Emotional Recall & Sensory Recall

Whether on stage, or in front of a camera, actors are required to act with a spurt of emotional response that may be tough to deliver unless they dig deep into their past. Emotional recall is bringing back to memory any event in your previous experiences that have triggered certain emotions that your present character demands. That memory from the past is then applied to your character to get the same emotion in the present. Many actors use music to help trigger an emotion since music has a strong affect on how people feel. For instance, the melodic music played right before the bride walks down the aisle has more of an evident impact on people’s response as oppose to if the bridal party walked with no music. To this day a bride may hear “Canon in D,” and begin to cry as she remembers the very music that played as she saw her groom standing at the altar. First, it is important to know what emotion your character needs to exhibit. Then, close your eyes and focus on a past memory that lead to that emotion, whether it be jealousy, love, hate, anger, sadness, etc. Go through your memory in explicit detail, (remembering how things looked, smelled, tasted, what happened right before, etc). You should reach a target moment where you laugh, cry, become angry, tense, etc, all in response to reliving your memory. Once the desired emotion occurs, you have successfully used emotional recall to achieve your goal!

            Sense memory helps an actor recall the physical sensations their character must physically respond to, which can eventually cause an emotional response. In order to achieve a physical sensation correctly, you must know the reason for the emotion you are trying to achieve. If your character must feel tired, it is important to ask “from what,” before you simply “act tired.” Being tired from going to bed late and being tired from running six miles are two completely different types of tired. Think back to a time that you experienced that particular type and dwell on the physical ways you responded to being tired. For example, in response to going to bed late, you may yawn, feel groggy, or rub your eyes, but for running six miles your legs may hurt causing you to walk with a limp, you may breath heavy, or even get a rush of energy from your run, causing you to feel revived. There are tons of possibilities to discover beyond the cliché and recalling how you respond physically in your past situations can help you present more truthful responses in your acting. You never want to get caught up in forcefully showing your emotions and physical reactions. Robert Di Nero once said, “It’s important not to indicate. People don’t try to show their feelings, they try to hide them.”

 Explore emotional and sensory recall and bring back those truthful emotions!-Actors Nook Team