And I found it quite profitable, too.
Here’s what happened:
Last year, I had read a book by Brian Timoney about Method Acting (he’s one of the best in the world at teaching Method, having even helped gotten actors into Hollywood movies, etc). And I wanted to use some of his ways to help me get better at being more in “touch” with my list, market, and even my enemies… so I could better know them, serve them, or (in the latter’s case) exploit them.
So here is what I did:
* I created a fake character/persona who is, in many ways, the exact opposite of me
* In this case, the character was a Latina (partly based on Stefania’s mom, not in personality, but in speaking tics and accent)
* This character I created is also a commie who’s obsessed with POC (people of color)
* Everything with this chick is “POC this” and “POC that”
* Far as she is concerned there are not enough POCs in Hollywood, in the world, and it’s obvious she has nothing but contempt for white people
* To her everyone who is white is a fascist and a racist
* So to her, the cure of this is America needs more POC, and diversity, with even the most inanely created movie & TV characters who are POC celebrated, and with even the most celebrated movie directors & movies like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy being paragons of white supremacy, and chock-full of identity politics
* And so on, and so forth
Anyway, so what I did was this:
I went on a movie forum, as this character I created (not as Ben Settle, but as this character, with her own screen name, back story, etc), looked for the people on the site who are on Ben Settle’s “side” in politics, culture, and movie preferences, etc, and then… started picking fights with them.
Yes, I fought tooth & nail against my own ideological counterparts.
For instance:
I talked about how great Naru was in the latest Predator movie (Prey — which I hadn’t even seen, but in my mind I had) and how she was the greatest action movie star ever. Or how Sophia Nomvete (as the dwarf queen in Rings of Power — again, I had never even seen it, but in my head I had) was going to be the greatest actor in all the Lord of the Rings movies. And how She-Hulk was going to be the greatest TV show ever because it was finally featuring a POC (rationalizing that She-Hulk being green made her POC… I didn’t say any of this made sense).
And it was amusing at first.
But then something very startling happened:
I started to almost believe my own bull shyt!
I kid you not.
After doing this for just a few days I started spinning complete fantasies into facts that didn’t exist completely in service of this character I had created, because that is the only way a person like her could legitimately exist and not end up in the insane asylum.
Otherwise the cognitive dissonance would drive her insane.
Eventually, I was called out for just trolling and people caught on.
Specifically, when I said Warner Bros should recast Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck character in Joker 2 with a POC actor like Jaleel White (the character who played Erkel in Family Matters). I guess at that point it was so silly even the low IQ commies (most of the people on the site) knew I was full of it and just trolling them.
Which, interestingly enough, disappointed me.
Because I’d become quite fond of the character I played — despite her bat shyt opinions.
But here’s the thing to realize:
Stefania will tell you — she often sat next to me as I fooled around doing this in bed at night, on my laptop — I was having more fun being this fake character than being myself. I even started kinda talking like her, sympathizing with her ridiculous views and opinions and, in some ways… started becoming her.
Not in a “time to cut my balls off, and mainline estrogen” kind of way.
Although that probably would have scored me some sweet corporate endorsements.
But along the lines of Leonard Nimoy, when he talked about the years he played Spock in Star Trek. Five days a week he played that character, and the entire week he took on Spock’s personality at home, off set, including on weekends. And it wasn’t until Sunday night when he finally went back to being just Leonard, only to have to go back on set and do it all over again the next day.
He’d “become” that character, more than he was himself.
And that’s how it was with this short experiment I did with method acting.
Anyway, doing this was pure fun.
And it was also enormously useful for my email and infotainment skills.
The point?
The way I see it, if you want to be great — not just good — at entertainment, you have to literally become an entertainer.
And who better to learn from than great actors?
And, ideally, than doing what great actors do?
Learn and then apply to your emails for more sales, engagement, fun.
Next:
Ben Settle
