090 Actors Are Like Boxers

This week Charlie talks with his dear friend and grad school classmate Lawrence Ballard. Charlie and Larry discuss the use of a racial slur in a structured scene work exercise in the first year of their grad school training in 1998. The impact it had on Larry, on Charlie, and on the rest of their class is talked through with vulnerability and honesty. This is an amazing conversation about racism, white fragility, and the importance of tapping into the beautiful and the ugly parts of ourselves in order to truly illuminate the human condition. Larry and Charlie also share their thoughts on acting training in this country,  and what they've learned from the next generation. You can follow CBP on Instagram @creatingbehavior, and Charlie's NYC acting conservatory, the Maggie Flanigan Studio @maggieflaniganstudio. Theme music by  https://www.thelawrencetrailer.com. For written transcripts, to leave a voicemail on SpeakPipe, or contact Charlie for private coaching, check out https://www.creatingbehaviorpodcast.com

Transcript

Charlie Sandlan (00:00:00):

I think if you want to live a serious creative life, you have to be able to tap into the deepest parts of yourself. And if you want to be an actor, if you really want to illuminate the human condition, if you want to step into as many shoes as possible, you have to be able to not just tap into the most beautiful parts of what makes us a human being, but also the ugliest, the darkest parts, those parts of you that you don't want anyone to see. We all have those because we're human, and you have to mind those for your art. But I'll tell you, that can be scary. It can be upsetting as fuck, and it can really unsettle you to your core.

(00:00:39):

So, today, it's a real personal episode for me. I'm bringing on one of my very best friends, my ride or die, Larry Ballard. Lawrence and I met in grad school. We were partners in our first-year work with Maggie Flanigan, and we're going to talk about my use of the N-word in a structured improvisational piece of scene work, what that did to me, what it did to him and our class, and what it means to be able to go into the deepest, darkest parts of yourself for your art. It's an incredible conversation, and I hope it resonates with you. So put the phone back in your pocket. Creating Behavior starts now.

(00:01:49):

Well, hello, my fellow daydreamers. All right, this is a heavy episode, I think, for me anyway, because I'm going to share some things that are very personal and ugly, but I hope that it is something that will be instructive and illuminating for you.

(00:02:16):

So Larry and I were classmates at Rutgers, where we both got our MFA. We studied with Bill Esper and Maggie Flanigan, as you know. And in the first year of the work, you know, those of you that have done it certainly understand this, it's a very deep... You are really tapping and mining the real deep parts of yourself, your primitive unconscious, really, because that's where the actor in you lies. It's where the artist in you lies. And the exercise work really forces you to grapple with that.

(00:02:54):

And in our first round scene... So we've been together maybe three months, so this is probably November-ish. We were doing our first round scenes, and Larry and I were partners. And the scene that we were doing was from a play called Advice to the Players.

(00:03:13):

Now, in the first-year work, we don't read the plays. There's no character work. It's just the text. We memorize those lines mechanically by rote so that we don't get locked in the line intentions, line inflections. There's no character breakdown or script analysis. We just memorize those lines, and we work off each other. We work off each other under the umbrella of the previous circumstance.

(00:03:37):

Now, for this scene, Advice to the Players, Larry played the part of an artistic director of a summer festival. And I was a lawyer coming to his office. And what's going on in the scene is that... This play takes place in the 1980s when apartheid in South Africa was really a focal point on the global stage. And the global community were putting a lot of pressure on South Africa to get rid of this horrible, racist government, where really 2% of the white population was subjugating and holding down in a very bigoted, racist way 98% of the Black population. It was a horrible government.

(00:04:31):

And so there were trade embargoes, there were cultural embargoes. Now, this was when Reagan was president. There was a cultural embargo going on, meaning there was no arts exchange, there was nothing going on between the two countries.

(00:04:45):

So in the scene, Larry's character has brought in two South African actors to perform here in America. And the show that they're doing, Waiting for Godot, is opening tonight. It is a clear violation of the cultural boycott. And, you know, if you want boycotts to work, everyone's got to abide by it.

(00:05:10):

But from Larry's point of view, as the artistic director, he's really doing something very important. He's allowing these two men who would never be able to practice their arts in South Africa, where they would be killed and beaten to death probably, to come to America to perform here and, by doing so, really bring attention and bring light to the plight of South Africans and shine a light on apartheid and how bad it is. So, from his point of view, he's helping the fight against apartheid.

(00:05:44):

Now, I am playing a lawyer representing everybody who is opposed to this opening night. And so I show up, and, from my point of view, this is a violation of the boycott. It is actually hurting the fight against apartheid. And my objective in this scene is to get Lawrence to agree to cancel the opening night. And Lawrence's overall point of view in the scene is basically, "Fuck you. No, I'm not doing that."

(00:06:14):

And it's a very heated argument. Both of us say very important things about this cause, and we both believe very strongly and very firmly about what it is we're talking about. So that's the context of the scene, right?

(00:06:31):

Well, we had been working on it for a couple of weeks, and what Maggie did is she brought in Loyd Williamson. Loyd Williamson is one of the great movement teachers and innovators in actor training. He created this movement technique that I teach at the studio and also was taught at Rutgers. He was our teacher. He came in to do hands-on work.

(00:06:55):

So he's up there in the scene with us when we're working. And he's doing some adjustment work. He's just helping us to release into a deeper experience, trying to deal with a lot of the physical blocks. It's a very intense class. And those of you that have been in either Maggie or my classroom when this has been going on, it's a profound experience. Stuff happens between you and your acting partner that just blows your mind. It's a monumental class, let's just say that.

(00:07:25):

So we're working in the scene, and Loyd is up there. And I said something. What I have here is my first-year acting journal. I was very vigilant about writing through this process of first-year work because I knew it would be important for me. And I want to read to you my journal entry about what happened. And then we're going to get Larry's perspective on this.

(00:08:02):

So this was November 21st, 1998. It was a Saturday at 3:06 P.M., and this is what I wrote, "I've been avoiding putting pen to paper. Yesterday was one of the more gut-wrenchingly painful days I've ever had. Loyd was in our acting class, working with our scenes. Larry and I were the first to go. At one point, I looked Larry right in the eyes and called him the N-word. I'm still sick to my stomach when I relive what happened.

(00:08:36):

"Loyd started to work with us without using the text of the scene. We were improvising. And as Larry and I began to connect deeper, the rage and hatred in us, in me, started to really flare up. And Loyd kept whispering in my ear, 'Say what you really want.' And so I started to make fun of Larry. He began crying, and I called him a crybaby. And Loyd just kept saying, 'Say what you want.' And the more I looked into Larry's eyes, the more disgusted with him I became.

(00:09:12):

"And I can't believe I did it. 'You're a dumb stupid N-word.' I said it right to his face. What an ugly part of me. And once I said it, Loyd had us step away from each other but still remaining connected. And I could feel a slow wave of awareness envelop me as I realized what I had just said. I hurt and angered Larry so badly.

(00:09:43):

"After all of this, Loyd had us start the scene again. I could barely stand to look Larry in the eyes. The scene ended, and Larry and I just sat on the ground and cried. I'm so disgusted with myself, ashamed, embarrassed. And then I had to sit and watch others go through an emotional upheaval. Why was I able to look at another human being and use such a word solely with the intent to hurt?

(00:10:14):

"I could barely look anyone in the eye the rest of the day. I sat in voice just miserable, and then I had to go face a movement class. I was forced to sit and fester with this all day without any privacy. I felt so exposed. What's the positive side to this? How do I find anything worthwhile in what I did? How do I get past my shame and guilt so that I can continue to work not only with Larry, but with everyone else in the class?

(00:10:44):

"I feel dirty. Why did I say it? All I have are questions, not one fucking answer. And the thing is, I'm not looking for forgiveness from my class. I'm looking for forgiveness within me. How do I make this right with me? How can I still look into my soul and understand what part of me that came from? I didn't have a play or character to hide behind, did I? Is it really necessary to find that part of ourselves?

(00:11:18):

"We're told to go our own way with no apologies. You've got to be kidding me. I'm filled with apology and regret right now. I chose to use that word. I could have said a million other things to Larry. And maybe a part of me did it for shock value. There was also a part of me that was probably daring myself to say it, 'Come on, Charlie. Do you really have the balls?' Well, I guess I did, but that's nothing to be proud of. I'm not very proud of myself one fucking bit.

(00:11:49):

"I mean, what else am I capable of? I feel like I've slipped off a steep cliff, and I'm free-falling to who knows where. The ground feels soft beneath me. This has really thrown me for a loop, and I need something to cling to. I'm in a tailspin. I need to make it right with me. But I'm trying to hold on to the fact that when we finished, Maggie looked at both of us and said, 'I guess you two want to be actors.'"

(00:12:24):

Now, I would say for the last 10, 15 years, I have been reading this passage to my students, along with a couple of other entries from the journal, to let them kind of understand that I know what they're going through. And as I've gotten older... I was 28 when this happened. And in talking about it, you know, it's so filtered through my white fragility, my experience, what happened to me, and there is just no real consideration of, well, what did it do to Larry? What did it do to my classmates, my classmates of color, Aaron Cherry, Mike Colter, Janis McDavid, all of them?

(00:13:13):

All of us really were rocked by this, and I just think it's important to have Lawrence come on here and talk about this because I think looking at it now, I understand that it was important to be able to go to that dark place. It was ugly, and it made me sick to my stomach, but I discovered something about what I'm capable of as an artist.

(00:13:45):

And you see, this happened in the imaginary world. This didn't happen in a hallway or on a street corner where I lost my temper and said something hateful. This was in the context of a scene that was turning into an improvisation between a Black man and a white man with very different points of view about apartheid, fighting apartheid, and the damage that I thought Larry's character was doing to the cause.

(00:14:14):

So it was under that umbrella, but at the time, I was deeply, deeply unsettled by it. And I know that sometimes when I read this to my students, they latch on to just that word, that, "Charlie said that word," and sometimes, the full broader context of what it meant and also Larry's response to it needs to be heard. So this is the opportunity to talk about it.

(00:14:47):

Before I turn it over to our conversation, just a few words about Lawrence Ballard. Not only is he an incredible human being, one of my very best friends, someone who I love very much and respect tremendously, he is a first-rate actor, and he has been carving out a professional career for 25 years now. And not only that, he is a first-rate teacher. He teaches on-camera and film work at Pace University, at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

(00:15:20):

He's working with this younger generation of students like I am. And we're going to talk about the challenges we have in teaching the younger generation and what they've taught us. But we're going to start the conversation talking about that day, that class. And before we started recording, I read this journal entry to Larry. And so our conversation picks up right after I read this to him, and we'll go from there. This is my friend Lawrence Ballard.

Lawrence Ballard (00:15:56):

The way I remembered it was we were in class and were working on a piece that involves racism. That was the whole point of the piece. It's a piece questioning apartheid, questioning racism, questioning these issues of race that are prevalent in a lot of different places, not just America and South Africa. And that's part of the reason why the play... Plays like that, addressing those issues are universal because racism can be found anywhere. So, going into it, I know what it's going to be about. I'm not...

Charlie Sandlan (00:16:42):

And Maggie also cast us with that purpose of mind.

Lawrence Ballard (00:16:45):

Yeah.

Charlie Sandlan (00:16:45):

Put a Black actor and a white actor together.

Lawrence Ballard (00:16:47):

Of course, of course. So, going in it, I know what it's going to be about. I know what the work is ahead of me, and I know what to expect. So, first, let me go through that, and then I'm going to talk about my opinion being an actor who's been acting for over 20 years professionally and being a teacher now who's been teaching for, what, almost 10 now.

(00:17:15):

But let's talk about that day first. So we got that piece from Maggie. And what happens in programs, what happens in any studies of acting is your teacher, your instructor, is there to be a guide and to teach you how to get to and access parts of yourself and some experiences outside of yourself in order to get true performances. And what that means is you have to be flexible enough as an actor that when somebody gives you material, that you can achieve the goal of that material and tell the truth of that material as much as possible.

(00:18:01):

So if you're a Black actor and you're given a period piece that has to do with really harsh realities of that particular period, when you're given a piece that's set around slavery or something like that, then you know what you are stepping in the ring to deal with. So, from that, I already knew the magnitude and the direction the piece could go.

(00:18:34):

Having worked with Charlie, having worked with you, Charlie, for that amount of time, it wasn't like it was the first day of class. We had been in class together for a while. We were accepted into the program. We had done all these exercises. We had gotten pretty far before we were even given scenes. So you're not like some stranger who just walked off the street and was like, "I'm going to do this scene."

Charlie Sandlan (00:18:58):

Yeah, yeah.

Lawrence Ballard (00:18:59):

"And by the way, I'm going to call him N-word in the scene." That's not how it worked.

Charlie Sandlan (00:19:02):

Right.

Lawrence Ballard (00:19:03):

So we were beyond familiar with each other at that point. So we're given the scene, we're doing the scene. And what is happening is, and this happens to all young actors, is that we started experiencing blocks in the scene. We started experiencing blocks in us being able to access the behavior that we needed to access for that scene because we knew each other as friends. The last thing you want to do is hurt your friends. The last thing you want to do is traumatize your friends. And so that can sometimes get in the way of your performance. And it was doing that for us. That's what I experienced. So for us to be able to blow-

Charlie Sandlan (00:19:49):

Which is why-

Lawrence Ballard (00:19:50):

... up at that time-

Charlie Sandlan (00:19:51):

... Loyd comes in anyway. There's hands-on work in these scenes.

Lawrence Ballard (00:19:53):

Exactly, exactly. So for us to be able to blow up at each other, for two friends to be able to really get down and dirty with each other is a hard thing to do, especially for untrained actors. You don't want to go past the niceties and the things that you build up in a friendship in order to do some of the ugly work that you have to do as an actor.

(00:20:20):

And this scene requires a certain ugliness. So we're doing the scene, and it's going fine. We're talented. But it's not living the way it needs to live in order to express that message. So, like you said, that's why Loyd is brought in. Loyd is brought in order for us to break down some of those walls so that we can access the message that needs to be accessed in that particular piece.

(00:20:51):

And when he did that, what he was asking us to do was to go deeper and find those points to access the material and deliver it the way it needed to be delivered through the characters. And then, once that was done, once we went to that point and really got to what those characters meant, really got to how those characters felt about each other, it doesn't feel good. It feels uncomfortable. But that's part of being an actor.

(00:21:25):

And I'll talk about this later, but that's part of being an actor. And I think what Maggie meant by that was she saw our willingness to be able to, as we say, go there, to really be able to dig deep into the material so that we could give that message of the material.

(00:21:47):

Look, your goal as an actor is to be an instrument for what the writing is, for the director, for the piece as a whole. You are an instrument in order to make the material work. And if you cannot make the material work, then you'll never be able to do that particular piece of work. You'll never be able to produce that material.

(00:22:14):

And for me to think, as an actor, that I'm not delivering the message that is supposed to be delivered, then I'm not doing my job. I'm not a very good actor at all. But the key is that, within that, to understand who you're working with. So I think when people hear the stories and they hear your journal entry, they're not taking all of that into account. They're not understanding the complexity of really being able to stand up in a scene and being able to get to the meat of that scene and deliver the message that's needed.

Charlie Sandlan (00:22:57):

Well, how did it feel to just hear that word flung at you in that space by me?

Lawrence Ballard (00:23:04):

It didn't feel good. It didn't feel good, but it wasn't supposed to. Now, now that I've established that, now I can talk about my philosophy behind acting. Was it Maggie that said to us that, "We're athletes of the soul"? And I use that all the time.

Charlie Sandlan (00:23:21):

"Acrobats of the heart," yeah.

Lawrence Ballard (00:23:25):

We're also pugilists of the spirit. We're boxers. We're like boxers. And the reason why we're like that is because we're agreeing. I look at you as my acting partner. We look at the material, and we make an agreement, saying that, "We are going to play this material, send out this message as best we could because it's worth sending out."

(00:23:50):

Now, if I don't feel it's worth sending out, then I don't have to be a part of it. I can walk away from it. I could have looked at that scene, and I could have said to Maggie, I could have been like, "You know what? I don't really feel comfortable with doing that. It's not something I'm interested in doing." And that's absolutely fine. Everybody should be able to make the choices that are best for them.

(00:24:12):

But I also believe that in a sea of bad material, in a world where most of the material is for escapism, where most of the material is just mindless, that sometimes the good material will cause you to be uncomfortable. And just like a boxer looks at his opponent and says, "You know what? We're going to get into the ring. We're going to beat the hell out of each other. But there's a purpose behind what we're doing, and we're not really trying to kill each other..." There's not a boxer that steps into the ring and wants to kill the person opposite of them. But they understand, "I'm a boxer. When I get into that ring, I got to throw punches, and I got to take punches." And they make that agreement before they get into the ring.

(00:25:06):

This is what acting is like. It has an element of that, to a certain extent. If I'm going to play a racist, I have to play the racist. I cannot backpedal on that because what does it serve if I'm creating a message, and then I have niceties being done to the people that aren't nice? It doesn't serve the message of the whole piece. It doesn't serve the message of the film, of the play, of whatever you're doing.

(00:25:37):

And a prime example of that is... We were talking before about Leonardo DiCaprio in Django. And not just Django. You could take 12 Years a Slave. You could take Roots, you could take any piece, Ed Norton in American History X or any of the actors that played Nazis in-

Charlie Sandlan (00:25:59):

Right.

Lawrence Ballard (00:25:59):

... Spielberg's movie...

Charlie Sandlan (00:26:01):

Ray Fiennes. I mean, Jesus.

Lawrence Ballard (00:26:03):

Ray Fiennes. Any of these actors.

Charlie Sandlan (00:26:06):

Sarah Paulson in 12 Years a Slave too was a ruthless racist.

Lawrence Ballard (00:26:09):

Exactly. When you hear the stories of what happened on the set and how Leonardo was very hesitant about playing that character and talking in the way that he had to talk and how Kerry Washington and Jamie Foxx went to him and said, "Look, we are doing a movie. You are playing a role. We know that there's a difference between Leonardo DiCaprio and the role that you're playing, but you got to give it. You got to go there 100%," I'm sure it was not comfortable at all for him to play that role, but what would it look like for him to play a slave master that's really sweet?

Charlie Sandlan (00:26:52):

Right. But it does force the actor-

Lawrence Ballard (00:26:53):

It's not going to work.

Charlie Sandlan (00:26:54):

It forced the actor to work from their own genuine racism. It's not like us as white people, white men, particular, aren't racist. That's embedded and-

Lawrence Ballard (00:27:09):

Exactly.

Charlie Sandlan (00:27:09):

... most people don't want to accept that. Can't see that. "I'm not a racist. Absolutely not. I've never had any weird feelings about Black people in my life. I don't see color," whatever bullshit is thrown out. But that's hard as an actor to have to go into yourself and say, "Okay, I'm going to tap into some real unconscious shit or things that I know as an educated white man that just are racist, and those thoughts just get pushed out of my head. But I can't deny that I don't have racist thoughts that happen to me. They just don't get put out into the world at all because they're gross."

Lawrence Ballard (00:27:45):

Of course. Yeah, of course. But this can be taken for any role that's being played. If I have to play a misogynist, a man who... If you're doing a movie about... There was a movie on Netflix. I forgot what her name was. Qualley?

Charlie Sandlan (00:28:04):

Oh, yeah, Margaret Qualley.

Lawrence Ballard (00:28:07):

What's the name of that movie?

Charlie Sandlan (00:28:07):

Maid. Was it Maid, the series?

Lawrence Ballard (00:28:10):

Yeah, Maid.

Charlie Sandlan (00:28:11):

And the guy, her husband, who plays-

Lawrence Ballard (00:28:12):

Yeah, the series that she did, excellent series.

Charlie Sandlan (00:28:14):

Yeah, he was abusive verbally, a little physically abusive-

Lawrence Ballard (00:28:17):

Exactly, exactly. So if I'm doing Maid and I'm playing her husband, and the point of the story is to watch a woman overcome really brutal situation, a horrible marriage, to overcome that, and I'm playing her husband and I'm like, "You know what? I just can't play... I can't be as abusive as I need to be," I'm not servicing that script.

Charlie Sandlan (00:28:44):

I wouldn't get the part either.

Lawrence Ballard (00:28:47):

I wouldn't get the part, but beyond not getting the part, I am not servicing that script. And that's an important script. That's an important movie for people to see. It's an important message for people to see. So you can make that decision not to do that, but the decision sometimes is beyond you, even as you perform-

Charlie Sandlan (00:29:11):

Well, you know, going back to that day, that word never would've flown out of my mouth if Loyd wasn't there and we weren't getting off the text. And there's a part of me that... I look back, I just think Loyd, that's what he wanted because he kept whispering in my ear, "Say what you want. Just say what you want." And it was almost like it was... He tried to just tease it out of me. And I don't know if that's true or not, but it seems fucked up to me on a pedagogical side.

Lawrence Ballard (00:29:49):

Now this is what we have to wrestle with as teachers ourselves. There's a lot of stuff that we went through, right, that we don't necessarily want to do and-

Charlie Sandlan (00:30:00):

We'd be sued.

Lawrence Ballard (00:30:01):

... don't want to teach in that particular way.

Charlie Sandlan (00:30:03):

We'd be sued.

Lawrence Ballard (00:30:03):

Exactly.

Charlie Sandlan (00:30:04):

Are you kidding?

Lawrence Ballard (00:30:04):

We can't.

Charlie Sandlan (00:30:04):

No fucking way.

Lawrence Ballard (00:30:06):

First of we all, we can't do that. But also, as a teacher, I'm constantly trying to figure out and think about ways that I can deliver a message without being damaging-

Charlie Sandlan (00:30:16):

Have you ever had that word used in your classroom by anyone?

Lawrence Ballard (00:30:19):

I'll tell you an interesting situation. I had a student one time do a scene from, I think it was 12 Years a Slave, and didn't want other students to be in the class while they did the scene. And I understand the hesitancy. I understand, just to put it simply, the fear of doing it.

(00:30:45):

But I had a conversation with that student. I said, "You have to understand. If you can't do it, then you shouldn't do it. You just shouldn't do it." And I think when people hear your story, going back to what we were talking about, when people hear your story, they worry about me.

Charlie Sandlan (00:31:00):

Right. Exactly.

Lawrence Ballard (00:31:03):

And they worry about how I felt in that time and in that moment. And I had complete autonomy. I could have at any point... And you know me, Charlie. We've known each other for a long time. And you know I try to be polite, but I don't-

Charlie Sandlan (00:31:21):

You don't take shit.

Lawrence Ballard (00:31:23):

I don't back down.

Charlie Sandlan (00:31:24):

Yeah.

Lawrence Ballard (00:31:25):

I don't back down from voicing my opinion either. I'll tell you how I feel about something. So I had autonomy in that situation. I didn't have a problem in that situation because I knew where it was going. I knew what was going on.

Charlie Sandlan (00:31:44):

But there were also other... Cherry, she's a Black woman. And Mike Colter was also in the class. I mean, it affected everybody. It wasn't just you and I that were really traumatized by it.

Lawrence Ballard (00:31:57):

Yes.

Charlie Sandlan (00:31:58):

The whole class was shook, shook into their core. I just remember looking out, and everybody was just, "The fuck happened?" And I don't know if anybody... Who checked in with Cherry? Who checked in with you? Did anybody even check in with you? Did anyone... Or Colter? I mean, I don't even know what the post-event care was, if any.

Lawrence Ballard (00:32:17):

How I remember it it being was Maggie did her check-in of like, "Are you okay? All right." And she specifically directed that toward me. I think we all had talked to each other, and we all recognized that we were upset in the moment, but I think we understood what that was.

(00:32:38):

Now, how the instructors handled that, how they did it, maybe it could have been done differently, but I can't help but say that is a part of the scene. If I'm shooting Central Park Five with Ava, and any of those people who are playing, any of the characters who jailed those young men, if any of them are not accessing and digging down and really delivering that, then that whole piece is a lie. It's a lie.

(00:33:17):

That's the type of things that we have to think about. We do have to weigh, is it really necessary? Is it really something that needs to be done? But we also have to understand as performers and as actors, as teachers, we can't lose the understanding of if there is a message and we feel like that message is worth being told and there are good guys and bad guys in the script, then the bad guys have to be bad guys because otherwise you are really whitewashing the history that that is based on, and you're whitewashing the work of the person who created that play, that piece.

Charlie Sandlan (00:34:00):

Yeah. If you're going to do Slave Play... I mean, that Jeremy O. Harris's play is extraordinary, but those actors have to go to some pretty fucked up places.

Lawrence Ballard (00:34:11):

Now, what we do, what plays into our conversation is that we are... I sometimes don't realize how much of a gap we have in generations and how different things are. Because when I was young... I remember watching Roots probably way before I should have watched Roots. And because as a Black person, and you'll find that most Black people, and I still think this is the case for a lot of situations, Black people teach their kids about this stuff early because they're like, "Look, you need to see violence, how it can be done to you and what the world is like out there." And I think now that generations are changing, I don't know if those type of introductions are happening as early and in the same way. I don't think a lot of students of color, especially Black students, have seen Roots.

Charlie Sandlan (00:35:18):

I doubt. I have one student in my class, maybe two in the entire studio that wouldn't even know what that fucking Roots is and why it was important and what it was about.

Lawrence Ballard (00:35:28):

Yeah, this is-

Charlie Sandlan (00:35:29):

No idea.

Lawrence Ballard (00:35:30):

Now I'm going kind of go off on a little tangent here, but I think it has a lot to do with what we're experiencing in the classroom. And rightfully so, I think the students are very worried about representation. They're very worried about how people are treated in the business, how people are treated in class. And that's good. It's always good to always be thinking about that because actors are always kind of the last... Especially the working everyday actor is always the last to be thought about when it's taking care of somebody and making sure they're okay and just in a mental space.

(00:36:16):

But I think the difference in the generations and what we're exposed to and what we're not exposed to and, frankly, what they watch and don't watch has created some difficulty in us being able to teach. I don't mean to sound like an old man and yelling at the clouds or, "Get off my lawn," but I think the lack of exposure to just the material plays a huge part in the distance that we're finding between every generation.

(00:36:53):

And that's happening quicker and quicker. And it affects teaching, and it affects perception and all of that. There's a lot of students who don't watch anything previous to what's currently on Netflix. There's a lack of curiosity about material that came before and a real understanding of the context of the material. I try to show my students Hollywood Shuffle. It's a movie by Robert Townsend.

Charlie Sandlan (00:37:30):

That is one of the funniest fucking movies. I'll tell you, it is so... I mean, it was Chappelle-esque before there was ever Chappelle, that kind of sardonic parody-

Lawrence Ballard (00:37:42):

And so I'm trying to take my students back to show them something like that. There's a lot of... First of all, I don't want to show them anything that's going to make fun of them or their life or who they are as a person. I'm not trying to traumatize anybody. But it's important to watch some of that stuff because then I get to explain, "This is a guy who made a movie off of credit cards. This is a guy who realized that he couldn't get the roles that he wanted, so he made his way," which is a very important thing because that's what most of these actors have to do now. That's what you have to do. It's not the 1970s where I can go work off Broadway like Al Pacino or Robert De Niro and work my way up through theater and then get seen and go into movies. It just doesn't work like that anymore.

(00:38:32):

And so when I show them that, there's a reason why I show them that. And I'm very worried about what I show them, as I should be. I should be very aware of what I show them. But sometimes it's also, I need the students to take a step toward me while I take a step toward them so that they understand, "There's going to be material that you may not necessarily agree with everything in it. You may not like some of the jokes that are being made. You may not like certain points that are being made. But please, you have to contextualize what you're watching. You have to contextualize the material, the situation, and you have to be able to look at those things and grab things that are important because all of art is imitation. And if you don't have a background of understanding what makes something good, or at least what made it good for that time, then you might be missing out. You might be missing out on something that you could use in the work that you do later."

(00:39:37):

I give them an example. It's hard to find stuff that everybody in the class has watched now because everything is so curated. And so I try to ask my class, like, "What are you watching?" And then I try to go watch that. So when I give examples in class, I can give something that everybody relates to. And one of the things that they all watch was Euphoria.

Charlie Sandlan (00:39:57):

Very good show.

Lawrence Ballard (00:40:02):

And so I watched it, and it was hard to watch because you remember, especially with my situation, my brother died of an overdose two years ago. And so watching that show brought up a lot of stuff. And it was uncomfortable watching because I'm a 50-year-old man watching a story about high schoolers having pornographic sex and being sexually assaulted. I didn't enjoy watching Euphoria. I really didn't.

(00:40:33):

Was the show amazing? Yeah, absolutely. Were the performances amazing? Absolutely. Was the cinematography amazing? Absolutely. I can appreciate all of that stuff and understand how powerful and important that is. I'm never going to watch it again, but I can appreciate that.

(00:40:59):

And I think that trying to figure out how to talk to students and tell them, "We have to really contextualize the situation. We have to look at things for what they are. That doesn't mean you have to love them. That doesn't mean you have to completely identify with them, but you have to learn about it because it is history..."

Charlie Sandlan (00:41:24):

It is history. And if you've got an audition for Euphoria playing a 50-year-old man banging a fucking 17-year-old high school student in a seedy motel, you're going to say, "No, I'm not going to do it"? I mean, you'd have to find some way to bring yourself to do that. Or if you can't, then you just would say, "No, tell my agent I'm not interested in that character."

Lawrence Ballard (00:41:47):

"I'm not interested in it." And then that plays into a whole another thing that I talk about. Especially in a university system, in a system where they're going to be there for a long period of time, they get used to the idea of their art being catered to and not understanding...

Charlie Sandlan (00:42:09):

I think it's catered and sanitized.

Lawrence Ballard (00:42:11):

Yeah. And not understanding the realities of being an actor in New York or LA, where you have a waiting job and you can barely cover the bills. And then somebody comes to you and is like, "You know what? There's this really cheesy sitcom, and there's this character that we want you to play," and you looking at it and saying, "Oh, this really isn't up to my standards. This really is below my training. You know what? I don't really want to do that." Well, when you got bills to pay and you got groceries to buy and your bar job, the bar has been closed, sometimes you're going to take stuff.

(00:42:55):

Now, as an actor, as an individual, I have to decide, is this demeaning, or is this just something that I have to do because I need the paycheck? Because the truth about it is, out there, nobody cares about your art. Nobody cares about your art as a working actor. So you have to learn the business side of it. Your art is your own personal thing. It's your own thing. So it's a real privilege to be able to look at something and say, "Oh, yeah, I'm not going to do that" sometimes.

Charlie Sandlan (00:43:25):

Are there things that you won't do, that you'll say, "You know what? No, I don't want anything that's got to do with this or that"? And maybe that changed as a father or-

Lawrence Ballard (00:43:32):

Yeah, all the time.

Charlie Sandlan (00:43:34):

... I don't know.

Lawrence Ballard (00:43:34):

Even when I was younger, when we first came out... Because you know I do a lot of commercials. That's my bread and butter. And I've done a lot of voiceover stuff. And when we were in the Iraq War, I would get auditions from my agent for military recruitment, to do voiceovers for the advertisements for the military. And I told my agent, I was like, "I'm not interested in doing that right now because I have my own personal convictions about that." And I also get auditions for political candidates sent to me where I do voiceover for their commercial. And there's a lot of political candidates that I've been like, "I'm not doing that."

(00:44:19):

So, yeah, there are standards that I have, but I also understand if it's the difference between me being on Law & Order and playing a drug dealer and it's a character I may not necessarily be in love with, then I have to make that choice, "Do I want to do that, or do I not want to do that? Is that an image that I want to portray, or is it not an image that I want to portray?" But then that also has to weigh against, "Does my daughter need new clothes for the fall?" So it's a lot of those things that have to be weighed when it comes to that. I always talk about the difference between a stereotype and being typecast and how... I play guys in suits.

Charlie Sandlan (00:45:07):

Yeah, you play the well-educated-

Lawrence Ballard (00:45:08):

Exactly.

Charlie Sandlan (00:45:08):

... Black man.

Lawrence Ballard (00:45:09):

That's what I play. I play that type. I play a lawyer, a politician detective. I play people of that caliber. And for a while there, when I was doing A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway, and I was getting some super good auditions, but the one I really wanted was The Wire. I'm from Maryland. I'd know that accent. I know dudes that were like that. And I was young enough to be a dude on the block, on the corner, but I don't present as that. And I didn't realize that until years later. Like, "Oh, when I walk into a room, nobody says, 'Oh yeah, that dude looks tough. That dude looks like the guy that's going to be in a corner.'"

Charlie Sandlan (00:45:56):

Yeah, they had that part, and Idris Elba-

Lawrence Ballard (00:45:59):

Exactly.

Charlie Sandlan (00:46:00):

... got it.

Lawrence Ballard (00:46:00):

Exactly.

Charlie Sandlan (00:46:02):

That was the one part in the show that fit that bill, so...

Lawrence Ballard (00:46:07):

And I wasn't of that age to even be considered for that role. I would've been considered for one of the younger guys' role. So I had to realize, and I had to understand the difference between being a type and being a stereotype. A type is the guy in the suit, the politician, the doctor, the lawyer. That's what I am, right?

(00:46:32):

Stereotype and type are two different things. The stereotype is playing something that is a negative portrayal, a negative image of a person, of a race, of whatever. It's one thing to go on a show and play the drug dealer who's on the corner, and the scene happens, and they walk up to the drug dealer, "What are you doing?" I get cuffed. I get thrown in the car, and the show continues. You never see me again. Right? It's another thing to play a drug dealer on The Wire. Those are two different things. A drug dealer on The Wire, you're seeing the full person, you're seeing a complete story, you're seeing a humanity that's being built on TV.

(00:47:21):

So there's a difference between playing those two things, and those are the things that you're confronted with as an actor, "What is the message behind what I'm saying?" So, going back to what we were talking about, if we're doing a play about racism and the whole play is just me getting beat on or destroyed, and it doesn't examine me as a human being, it doesn't fulfill the obligation of advancing my cause, then it might be something that I wouldn't be interested in doing. But I can have a play or a movie or something that shows me struggling, but as long as it has that advancement, as long as it taps into that humanity, then that might be something that I do.

(00:48:15):

So those are the types of things that you try to weigh and you try to figure out. And that's what I try to impart to my students to understand who they are. And then, from there, you can start deciding about what is the type of work that you want to do. But in that, don't just shit on all of the work that's come before just because it doesn't speak directly to you. Because that is our purpose. We're actors. We're supposed to learn things outside of ourselves. We're supposed to be empathetic to situations.

(00:48:52):

And then, who knows? You might be able to take just a small element, a small thing that you find to be interesting, a tool that you find could help in your storytelling and use that in order to make something that's even better than what came before. You have to contextualize, and you can't just shit on everything and forget about everything that came before.

Charlie Sandlan (00:49:16):

Now, I know that I have a little bit more freedom as a business owner at the studio. I'm not in an academic setting. I'm not constrained by the rules and to the regulations of academia. I'm just wondering, you are, you teach in the academic world, do you have any issues with the state of training artists and actors in academia now over the last 20 years and how it's changed? Any concerns you have about that?

Lawrence Ballard (00:49:47):

Yeah, to be a hundred percent honest, the biggest concern I have is that teachers and the institutions are really worried about their students because the students are customers. The power dynamic has changed. The thing I love about the generation that's coming up is they don't take any bullshit. There's so much stuff that we had to put up with. They would treat us like we're going through the military while we're learning acting.

Charlie Sandlan (00:50:19):

Oh yeah, you knew your place. You didn't talk back. You didn't speak up. You wanted to be an actor, you did whatever you fucking needed to do. It didn't fucking matter. You didn't bring your shit into the classroom.

Lawrence Ballard (00:50:31):

No.

Charlie Sandlan (00:50:32):

If you had to go home and cry in the fetal position, you did that.

Lawrence Ballard (00:50:35):

No, they didn't care.

Charlie Sandlan (00:50:35):

They didn't give a fuck.

Lawrence Ballard (00:50:37):

And in some ways, it's good, but in some ways, it's bad because it also creates an opening for people who are abusive, people who are just a little bit less scrupulous to be able to come in and really take advantage of people and hurt people.

(00:50:52):

You remember our last year of school, after we've been through three years of school, one of our teachers says to one of the students, "Oh, this is why the head of the program never liked your acting anyway." And that's probably one of the worst and most horrible things I've heard a teacher say to a student. It's horrible.

Charlie Sandlan (00:51:10):

Awful.

Lawrence Ballard (00:51:11):

After three years of going through a program, you tell somebody that in their last semester. So that's the kind of world that we came up in. And that kind of shit needed to change big time. And I think the younger generation just doesn't put up with that. And I admire that. I admire being able to look at a situation and be like, "This is wrong. This is not how you treat people. People need to be treated equitably and like humans." I admire that about them. But the one thing I tell them that we, as a older generation, worry about is the toughness and the grit that it takes. Because when you get beyond the academic setting, when you get outside of the class, the world is not kind.

Charlie Sandlan (00:52:04):

I tell my students all the time, "No one gives a fuck-

Lawrence Ballard (00:52:05):

No.

Charlie Sandlan (00:52:05):

"... about you. No one gives a fuck about your triggers. No one gives a fuck about-

Lawrence Ballard (00:52:08):

They really don't.

Charlie Sandlan (00:52:09):

"... your mental health. They want you to show up and do the fucking job."

Lawrence Ballard (00:52:12):

They really don't. They really don't.

Charlie Sandlan (00:52:13):

Period.

Lawrence Ballard (00:52:13):

And so, trying to give them the understanding of that without damaging them, but trying to really get them prepared for that is a hard thing. And it's especially hard now because the way the academic system is set up is they are the customer, and the customer is always right. And it can be damaging because you don't have the ability to really reprimand the way you would want to in certain situations or really just impart some really serious knowledge in the way that you would want because you have to be careful about the student sometimes just leaving because that's...

Charlie Sandlan (00:53:02):

Leaving or-

Lawrence Ballard (00:53:02):

Or filing a complaint.

Charlie Sandlan (00:53:03):

... or filing a complaint or going above your head to the dean-

Lawrence Ballard (00:53:06):

Yeah.

Charlie Sandlan (00:53:07):

... or to whoever it is and saying, "Oh, Larry said this. This was inappropriate. This wasn't fair. This was a fucked up thing to say," or, "They didn't respect my trigger. They didn't warn me that this particular clip that you showed is going to trigger me."

Lawrence Ballard (00:53:21):

Exactly.

Charlie Sandlan (00:53:22):

And I always say to all my students, "Listen..." I had a student... For some reason, Sophie's Choice came up, and I turned to them, 16 people. I said, "How many of you have seen Sophie's Choice?" Nobody saw it, not one person. I said, "Okay. Well, you've got an assignment. You're going to watch Sophie's Choice. You're going to give me 500 words on your opinion of it and what it did for you."

(00:53:48):

One student, her entire paper was how upset she was that I didn't give them a trigger warning about the film. And my point to them was, "Listen, art is triggering, and if you want to live a creative life, that is the whole point of art is to trigger an audience into some sort of emotional response." And I said, "If you don't have the mental health to be able to handle that, then the creative professional life is not for you." And I don't know if you have any thoughts about that.

Lawrence Ballard (00:54:22):

I agree with it. I'd say it a little different.

Charlie Sandlan (00:54:24):

Yeah, of course. You have to in academia. I can kind of get away with a little bit more. No one's going to reprimand me.

Lawrence Ballard (00:54:36):

But what you're saying has an essential truth to it. And I try to tell them... I give trigger warnings, and I tell them ahead of time, like, "Look, this is difficult. This is tough. But you have to try to find things that are valuable in it. You have to try to find things that are good in it. And you also have to think about, what is the time period? Why was this popular during that time period? And it's informative to know this information because it is history. It's history."

Charlie Sandlan (00:55:03):

Let me ask you this. Do you give them trigger warnings because you have to or because you really believe that it is something that is important in the training?

Lawrence Ballard (00:55:12):

I give them trigger warnings because I don't want them... My whole deal is to be able to give them information and for them to accept it. Basically, what I'm doing is I try to open them up so that they can take in whatever information I'm trying to give them. And if they're triggered by it, a lot of times, they're not listening, or they're not watching for what I want them to watch for.

(00:55:37):

And I learned this lesson because I showed a clip from There Will be Blood. I showed that last scene. For them, I don't think that they've had the experience of seeing stuff like that. They have very controlled, managed environments. That's not a judgment on it. It's just the facts of what it is.

(00:55:55):

So, coming from that, seeing There Will be Blood, that was very violent to some of my students in the class. Now, for me, that's not violent at all. You barely see any blood in it. To me, the violence in it is nothing. But for some people in my class it was. And so I learned like, "Okay, when I show this, I have to say that just so that they are prepared and they can listen to me."

(00:56:19):

Because once they saw that scene, they completely shut down. And they were more worried about the fact that I didn't warn them about that than they were listening to what I was saying. So I had to alter my teaching because of that. And the truth about it is, like with any teaching, with anything that we do, anything now, if you want things to work... I may not like it, I may think it's weird, I may think whatever, but my goal is to make sure they get the information, so I have to alter how I teach. And it really doesn't fucking matter how I feel about it. My goal is to teach them. So I'm going to do what I have to do in order for them to get the message that I need them to get. So that's how I feel about it.

Charlie Sandlan (00:57:00):

Do you have students that refuse to do certain things because, "This isn't for me," or, "There was some language in the scene that I don't want, and I'm just not going to do it"?

Lawrence Ballard (00:57:10):

Yeah, so-

Charlie Sandlan (00:57:11):

Because when we were growing up, when we were in school, you wouldn't even consider saying something like that.

Lawrence Ballard (00:57:16):

No, no.

Charlie Sandlan (00:57:16):

That would just be-

Lawrence Ballard (00:57:16):

And also, I wanted to do everything. You know how it is.

Charlie Sandlan (00:57:21):

Right. And that's what I don't understand. I just think, as an actor... This is what it's hard for me to wrap my mind around with this generation. As an actor, I want to do it all. And the uglier it is or the more frightening it is on a personal level, the more I want to do it. And I just think that this generation that is being trained just doesn't want to do that.

Lawrence Ballard (00:57:46):

I think it goes back to their experiences. And there's a lot of worry about hurting other people. They don't want to be the person who stands out and get the finger pointed at them and be the brunt of ridicule. The culture of online filters into our everyday life. And so the last thing you want to do is take a chance because taking a chance means that you... The consequences for that are just really huge, the way people treat each other when they do take a chance, you know?

Charlie Sandlan (00:58:20):

Well, I also think that this generation, one thing I like about them is that they're very free and much more courageous in talking about their own trauma. I just wasn't aware. It's not like there was less trauma when we were young. We just never talked about it.

Lawrence Ballard (00:58:36):

No.

Charlie Sandlan (00:58:37):

Didn't talk about it. But just the rapes, the childhood sexual assaults, the violence that my students are grappling with, talking freely about, coming to me and opening up, like, "This is what's happening to me. This is what's going on with me in therapy. I just need you to know..." Or even working in the space, and I'll have a student... Just the other day, she was at the door... And this is a blind spot for me. She was at the door, and she was frozen. She was watching, just kind of checked out, not really responding at the door. And I was getting frustrated with her because she's a talented actor.

(00:59:27):

And I was like, "Jesus Christ. Go back out, start responding." And what was going on with her? She was triggered because the activity that she was stepped into was dealing with rape. And she was triggered into a freeze response. And I didn't have the clarity to recognize that in the moment.

(00:59:53):

And afterwards, she talked to me about it. She's like, "I didn't like that you didn't see that." She's like, "I didn't like that you were getting tough with me. And I was incapable of saying to you in the moment, 'Charlie, I'm triggered.'" And so it's a learning experience for me as well. But do your students talk about their shit in a freer way?

Lawrence Ballard (01:00:20):

It took me some time to really be able to really listen to them and accept, in a way, because, like you said, we grew up in a generation where you didn't do that. If something happened to you, you walk it off. That's just how it worked. You know what I mean?

Charlie Sandlan (01:00:37):

Yeah. Walk it off.

Lawrence Ballard (01:00:41):

"You were attacked. Just walk it off. It didn't happen. Go take a nap." But their willingness to talk about it and how articulate they are is amazing because we didn't have that. We didn't have those tools. We didn't even know half the stuff that was going on with us. You know what I mean?

Charlie Sandlan (01:01:06):

Yeah. How are you with your pronoun usage? I'll tell you, man, it's hard.

Lawrence Ballard (01:01:10):

It's so hard. It's so hard. And I had to explain it to them one time was like, you know when you learn a foreign language, one of the hardest things is... Because I lived in Italy for a year, and so I had to learn Italian because I went to an Italian public school. One of the hardest things to do is conjugate. That's one of the hardest things to do. And then learning the gender of different items because in Italian, a window could be female and a mug could be male and all that kind of stuff. And so that type of stress that you have in a foreign language trying to do that is the same thing for us trying to do that now with pronouns. We're having to conjugate in a completely different way. We're having to...

Charlie Sandlan (01:01:58):

And they/them isn't even appropriate for what they want. It's a plural fucking pronoun. Do you know what I mean? So even in and of itself, to unpack that is very difficult for somebody that's been speaking-

Lawrence Ballard (01:02:09):

Exactly.

Charlie Sandlan (01:02:09):

... the way we've been for 50 years.

Lawrence Ballard (01:02:11):

And so I tell them, "You've got to be patient because, for me, it is literally like trying to learn a foreign language, trying to remember that." And the thing about it is when you put things in that perspective and when you figure out a different perspective of how to say things, they get it.

(01:02:28):

And if I'm trying, I'm really genuinely trying, and I'm not shitting on the fact that they use pronouns and I'm not shitting on them as a generation, they recognize that and they're respectful of that. And they'll meet you halfway. And so that's the best I can ask for is like, "Meet me halfway. Understand that I'm trying my best to get it right," and they usually come around to it.

(01:02:53):

But then, every now and then, you have to have examples. I'll tell you one, I had a student who was on set. They were saying to me, "Every time I go on set, they use the wrong pronouns." And I said, "Okay, are they doing it maliciously? Can you tell if they're..." "No, no, not at all. They just don't get it right." And I said, "You know what? If they're not doing it maliciously, they may just be having a hard time."

(01:03:18):

I said, "You have to understand, when I go on a set, a vast majority of the people still on sets are boomers. So if I'm having a hard time, you know they're going to have a hard time with pronouns." And then I told the student, I said, "Have you ever heard of Muhammad Ali?" "Yeah, yeah. I've heard of Muhammad Ali." "Muhammad Ali's real name was Cassius Clay. There were a whole lot of people who were like, 'I'm still going to call that man Cassius Clay.' And Muhammad Ali had to fight in order for people to call him Muhammad Ali. But you know what happened? Nobody knew him as Cassius Clay at a certain point."

(01:03:55):

I said, "You are the tip of the spear for this generation. You all are the first people to do this whole thing with pronouns. So you got to understand, you're stepping into a situation where people are not going to be able to really keep up sometimes. And if they're not being malicious, then you got to try to be a little patient with it. It's not easy, it may not necessarily feel good, but that's the circumstance. So I'm not trying to tell you to get over it, but I am telling you to get over it."

Charlie Sandlan (01:04:28):

Yeah, right. And I find it even more difficult when the person that wants the they/them pronoun looks like an alpha male to me. Visually, I see you, and you present as a man. So it's even more challenging in that regard. I'll tell you what's also... I wonder if you have this issue. I have non-binary students. They are they/them. They're going to present professionally in a masculine way, right, but yet, they keep challenging me to try to give them... They want to play female parts. They want me to give them scenes and do a complete flip of the gender.

(01:05:18):

And I still can't bring myself to that because there's a part of me that's like, "Listen, I understand that you're non-binary. I understand that there's fluidity there for you, but you're not going to... You're going to present as a male person, and you're not going to be cast as a female. And if there are non-binary parts and fluid parts, yeah, sure. But you're not going to bank your career on only playing those."

Lawrence Ballard (01:05:48):

That's the drawback in the idea of only playing what your experience is. That's coming into play with that a little bit too. Because I do a film and TV class and everything we do is pretty much recorded and watched and because they also are concerned... At Pace, I teach seniors, and so they're very concerned about type because they're trying to figure out, "How am I going to work out here in the real world?"

(01:06:15):

I use that as an entry way to have that conversation, to tell them that, "Out there in the world..." And I use my story of how I present. "Out there in the real world, the casting director and the director are going to look at you, and they are going to cast you according to type. And that type is how you present. You may be fortunate and you may find a role that completely fits you. If you're non-binary, it may be a character that that is part of the storyline for that character, but you are going to be cast how you present."

(01:06:52):

And then we go through a whole thing of, "Let's look at ourselves on camera. What do we look like? What do we see ourselves playing?" So that's kind of how I get into that mode so that they can start thinking about that because they have to be taught that. They have to really think about that because the world operates differently than it does in a class or it does in a school. It just operates differently.

Charlie Sandlan (01:07:16):

If I talk to you for 30 seconds and it's clear to me and clear to anybody, anybody that would talk to you, that you are gay, you're not going to play straight parts unless you can present yourself as a straight person. So if I have somebody who is very feminine, let's say, energy as a man wanting, saying, "Charlie, why can't I play Stanley?"

Lawrence Ballard (01:07:39):

I'm not dealing with iconic or mechanical work the way you are. I'm not dealing with stuff like that. Usually, it's scripts from a TV show or auditions from a TV show. I let them do what they want to with the gender of the character. As long as it makes sense, they have to make it make sense, they can change lines or do whatever so that they can have that chance to express themselves.

(01:08:03):

It also helps me be able to get a vision for what they are as a type, so then when I start handing out more individual work, I know what to give them. I try to impart that with an example of... It's a little bit of what you were talking about. You had a student at one time where you were saying you had mentioned that it might be wise for that student to learn a Cantonese accent or language or something like that, and how-

Charlie Sandlan (01:08:31):

It was a Spoon River, and they were Chinese. And we were talking about character, "Well, what's a character idea for this?" And I said, "Well, you could put this character in the late 20th century, somebody who's come from China, landed in San Francisco, and is trying to carve out a life."

(01:08:54):

And initially, they took real offense to the suggestion. They finally did it and realized the value of it. I said, "Listen, you're going to want a Cantonese... You present as Chinese, Asian. You're going to cover all the Asian... Korea, you name it. You can play anything. So wouldn't you want to have some of that accent work under your belt so that you're just more castable?"

Lawrence Ballard (01:09:19):

Yeah. And that's the way I approach it. I tell them... I use that example, and then I jump into an example of, if you have a Black actor who has an African presenting look, okay... And I can say this because I'm a Black person, right? So I can use my experience to help convey the message.

(01:09:42):

So if you have a Black actor who has more of an African presenting look, what we would imagine as an African presenting look, and I tell that student, "You know what? You should learn an African dialect, whether it be South African, Nigerian, whatever," and that student says, "You know what? I'm not interested in doing that. I feel like that's pegging me in a certain role. I want to be able to play all things..." "Yes, you do want to be able to play all things, but what happens when the next Black Panther movie comes along? What's going to happen if you don't have an accent to match in with that movie? You're going to miss out on an opportunity. I don't know about you. I'd love to be in Black Panther. So to be able to have that accent under my belt would be beneficial to me."

Charlie Sandlan (01:10:39):

Isn't no different than as a white person wanting to be able to do an Irish accent or a British accent, a German accent. I mean, it's just-

Lawrence Ballard (01:10:49):

It's really not. It's really not. But this goes back to the type and stereotype situation. What am I doing this for? Am I doing this for a type, to be typed in a particular thing, or am I doing it in order to play a character that's going to be demeaning to my culture? If I'm learning the African accent and it's only to play a naked warlord who's a cannibal or shrinking hit, like all the horrible stereotypes, then that I could see you being like, "You know what? I don't want to do that." But if I'm learning that accent, and I'm going to be playing Nelson Mandela or if I'm going to be playing Patrice Lumumba, then it might behoove me to learn that. So those are the things that I try to express to my students and I try to teach them.

Charlie Sandlan (01:11:43):

All right, so I'm curious. You've been working professionally for 20 years plus, 24, 25. What does your professional life compare to what you thought it was going to be when you got out of school? What's the difference, the reality versus the dream?

Lawrence Ballard (01:12:03):

Oh, well, you know what the dream is. I remember being an undergrad, and I took a business for actors class my last semester undergrad, and they taught you how to do grants and all that kind of stuff. And I kind of paid attention, but I knew I wasn't going to need a grant because, you know, "I'm going to be rich."

Charlie Sandlan (01:12:21):

Yeah, right.

Lawrence Ballard (01:12:24):

"I'm going to be a rich actor. Denzel doesn't need a grant." And so they asked in the class, they were like, "Where do you see your future?" And so, in the class, I said... Everybody is like, "Oh, well, I'd like to start my own company," or, "I have this play idea that I'm going to write." And I said, "I plan on winning an Emmy, an Oscar."

Charlie Sandlan (01:12:45):

The EGOT.

Lawrence Ballard (01:12:45):

Exactly. So your hopes and your dreams are one thing, and the reality can be very different. There are times where you look around and you're like, "I wish I was further. I wish I had more. I wish I was doing more stuff." You realize that, "Okay, I'm a working actor. I've been doing this for 20 years. I get paychecks. I have a home." My wife does work, she does help a lot, but I do actually have a job and I do actually work. I have insurance and all of that stuff. So understanding the difference and accepting the difference has, at times, it's been very difficult. We know because we have friends who are hugely successful.

Charlie Sandlan (01:13:38):

Very successful classmates.

Lawrence Ballard (01:13:40):

And I've never once been jealous of my friends at all. They deserve everything they got, and I love seeing it.

Charlie Sandlan (01:13:47):

Happy for them, thrilled for them.

Lawrence Ballard (01:13:48):

I'm so happy for them. But it's the idea of just saying to myself like, "Oh, I wish I had some of that too," in the sense of I want it too. I don't want to take anything from them. I just want to be up there doing the same thing. And of course that happens. That happens to any normal person, but then you get to a certain point where you realize that as much as you love the work and as much as you focus on it, that I'm more than just an actor.

(01:14:18):

I think there's a little bit of masochism that comes into play when we were studying where our teachers were like, "You being an actor is the only thing. That's what you are. That's who you are." And I think that's a big part of who I am, but it's not the only part. And so now I have a kid, I have a dog, I have all these things that make up more of who I am, and it actually contributes back into my performance, back into my teaching, back into this thing that I set out to do.

(01:14:55):

The toughest thing is just trying to keep myself up in times when I don't feel so good. And it's hard when you don't get auditions or the phone doesn't ring or you are auditioning constantly and something doesn't come through, or you're auditioning for these huge things and you never really get them. The main thing for me has always been to try to find other things that can kind of fulfill me and make me feel like I'm more than just the parts that I get and the things that I audition for.

Charlie Sandlan (01:15:27):

Let me ask you this, what does it mean to be professional to you? What are some things that you try to impart on your students that they just need to know if they just don't want to get fired or fuck themselves professionally?

Lawrence Ballard (01:15:43):

So there's a lot of things. The first thing is don't be an asshole. I don't care who you see being an asshole, I don't care how big the star is, "They're an asshole," or whatever. That's not for you. Don't do that. You'll get so much further just being a decent person.

(01:16:04):

And treat this work as a job. It's a job. You have to really make that translation in your mind of saying, "I have to show up on time. I can't fuck around when I'm on set. That's part of my job." And to be a professional and show up. And when my agents call and say, "You have an audition," I answer them, and I go to the audition, or I shoot that audition and get it done. And to understand sometimes it doesn't matter how I feel. It really does not matter how I feel. I have to get the job done. That is my job description. I'm an actor, so I got to act at least like I want to do the job, I want to get the job. Life is going to get in the way of the work that you do, and you have to figure out a way how to keep going.

(01:16:47):

And I hate to say it, but you can look at some of the actors and say, like, "I don't know if they're going to be able to cut it." And I try not to look at that and then give up on that. I try to keep reminding them and keep pushing them. And that's the thing that's tough as a teacher to see that and say, "I'm not giving up on this student no matter what. I'm going to keep reminding them of this."

(01:17:11):

And then another thing I tell them, along with understanding that it's a job and being professional and doing the work and showing up on time, and this applies especially with all the information in the news now, is like, "Do not get into allowing the perception of it being a job to break down, especially when it comes to relationships. Avoid having relationships on set, please.

(01:17:37):

"You're young, you're attractive, you're working with the most attractive people, the most charismatic people. You're spending all this time with them. You're play-acting love and all this stuff. It is very hard, and I understand that, but you have to try to keep it professional. Now, you're going to end up..." I'm saying this, "You're going to end up in a situation. I know it's going to happen, all right? You may even meet somebody that you really care about, but you have to really be careful about doing that. And you also have to be careful about the power dynamics of the people that you get involved with."

Charlie Sandlan (01:18:13):

I'm curious, you mentioned about your brother passing away from an overdose and grappling with that for the rest of your life. Did you have to do any work in that first three, four months after Greg passed, or did you have to show up professionally at all?

Lawrence Ballard (01:18:32):

I taught that week.

Charlie Sandlan (01:18:35):

Taught that week.

Lawrence Ballard (01:18:36):

I taught that week. I had auditions and everything. I didn't take a break. But there was no stopping. I got to be places. I got to teach that class. Those people have paid for that class. I got to teach that class. I got to teach that class because I need the paycheck because I got bills to pay for my house. I got a daughter who's seven years old who has to go to school. There's responsibilities I have. And it's a tragedy of our life and our existence and being American that you always have to go, go, go, but I can't change the world tomorrow. It is what it is, and I have to get things done. I have to. That's the way it works.

Charlie Sandlan (01:19:22):

Well, I mean, we've already been talking for an hour and 15, so we'll wrap it up here. I really appreciate you coming on and to just say that you're like a brother to me. I love you like family, and I appreciate you coming on. And your friendship over the last twenty-five years, and with Kelly too because she's also family to me, has been one of the great joys of my life, having you guys as friends. And so I appreciate you coming on. Regardless of the fact that I spewed racist vitriol at you, you saw that for what it was, so I appreciate you.

Lawrence Ballard (01:20:09):

Well, look, I love you, man, and you know we've known each other forever now, and you've always been somebody that I could depend on no matter what.

Charlie Sandlan (01:20:18):

Ride or die, my man.

Lawrence Ballard (01:20:19):

Ride or die.

Charlie Sandlan (01:20:21):

Well, so let's get out of here on this. What's some advice that you've got to anyone who's interested in pursuing a professional creative life?

Lawrence Ballard (01:20:31):

You have to have a goal of what you want out of that creative life. And then you have to be real enough to know that you may not necessarily make that goal, but you can probably find something that's just as sweet just being a part of that creative life. You have to remember that what you're doing creatively, most of us are doing creatively, whether it's the acting or it's any type of art, you're always searching for that part of you that comes from empathy and trying to understand circumstances outside of you. That doesn't mean you just take shit that comes towards you willy-nilly, but it does mean that you really examine things in a deeper context.

(01:21:22):

And learn the history of the stuff that you're dealing with. Learn it, learn it. Watch those films, watch those TV shows, read those plays, read those books, do all of that stuff so even if you don't agree with it, you at least have enough knowledge to be able to talk about it and refute it when people are talking to you about it from a point of understanding and the obligation that you have to taking work and transforming it into something new for the future. You have an obligation to do that. You have an obligation to look at those movies and look at those books, and then, from that perspective, decide what can be used and what can be discarded. That's what you have the obligation to do. And then go out there and just have as much fun as you possibly can.

Charlie Sandlan (01:22:15):

Well, my fellow daydreamers, I know this was a long one, but I really appreciate you sticking around and keeping that phone in your pocket. I hope you found it enlightening. Please subscribe and follow the show wherever you get your podcast. Share Creating Behavior with your friends. Tell them to check it out. If you've got a few seconds, write a written review on iTunes. I'd appreciate that.

(01:22:32):

Go to https://www.creatingbehaviorpodcast.com, go to the Contact page, hit that red button. Are you SpeakPipe? Leave me a voice message. I'm interested in your thoughts about this episode. Please, you can go to https://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com if you are interested in training with me in New York City. And you can follow me on Instagram @maggieflaniganstudio, @creatingbehavior.

(01:22:51):

Lawrence Trailer, thank you for the music, my man. My friends, be courageous, risk something personal, play full out with yourself, and don't ever settle for your second best. My name is Charlie Sandlan. Peace.