their looks with their years, like Paul Newman, Cary Grant and Gregory Peck. Sure, they had a good foundation to build from, but they must have taken care of themselves along the way. It is time I do so, too.

I think of Charlton Heston in Ben Hur, and Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, and they would absolutely NOT have won those roles if they did not look good in a loincloth. They were my age when they made these films, but they were fit and trim. Yul Brenner could continue to play the King in The King and I into his sixties, so long as he maintained a firm chest and torso. It was not a question of age, but of physical fitness, that enabled him to continue in the role.

This is an important fact for me to ponder. Age will indeed limit some of the roles I can play. I can never play Riff in West Side Story, because I am no longer a teenager; I can never play Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, because I am no longer a vibrant young man...

 

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