Where Did I Come From?

Where did I come from?

Your family lineage may not exactly resemble Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, and Gummo—The Marx Brothers—vaudeville stars in the early 1900s.

Your lineage may be more like Adam Driver, whose mother was a paralegal and step-father a Baptist Minister.

Or Grace Kelly whose family were athletes, while she was the scrawny outcast. When Kelly’s acting teacher announced that Grace would one day become an important movie star her family burst out laughing.

Marlon Brando’s father was a salesman, his mother an amateur actress and both parents were alcoholic and distant. As a boy, in an effort to capture his mother’s attention, young Marlon developed a talent for impersonating the farm animals and townspeople.

As an adult Brando transferred that deep need into his art—breaking boundaries and pushing the field of acting into a whole new dimension of emotional truth and depth.

Audiences were stunned.

The role you played in your family may not be your destiny.

It may be difficult to feel legit if your family is made up of doctors or lawyers.

Historically, the role of actor has been looked at as a misfit; provocative, perverse even. My own father thought of actors as “phonies.”

Family roles are shaped over time and at a point, you may need to break out. You may need to creatively express as a way to illuminate or communicate something unspoken, but felt. Perhaps you are a carrier of something repressed in the family lineage and your instinct is to free it… or even expose it.

You may feel like the odd one out, but you might actually be the hero that cuts an independent path. You may be a new branch on your family tree.

Responsibility is about who you are—not what you do.

Years ago I recall being at a crossroad at a difficult point in my life. I was bleating to my mother about how irresponsible I felt because what I wanted clashed against what I thought I should do...

My mother interrupted, “If you are responsible to yourself, you are responsible to others.”

Actors must be sensitive to the life around them to follow their calling. It can feel harsh as we pave the path of our lineage and pioneer new ground.

However, when we look into our family history, sometimes we find there was an actor back there—perhaps one that never had the opportunity to step fully out.

And we don’t want to miss our own boat.

What role do you play in your family? What is it you couldn’t express that now you know you must? Will you be the one to grow a new branch on the family tree?