How can you cry while trying to act?

Question

I have to do a play based on a love story...and there is an emotional part in it where i have to cry....My advisor told me that i need tears coming out of my eyes in order for it to look real i just cannot seem to do .... and i asked about some kind of chemical that i can put in my eyes to make myself cry but said he doesnt have any...and i asked him wat should i do? and all he said was to practice and think of somehting that will make me cry...this sounds crazy but can someone give me some advice on how i can do that?? pleasee...i am having a show next tuesday please help me !!

Answer 1

I agree with some of the suggestions you've already been given, but do not put anything IN your eyes. As Mamabee said (or something similar) and what I've always been taught, half of all acting is reacting. I think you may be stressing too much about the tears and you may be taking yourself out of character and out of the scene while you worry too much about that. Try getting together with your scene partner without your advisor present. Run through the scene and don't worry about tearing up. Try to be present in the moment of when the scene takes place. Be your character and try your best to be true to how your character would react whether or not tears come. If te character doesn't cry, she doesn't cry. You focus on your character and your scene.

If after your private rehearsals, tears are not part of your own character and scene breakdowns then get some Vicks vapo rub and put a small amount on a hankerchief or something you can use in the scene. Do NOT get this into or too close to your eyes, but putting it close will likely bring the tears to help you get started. If the emotion isn't there, try laughing. It's very close to crying believe it or not and can be disguised as or turned into crying with a facial expression.

Break a leg!
Marianne

Answer 2

It's not easy. If you're new to acting, don't be too hard on yourself if you have trouble doing it.

Some actors conceal pieces of raw onion in a handkerchief and dab at their eyes with that to make the tears flow. Some try to think of something that has made them cry in real life -- the death of a pet for tears of grief, a loved one coming home safe from war for tears of joy, something like that. Other actors dislike that technique because it takes them out of the play, gets them thinking about their own life at a moment when they should be doing all they can to live inside their character's life. For some actors, the only way to produce tears is to commit completely to whatever the character is experiencing. If you can find a way to really want what your character wants and feel what your character feels, you will just naturally cry when your character cries. If you can't manage that, you'll find that other aspects of crying -- the quavering voice, the heaving chest and shoulders -- are easier to do that the actual tears.

Answer 3

I easily have rejected each and all the above solutions with the aid of fact they fail to nicely known that what makes an actor cry is that he's the character and the character is crying. a minimum of it fairly is so if the actor is doing what an actor is meant to do and that's react to stimuli with the aid of fact the character. If there's a stimulus interior the scene that makes the character cry, the actor who's in character will cry. If the actor does no longer cry in such circumstances, this is with the aid of fact the actor keeps getting between the character and his reaction and starts annoying approximately no rely if he will cry, approximately what's going to human beings say of him and so on. yet one extra reason this occurs is that the actor has analyzed the scene too plenty and has planned what reaction he will have at each and each 2d of the scene. What could take place is that the actor reviews the stimuli of the scene without a pre-set reaction and he in basic terms shall we himself respond completely and actual to those stimuli as they occor. It takes some prepare to get out of ways of your reactions and enable them to take place, yet you're able to do it. in case you have intellectually found that the character is crying at a undeniable factor, the communicate that the playwright has given you will make you cry at that factor in case you employ your speeches as a reaction to those stimuli thjat are interior the scene. for this reason, there is not any choose for pepper or affective memory or pinching your self. React, and additionally you will cry.

Answer 4

Look, you need to pay attention to what is being said to you and what you are saying during this scene. If you really pay attention then you will start to feel what the character is feeling and the tears will come naturally. Acting is reacting! React to what is going on in the scene how the character would. That is your job as an actor.

Good Luck.

Answer 5

I've needed to do things similar to this... I actually have a wierd process that you can try if you'd like; it kind of works for me...

Next time you cry or feel sad, look in the mirror (it sounds crazy and silly), but make note of the shape of your mouth, the shape of your eyes... focus on the tensest part of your body at that moment (for me, it is the corner of my lips... I tend to frown when I cry).

Now, when you are practicing for the crying scene, tense up that "tense organ" that stiffens when you cry (i.e., the corner of my lips). Now, you might feel like you are resuming the crying position...

Next, while resuming the "crying position," you are going to think about someone that you love dearly...someone that you can't live without. Now, think about something horrifying: something harming/killing that special someone (gruesome and awful, I know). For me, I think about my mother getting into some form of a car accident (G-D FORBID) and me never getting a chance to say goodbye/tell her I love her.

Your eyes should begin to water...good luck!!!

If this doesn't work/is too upsetting for you, try visine before you go on stage heehee.

Best of luck :-)

Answer 6

I know this sounds weird but maybe before your cue to cry you can like look at the other character or at the audience or like into space for a long time and you'll gradually start getting tears.. try it!

Hope that helped!

Answer 7

be prepared. there are many, many very experienced and famous actresses who cannot make themselves tear up. don't forget that it is a bodily function, not always something you can command. if you happen to be one of these individuals who really cannot make themselves cry, focus on the emotion. you can use your voice and emotion to convey the same ideas to the audience. sometimes this is just as good, if not better, than having real tears. good luck!

Answer 8

I wish I knew how to put it into words. It's always been something that I could just do on cue without really thinking about, almost on a subconcious level.

Answer 9

i think of something really sad, like i'll never see my puppy or grandaddy ever again.