The Feeling

“And he said, ‘Because life’s on the wire. The rest is just waiting.’ I understood immediately why Charlie [Laughton] was telling me this story. It stuck with me for a long time. Life’s on the wire, man. That’s my acting, my life. When I work, I’m on the wire. When I’m going for it. When I’m taking chances. I want to take chances. I want to fly and fail. I want to bang into something when I do it, because it’s how I know I’m alive. It’s what’s kept me alive.” -Al Pacino, Sonny Boy: A Memoir

Al Pacino’s memoir, Sonny Boy is a must read for any actor or artist. There are so many good passages that I’ve practically highlighted the entire book!

One that especially resonated is Pacino describing the feeling he experienced on stage which compelled him to want to act forever…

And then, one night, onstage, just like that, it happened. The power of expression was revealed to me, in a way it never had before. I wasn’t even searching for it. That’s the beauty of these things. You’re not looking for it. I’m opening my mouth and I’m understanding somehow that I can speak. Words are coming out, and they’re the words of Strindberg, but I’m saying them as though they’re mine. The world is mine, and my feelings are mine, and they’re going beyond the South Bronx. I left the familiar. I became a part of something larger. I found that there was more to me, a feeling that I belonged to a whole world and not just to one place. I’m thinking to myself, What is this? It feels as though I’m lifting off the ground. I thought, Yes, this is it. It’s right there and I can reach out and touch it. This is out there, and this is what I know now is possible. All of a sudden, in that moment, I was universal.

I knew I didn’t have a worry after that. I eat, I don’t eat. I make money, I don’t make money. I’m famous, I’m not famous. It didn’t mean anything anymore. And that’s lucky, in this business, when you don’t care about that. A door was opening, not to a career, not to success or fortune, but to the living spirit of energy. I had been given this insight into myself, and there was nothing else I could do but say: I want to do this forever.

Can you relate to this feeling?

And when’s the last time you’ve felt it?

If it’s been a while and you long for it again, then there is a solution. Find a play or piece of material that lights you up inside, and by any means necessary, go make it.

Not only can you have the feeling again, but also your fellow artists, as well as the audience who are lucky enough to experience the feeling in action.