13. Charles WrightExpress Yourself
That’s a record that I would hear over and over again, and then I just had to get my own 45′. I paid close attention anytime it was on. I would start dancing and imagining my future life in acting, probably, as I remember. It would just thrill me with this unique ecstasy. That was when I was a kid and just sort of deciding to be an actor. The lyrics to that and this spontaneous, sort of improvisational feeling that he has to his performance on a hit record like that is absolutely amazing. I’m crazy about that record, and it says a lot in the lyrics about what I was feverish and passionate about: what might be possible in the world, acting, and self-expression.
You grew up playing piano which is one of the few instruments that requires you to split your brain in a sense. Each hand has to work independently and the feet as well. Did having that ability to think through multiple different processes at once align with the multiple disciplines that acting needs?
Oh, that’s so interesting. I think as is in the conversation these days culturally that music training and arts training for kids is always useful. And like you say, piano for instance, with its coordination and positive challenges, according to the neuroscientists and also in my experience, open up all sorts of other co-ordination and possibilities in your creative life and in your brain development. As I approached acting and tried to really investigate and seriously study the craft of acting, I think it was terrifically helped by that multi multidimensional experience.
