Brendan O’Malley is an actor, musician and freelance writer living and working in Los Angeles. His compositions have been featured in several short films and on Showtime’s hit series Brotherhood. His band The Congress Of American Musicologists recently released a single on 9/11 called “Good Bye New York”. As an actor he is currently rehearsing Sick, a new play by Erik Patterson which will open at the Los Angeles Theater Center in April and he has appeared in numerous films and television shows. He is a member of The Workshop with Jeffrey Tambor and blogs about music and books at hypnopomp and circumstance.

I have recently been thinking about what it means to be an actor, how our systems are supposed to be these reservoirs of reaction and control, how we are constantly fighting a battle to keep our confidence while maintaining our sensitivity. Quite often these disparate elements can make for a maddening experience.

And that led me to a crucial component in the life of an actor. Storytelling. It is a simple idea, one so simple that I think it occasionally gets lost in the shuffle. We focus on delivering a line, booking a job, impressing a casting director. None of those things have anything to do with the actual STORY we are supposed to be telling. They might be part of OUR story, but they have nothing to do with the JOB.

That’s why reading is critical. When you watch a movie you wonder how the actors got their auditions. You wonder how whoever wrote it came up with the idea. You applaud/denigrate the “name” actors who anchor the film. In short, even though you are ostensibly in the theater to be entertained, what you are more likely to be experiencing is a kind of business meeting.

With a book, all of that malarkey goes out the window. There is you and there is the story. Your brain must submit. And while it might not have anything to do with the world of auditions, breakdowns, dialogue, etc., that submission is a great learning tool as an actor.

Which brings me back to the task at hand. Finding 10 books to spur your imagination. To trigger some artistic shift, some as-yet-unreached internal bravery that allows you to cry easier when needed, to be funny at a shocking moment, to be sexy in a new way. In short, to reinvent yourself.

Reading can be a direct channel to those gifts which give us our power as performers. They will not fail us. But they will recede if we do not feed them. They can find nourishment deep within the secret passageways of our imaginations but we have to find those catalysts further and further from ourselves if we are to be truly free as artists.

I will cite one example from a book that I won’t be reviewing here…Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. There is a scene (and I won’t give it away) in which a character who is not too likeable reveals something quite shocking about themselves. This revelation brought me to tears.

I recently auditioned for a television show and the scene called for tears. I read the passage over a couple of times before I went in for my audition, filled up with the emotional response that it invokes, and lo and behold, I cried on command.

This list is a sort of toolbox for any actor to delve into should they need a little help.

1. Endurance by Alfred Lansing
   Most people are at least mildly familiar with the tale of Ernest Shackleton’s now famous attempt to cross the Antarctic via the South Pole on foot. His ship, aptly titled the ‘Endurance’, wound up being crushed slowly by ice floes drifting through the harsh Antarctic Ocean. The expedition survived on the shifting ice for nearly a year before making a mad heroic dash for dry land. Many versions of this amazing tale exist, but Lansing’s book is, to my mind, the definitive word on the subject. The exhaustive research, the interviews with every surviving crew member (none of them died on the expedition itself, probably the LEAST amazing feat that is recounted which should give you an idea of how insane this story gets) – none of that would be worth a nickel if Lansing botched the drama inherent in this saga. Any time I need a jolt of courage I think of Ernest Shackleton and how he somehow kept his head about him while FLOATING ON ICE WITH NOTHING BUT A FEW GLORIFIED ROWBOATS ALMOST 1,000 MILES AWAY FROM LAND. This book will help you put a bad day in perspective right quick.
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
   Told in first person, Jane Eyre plunges us into the psyche of this tough strange woman fighting for survival against Victorian odds, which is to say, long indeed. The psychological insight that Bronte wields within Eyre’s inner monologue is staggering but Eyre herself has a keen eye for emotional detail. The cumulative effect is one of being stripped of your defenses, twisting away from the revelations that you know must occur. Knowing how much of the atmosphere of this novel is drawn from the author’s own personal experience only adds to the historical crush that I have on Charlotte and all the other hot Brontes.  It’s also not a bad model for an actor. Use what you know.
3. The Fermata by Nicholson Baker
   This one is a little embarrassing. But it can come in handy in a pinch for the actor who has to do a role involving (gasp) sexual themes. Sex is hard enough in private. Switch it to a public arena and the difficulty is exponentially greater. The Fermata tells the tale of a temp who has discovered that he can stop time using various strategies. He doesn’t use this power for any great purpose, mainly he just takes girls clothes off and…well, you can find out for yourself. It may sound creepy but the whole tone of the book is one of harmless experimentation, which is a helpful attitude to cultivate for that moment when a director says “Action!” and you have to block out the boom guy in order to feel intimate. (If the idea of a time-enabled peeping tom is too much for your Victorian morals to take, see also Vox by Baker which is one long phone sex conversation!)
4. The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf; illustrated by Robert Lawson
   This book about a bull who just wants to sit under a tree and smell the flowers so completely transports me to my childhood that it is almost a hallucinogenic experience. The drawings by Robert Lawson are hypnotic. They lull you into the same reverie that our sweet protagonist Ferdinand is reveling in. Just like Ferdinand I can’t imagine why I’d want to turn away from such beauty for something as savage as a bull-fight. But there is also a hidden message of self-empowerment in this book that I rather overlooked as a child. The bee that Ferdinand inadvertently sits upon unleashes a volley of cataclysmic fury which is mistaken for the uncontrollable power of a champion bull. Ferdinand HAS that kind of power within him, he merely chooses to channel it differently. A wonderful metaphor for an actor.
5. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
   Harriet is an odd 11 year old girl who clomps around her New York neighborhood obsessively recording her observations about the people in her life. She wears hi-tops, big clunky black glasses and clothing that allows her to disappear and watch. The turbulence of pre-teen life is woven so delicately into this miniature adventure novel that one might miss it altogether. Her dedication to her instincts gets her into trouble when her “journal” is read, yes, but the alienation that results merely refocuses her more determinedly to her sense of purpose. Harriet is so swept away by the desire to become a writer that she fails to recognize that she already is one. By the end of the book she has channeled her talents into efforts that will protect her, buoy her, and enrich her life. Sound familiar, actors/actresses?
6. Life After God by Douglas Coupland
   Here is another book I’ve used to get the tank back up to full before an audition. As much as I believe that acting should be as personal as possible, I also find that when we get lost in our own histories our sense of storytelling can sometimes shrink. Using an external source can sometimes free me up to new possibility. This book is a string of seemingly unconnected episodes, all detailing lives that are coming apart at the seams. It is a tiny book with child-like line drawings that only heighten the sense of adults being reduced by their circumstances. I’ve given this tiny book to many friends going through trying times. It fits in your pocket and reminds you. You are not alone.
7. Against The Day by Thomas Pynchon
   Pynchon fascinates me. So reclusive that only one known photo of him exists, this leaves the world NOTHING BUT HIS ART TO CONTEMPLATE. Some think it is a passive aggressive way of drawing the world in but after almost 50 years on the scene you’ve got to give the guy some props for staying so far underground. This book came out in 2006 and I’m just getting to it now. It involves the exploits of a band of zeppelin superheroes named ‘The Chums of Chance’, Nikolai Tesla, time-travel, the mystical city Shambhala, Anarchists addicted to detonation, and enough raunchy sex to make me blush one day while taking the bus to Santa Monica. You will forget who you are while reading this book and that is always a good thing.
8. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
   When you write a perfect book you are not obliged to repeat yourself. Everyone loves to make a big deal about how J.D.Salinger withdrew after the success of Catcher In The Rye but Harper Lee makes Salinger look like Stephen King by comparison. One book. One. But what a book. If you need a refresher course in the psychology of small town America, here it is. If you need to clue in to the undercurrent of racism that streams back into history in this country, here it is. If you need to sense how people have attempted to stem that flow by virtue and moral fortitude, here it is. In short, if you are ever feeling unpatriotic, let Harper Lee learn you a few things. Imagine yourself nailing a part so exactly that you no longer feel the need to act. “Mockingbird” is like Mt. Rushmore. You forget it’s there but it is looming as we speak.
9. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
   I know, I know, The Catcher in the Rye is the touchstone of the modern teenage experience and it perfectly embodies the sense of alienation that all artists at one time or another have suffered through. However, Franny and Zooey is almost a love letter to the artistic life, a herald cry that says, “We must be the way we are. You need us. We are ESSENTIAL.” If Catcher in the Rye is the smash opening night, Franny and Zooey is the magical rehearsal process that no one is allowed to witness but is as special as the performance itself. (Take that, Harper Lee!)
10. A Room Of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
    I thought it fitting to end this list with a book which all but defines the conundrum of the artist. How to continue to create in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds? How to block out all the distractions, how to ignore the real hardships, how to forge ahead in spite of everything that could justifiably stop you in your tracks? Virginia Woolf is not fucking around here. How can such quiet rumination be so angry? That is real power. Let Woolf into your head for a while and it’s like having one of those super-organizers repurpose your whole brain-space.  To set the record straight once and for all, I am afraid of Virginia Woolf. In a good way.

10 books. Food for the brain; fodder for the heart. The artistic life is an eternal furnace and it needs stoking. Throw these on the fire and see how hot you get. And remember, they might be printed on paper and pulp, but words are the original CGI. Anything is possible.