Myth #1: "It's all in the eyes.": Meet Your Eyebrows...

Continuing on the myth that it’s all in the eyes, I would like to introduce the eyebrows into the conversation. So often I hear people in the industry tell actors that if they want a successful on-camera career they better learn how to keep their eyebrows from moving.

Apparently, no one told these actors:

Shemar Moore

Thomas Gibson

Joe Mantegna

Ice T & B. D. Wong

James Todd Smith, a.k.a. LL Cool J

Donnie Wahlberg

Mariska Hargitay & Christopher Meloni

USAGE AND MEANING OF THE BROWS:

Eliminating the brow from your acting is like taking taking notes out of a musical scale. Yes you can still come up with a melody but you will be limited.

We use the eyebrows to communicate so much. They get drawn in and down when we are determined, concentrated, focused, confused or perplexed. They lift up and arch when we are surprised, questioning or doubting someone or something. The inner corners of the brow lift when we are feeling sad, helpless or longing for something. They lift up slightly and pull together when we are worried, concerned or apprehensive about something. We also use them when we are beginning to get angry or frightened. We even use them to say hello with.

Without saying a word, the brows by themselves, can communicate all of this. Why would you want to eliminate one of your greatest tools for non-verbal communication?

If you see yourself working as a detective on one of the crime dramas you may want to rethink how you use your brows.

Here's something fun - watch Michael Caine's "Art of not blinking..."

Although I think this is an interesting take on whether to blink or not blink as an acting technique, excessive blinking is often a way the body expresses some form of stress. For an actor, the stress can be coming from what they are emotionally creating (as a character) or unable to create (personally). Closing your eyes, or blinking, repeatedly can also be like a mini escape from what is happening. When we lie, we tend to blink more than when we are focused and committed. As an acting coach I see this a lot. When an actor loses focus, the blinking intensifies.

Myth #1: "It's all in the eyes.": Oh, reeeaaally?

Not that much happens in the eyes, with regard to emotion: "The iris is a muscle that expands and contracts to control pupil size. The pupil enlarges in dimmer lighting and grows smaller in brighter lighting. The pupil also shrinks when you focus on near objects, such as a book you are reading. When the pupil size changes, the pigments in the iris compress or spread apart, changing the eye color a bit.

Certain emotions can change both the pupil size and the iris color. That's why some people say their eyes change colors when they're angry or loving."

(Excerpt from here: http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/eye-color.htm)

Myth #1: "It's all in the eyes.": You Can’t Push An Emotion Through your Eyeballs

The eyes are the windows to the soul. We've all heard it. I heard a photographer pleading for the actor to bring it to their eyes. I also heard of acting teachers trying in vain to get an actor to create an emotion and push it through their eyes. I heard a casting director tell me that all good acting is in the eyes. 

The reality is you can’t push an emotion through your eyes.

Let’s think logically about it for a moment. Do your eyes ever feel sad? Have they ever gotten angry? Have they ever woken you up in the middle of the night saying "damn, I’m mad?" The answer is no. When it comes to the eyes, the pupils can  dilate or contract. Your eyes can move left to right, up and down, around in circles. They may get wet or dry, but that could also be allergies.

If you are resisting an emotion tension may build up pressure behind the eyes, causing them to bulge a little, but it’s pressure you feel, not emotion. 

Both the moist and the bulging eyes make it seem as though something is going on with you to the viewer, but it’s more of the resistance or managing of an emotion rather than the reveal of one. So the question is, if it’s not all in the eyes, where is it? 

The answer is, it’s in different parts of the face. Although we may focus on someone’s eyes, we are taking in more information than we realize.  Our peripheral vision picks up the slight opening and dropping of the mouth or the eyebrow being drawn together. We are actually reading different parts of the face, including the eyelids while looking at the eyes and then determining what that person is feeling. Moving one muscle on your face in one of the emotional families changes the whole look of your face, making it look like it's all in the eyes.

You can't force an emotion through your eyes. That is why it can be so devastating to the actor's acting process because everyone is telling them to "Bring it to the eyes; bring it to the eyes." In frustration you try to push out the emotion, but you never quite achieve the result you want.

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Sound familiar?