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i'll get to the contempt in a second....
The admiration comes from a variety of sources, some because they aren't brave enough to perform in front of a theater full of people, others because they just don't have any talent, (sorry but true), but many others say the same thing;
"I could never memorize all those lines!"
I would like to clarify that memorizing lines is not the hardest thing about being an aspiring or working actor. There are many things that actors have to worry about;
Rent.
Food.
Medical Insurance.
The next job, or getting an acting job period.
Backup plan in case acting doesn't work out.
Parents bugging you to get a real job.
Talent-less camera whores stealing your job with their reality tv series (i'm looking at you Kardashian!)
Memorizing is easy! You know your phone number right? Your Social security number? Your address? The address of a few close friends? Thats what i can think of off the top of my head, and i've already listed a combination of about 20 numbers and a ton of words. I bet you can rattle them off without blinking.
We all have things memorized in common to;
"I pledge allegiance, to the flag..."
"We hold these truths to be self evident..."
"(insert multitude of bible verses here)"
I mean, we all know the ABC's right?
You see the trick of memorizing the lines and/or speeches, is not the memorizing at all! It's saying it during performance like you didn't memorize it at all!
I think creating a believable and organic performance/scene/play with your fellow actors is the hardest part of acting. So many young actors act in a void, saying the lines the same way, playing the scene the same way, marking their way through the entire show without sending or receiving energy from anyone in the cast. That kind of actor is very dangerous because he sucks all the energy out of the show, because every time he opens his mouth, he may as well be saying "i pledge allegiance to the flag..."
But when you get a roomful of actors really listening to each other feeling each other, taking each other in and responding naturally from their characters desires and motivations, you get a beautiful thing.
Oh, and the contempt? Thats easy. Actors always get a bad rap. Back in ancient Rome, if a Roman citizen caught an actor in bed with his wife, he could kill him where he stood (lay?) and no charges would be brought to him, because actors held less social privilege than slaves.
Even in Shakespeare's time, when theater was at a relative high point in respectability and popularity, an actor had to prove he was in the service of a lord or member of nobility... or be considered a vagrant (thats a fancy word for homeless), and he would be carted off to jail.
In todays modern era, while actors have slightly more rights than we used to have. We still still cock an eyebrow or two when we tell people we want to be on stage or camera for a living, as opposed to all the useful jobs out there we could be holding (those that haven't gone to India or China that is), that are actually useful to society.
We have reps as potheads, drunks, adulterers, druggies, and generally self obsessed artsy types who don't have a clue what the world may be like outside our little bubbles we make for ourselves.
And don't get me started about Uber-Religous types who insist were liars and deceivers for playing pretend all the time.
But i'm side-tracking myself.
Point is;
Memorizing is easy
Acting is hard
Any questions?
