Jocelyn Jones, Acting Teacher/Author: There is something you can do that is better than
anyone else and your job is to find it.
Film Courage: If you can have anything in the world, barring all obstacles, what would this be?
Jocelyn: I love that you started with that question.
For me right now I would like the book [ARTIST: Awakening the Spirit Within] to help. I would
like this book that I’ve written to help, that's why I wrote it. I would like it to help people
find their own point of view, their own artistry, what it is they want to do in the world. I think
we're lost, I think we're experiencing some very, very difficult times and I think it's very loud,
it's very loud right now, we're being bombarded. Even though we're in our homes because of the
pandemic, we are still being bombarded with media and internet and social media and we're lost as to
what to do with our time. Education is a little sad right now. They've taken arts out of school.
This is a very dangerous thing, this is not just a light thing to take arts out of school,
this is not just an oh we don't have enough money. So there's no art, so you do those outside of the
school. Art is the most important thing because it teaches imagination. Art is about imagination and
without imagination we have no future. This is why the artists have always been the ones to lead us
into better waters or the future or the evolution of mankind or a higher way or a higher calling,
it's always been the artists. If you take arts out of school you're not supporting artists,
you're not supporting the people who are going to teach us how, how to live. My thing is okay
well let's find the artist in everyone then. If we're not going to just bring out the
Michelangelo's forget them maybe it's not the time right now we don't have any Michelangelo’s,
we don't have any Beatles we don't have anything in music, literature. I don't see this new wave
of art arriving. Let's bring it out in everyone. I was in the 70s’ we had the painting evolution.
It was incredible with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg and we had gone from
from one kind of painting to another and I was raised with these guys at the dining room table
and I would study them and they they just had their own way of looking at things the idea was to
see but to see in your own way to see with your own eyes to find something for yourself
so in the book I like to talk about negative space because we don't think about looking at
negative space but that's a great example when you look at a tree we're educated to look at a tree
in the same way there's the branch there are the leaves there's the trunk artists look at the tree
they look at the negative space they look at the space between the leaves they look at the space
between the branches you can even do an exercise where you paint that spate you just do the space
and then the picture arrives so these are things that stimulate the imagination this
is why when we have art in school we stimulate the imagination this is very important otherwise
we follow anything we buy anything right now we're just oh I think I should look like Kim Kardashian
I need to look like this one like oh I need to buy these things because that's very very hip
I need to buy the right sneakers I mean people are spending 300 sneakers probably more I don't know
but it's absurd really why is that one of the central questions in your life
this if you could have anything okay well my father asked me that question
actually I think the first time he asked it of me I was a very naughty teenager I was a very
angry teenager I’ll probably get into that at another time but my mother sent me to live with
my father in California because she said I’m done with her she's 14 and hell on wheels, do something
with this kid and so I went to with my father and he lived on the beach in Topanga when there
were houses on the beach in Topanga which was I can't even tell you how fantastic that was
and he wasn't very present when I was a child because he was an actor and he was in California
working started out on broadway but then they took all those guys to California because it
was the 50’s and television exploded and so he came out here to work so I didn't
have a sense of him he I had this sort of formal relationship with him but I came and I was in
trouble and he kind of took a look at that and he said Jocey if you could have anything in the world
barring all obstacles what would that be and I said when I want to live at the beach here with
you and I don't want to go to boarding school I don't want to go to private school and I don't
want to do I just want to live at the beach with you maybe this was a glib answer but that
question stuck with me and I have been asking that of myself and of others since that time
we need to know what we want to do in the world we're not educated to that nobody in school
don't you think that this is a smart question hello you are six what do you like to do
what do you think you want to do what would you like to do today you're eight hi what's
going on oh you like the painting what would you like to do today you have to ask this question
of yourself throughout life what is it that you want to do you're here on the planet for a purpose
there is something you can do that is better than anyone else and your job is to find it
and nobody's been helping us do that so I took that question and presented it in the book to
others this is the most important question can you answer this question and you only have answered
this question when you ask it of yourself and your heart beats you have to keep asking until
something moves and you something is visceral this is why this word came out of the teaching because
when you're teaching actors you have to give them a technique it's very important if you
don't offer a really firm technique you're not teaching you're not offering anything but beyond
technique what what what makes what takes a a good actor a serviceable actor to a great actor
to to an inspirational actor what is that lift off well it's inspiration it's when something comes in
that wakes the artist up and that he can follow and he can trust and he knows that
something exciting has come in he knows that it's inspirational because his heart beats a
little faster because he's even nervous about it because sometimes when that comes in and you get
that kind of a hit you're anti you I do I can't do that that's too scary it's scary no all of those
feelings those visceral feelings the heartbeat the stomach turn all of those things are indicators
that you are going in the right path follow that path so you see what you want you ask questions
until you get that then you clarify this is the direction I want to go and this is what I
want in life this is what I meant now you can take the steps then they're revealed if you
if you want to be an actor then you're going to take certain steps to get to be an actor
but I want to be an actor lots of people say I want to be an actor but unless your heart beats
on I want to be an actor you're just maybe fantasizing about being an actor your heart has
to be you have to have a purpose for it whether it's painting whether it's acting whether it's
carving small animals and leaving them in trees for people to find like Boo Radley
whatever your bliss is whatever your you because it moves in you
think people like the idea of what being an actor is oh yeah yeah because we we have two parts to us
we have the ego the personality and we have the spirit which is we are energetic beings in bodies
but we have nothing supporting us in that way there's nothing to support that there's
no education it flows over into religion well it has nothing to do with religion religion is
something else it's something they've kind of failed us religions it got a little dogmatic and
people went really so people want to find that in themselves if we looked at all the religious
books and all everything and we were told nobody can tell you this you can read these books but
they're just inspiration nobody can tell you what they are that would be beautiful wouldn't that be
beautiful if you read the Bible if you read the Quran if you read these beautiful books and and
only you could answer to them this is what we need only you we need to listen to ourselves
and we don't have any concept as to how to do that so actors back to the question
you know a lot of actors personality we're looking at nothing but actors actors are running all
of advertising and everything is yeah I want to be an actor I think I want to be an actor
I want people to look at me like that that's one answer that comes from the ego and I want
to be admired I want to be looked at and that's natural we all want that and if we
didn't get it as children which is in many many cases we're going to seek it elsewhere
but in act there are actors who it moves in them because their mission in life is to reveal the
human condition that's what acting is it's revealing the human condition and I liken
actors to magicians because they're creating life before your very eyes and when they get it right
you leave your little life and you enter their storytelling when an actor enters that realm
and they're living it before your very eyes as if it were a parallel universe a parallel life
right there and we know that everybody knows that they have a thermometer they go that guy's really
in there or that guy's really acting and the guy who's acting we enjoy it it's entertainment
but the guy who's elevated the guy who's living it the guy who is dared to enter that that guy
is working out of inspiration that guy is a magician and when he's working we leave
we leave our little life and we enter his life and we take a little vacation from our own life
and and then when he's done we admire that and we think well
if he can control all of that maybe I can do a little better with my own life.