Lust, Rage, and Actor Training

Lust and rage - both can feel like dirty words.

Dangerous. Like we’ll be judged for even naming them. But they’re fundamental human experiences, and they show up in stories, films, plays all the time. If you shy away from them as an actor, you’re leaving entire worlds unexplored.

And of course, it's not just lust and rage, every actor has certain emotional states they’re more comfortable with - and others they avoid, suppress, or simply don’t access.

For some, it’s sadness that gets squeezed. For others it might be contempt, hatred, joy, playfulness, shame, or even stillness. Which ones you avoid, which feel most vulnerable and raw, depends on your personality structure, your programmed responses, and your lived experience.

From Brene Brown's book Atlas of the Heart

Your body doesn’t know the difference between when you're working/acting and your actual reality.

When you allow lust or rage or [insert word of your choice] to ripple through you, your nervous system still responds. Your heart rate changes, your blood chemistry shifts, your muscles tighten or release. To your body, it’s all happening.

That’s powerful. But it’s also where so many actors get stuck.

Because it’s not enough to learn how to "go there" (your given circumstances). You also need to practise how to put them down.

The shadow self we’d rather not show

Psychologists talk about the shadow self - the parts of us we hide, reject, or deny.

Maybe hatred or lust, desire, taking up space. It might be about being perceived as weak or getting things wrong or it might be rage.

But when you avoid them, you also avoid depth. You narrow your range.

In training, I encourage actors to explore these shadowy places safely - so they can access them when the work calls for it, and then put them down without carrying the residue into the rest of their day.

That’s the key: the and then put them down.

What it looks like in the room

Let me give you a glimpse from one of my actor training retreats.

I paired two actors, Rhia and Al, in an exercise that was set up specifically to explore parts of themselves they shy away from.

It's important to say at this point that there is no rush, no pressure, no ego, no expectations, everyone is free to work on what they want to work on and what they're ready to work on.

They had essential conversations about consent (another blog to follow) that would be the boundaries they lived truthfully under. They set up really beautiful and complex given circumstances.

Both of them have both done a lot of training with me, they have been building their own foundations and trust within themselves and they trust the space and they trusted each other.

It's when the exercise ends that I get curious - can they let it go? Can they take responsibility for themselves and put it down? Can they send the signal down into their beating hearts this is just work, you are just a person I'm working with. I am safe. Messages they might need to send through many times over.

They literally glowed. Beaming. Not because they’d lost themselves, but because they’d allowed themselves to pick it up (surrender to their circumstances) and then put it down.

That’s what I want for every actor: the freedom to welcome the rawness of being wholly human without getting stuck.

Practising the art of putting it down

Actors are told to access emotional states. It is my understanding few are trained in a) how to do that safely and effortlessly and b) how to let them keep moving so they don't get stuck.

It is that knowing and that skill, that ability to be open enough it all keeps moving through that keeps you are safe, resilient, and available for the next take, the next scene, the next hours, days, weeks or months. It’s what stops the work from chewing you up.

It’s also what makes you magnetic to watch. Because when you know you can come back to yourself, you stop holding back. You stop playing it safe.

Why lust, rage and actor training matters

Acting isn’t about suffering. It isn’t about proving how far you can push yourself.

It’s about truthful connection. It’s about play. It’s about allowing as many parts of your humanity that you chose to be available, without fear of breaking yourself in the process.

So yes, we’ll talk about lust. We’ll talk about rage and all the other colours of you. And we’ll practise them, give them a voice and space to move. All whilst also practising the art of then putting your given circumstances down again afterwards.

Because that’s where the freedom lies.

Steph x