Shelene Atanacio is an award-winning playwright, actress, model, writer and entrepreneur originally from San Francisco.

As an actress, Shelene has graced the stage and screen with her talent of transforming herself into an array of characters; from a young Harajuko seductress in the enlightening film Harrison Montgomery starring Oscar winning actor Martin Landau; to a role closer to her heart, in her own one-woman stage piece, Underneath the Smile, which received a meritorious award for her performance and writing.

Aside from Underneath the Smile, she has written two other short plays: Death Anniversary, produced at Bindlestiff Theater and Beyond Therapy, the Filipino Way, produced at the Playwrights of Color Theater Festival. ACT From The Inside Out is her first book.

Here she offers us an excerpt from her book, ACT From the Inside Out, which grew out of her realization that acting has been an important tool in her personal growth that has helped her stretch into real life roles in both her personal and professional life.

Stretch Yourself

Stretch Out of Your Comfort Zone

In this chapter, I’m taking a cue from acting teacher Richard Seyd to encourage – or rather, command – you to take risks on this journey and reach beyond whatever you think are your limits. The name of Seyd’s method, “Stretch Work,” accurately reflects his way of working: he focuses on the actors’ weakest areas and pushes them to go for roles they don’t normally audition for, and to play characters that differ dramatically from themselves. You, too, will be working on your areas of weakness—but try to go even further, to stretch yourself in every possible way. Think outside your customary box. Break out of your comfort zone. Travel beyond the familiar. Find ways to improve and more fully express your current life roles. Stretch even further by stepping into exciting new roles and ways of being, both in acting and in real life. By now, you’ve probably grasped the concept that acting and living are inextricably entwined. In the same way that art both reflects and creates culture, the actor brings his or her life into his work and vice versa. As Al Pacino said, “By taking on roles of characters that were unlike me, I began to discover those characters in me.”

Be Thyselves

“… By stretching yourself beyond your perceived level of confidence you accelerate your development of competence.” ~Michael Gelb

Acting is a process of self-discovery, as I’ve repeatedly shown, in which you get to know yourself on a deep level. As a bonus, you get to know yourselves.

Human beings are fickle creatures, rarely the same on any given day or even from moment to moment. Our moods can change with the weather, a bit of overheard music, the cycles of the moon. Adults don’t have too many places where they get to play with their varying moods. The realm of sexuality is one arena for grownup play. Acting is another.

Comfort is always easiest and safe – but true growth and the unleashing of our divine spirits can only happen when we stretch outside our comfort zones.

“The best teachers of fearlessness and having a raw unfiltered joy for life are kids. Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
~Pablo Picasso

Did you ever play dress-up as a kid? Or pretend, with friends or by yourself, to be different people: cowhands, soldiers, pilots, ballerinas? If so, you’ll remember the joy of putting on a costume, even if there wasn’t much to it: a kid’s imagination is so broad that a scrap of fabric or a doll’s severed braid is sometimes enough for transformation. Remember what it was like, not just thinking you were a Martian, but really and truly being one, body and soul? (Lily Tomlin and Eddie Murphy have retained this childhood power—all alone on an empty stage, they transform themselves physically, sometimes without changing so much as a hat.) In the theatrical world, adults get to play the way they did as children, and to express their many personae. In this arena, we reveal and become acquainted with parts of ourselves we might never get to know otherwise.

Growing up demanded that you “put away childish things” and fit yourself into one slot, labeled salesperson or teacher or truck driver. So, what became of the bold, quirky Martian?

She got buried. Not killed, mind you—just buried. That wacky Martian is still inside you, and with a little coaxing, you can get her to come out and play. To access your inner Martian, and any other buried characters, you’ll have to re-learn the art of child’s play. It’s a well-guarded secret that what we call acting techniques are really just children’s games with a touch of sophistication thrown in to appeal to adults.

Too many people stop living life, especially as they get older. They stop trying to improve their relationships or having fun with themselves or other people. That’s something I love about acting: being able to experiment, explore and have fun.

Archetypal Roles

Some roles, in art and in life, are so common they’re known as archetypes. These are universal, in that they live inside everyone. The most common of these is the inner child.

ACTING Exercise: Discover the World for the First Time

Objective: To cultivate enthusiasm for life and let yourself be silly.
If you are really committed to the process, you can re-create anything you want to with genuineness and sincerity. In this exercise, you get to be a child and cultivate child-like wonder. Children can usually entertain themselves, especially very young ones—they discover something in everything they do.

To do this exercise, go and play with some children. Transform yourself into their playmate with the same enthusiasm as they have.

Silly: Derives from the Greek ‘selig’ meaning ‘blessed’. There’s something sacred in being silly.
~Paul Pearsall in The Heart’s Code

Enthusiasm: Rooted in the Greek word enthusiasmos,which comes from the adjective entheos meaning “having the god within.”

The people who are most successful in creating and stretching into new life roles are those who approach life with enthusiasm.

Unleash Your Inner Goddess

Another universal persona that takes some effort to contact is the inner god or goddess. Like the inner child, the god inside us remains unspoiled by social and cultural barriers. Your inner god/dess exists, even if you haven’t seen him or her in a long time. Can you access your goddess (the god and goddess actually have no specific gender)?

The inner god or goddess in you is the strong, sexy, sensual, confident, charismatic part of yourself. Think of men and women who embody these qualities: Cleopatra, Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep; Jack Nicholson, Brad Pitt. For a long time, I had a crush on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for his confident and charismatic speeches. I like intelligence in a man.

In acting class, you can always spot the people who naturally lead with these parts of themselves. For others, the god/dess exists but stays hidden. In an acting class, you can choose scripts containing these roles or participate in improvisation exercises that bring out your inner goddess.

Taking risks is a big component in acting, as well as in real life, when it comes to stretching yourself. Physical safety is always a priority, but to get anywhere in life and move beyond what’s comfortable always requires some degree of risk-taking. In acting, we are repeatedly encouraged to take risks in our choices.

Discovering the Inner Goddess in the Real World

In real life, opportunities abound for dress rehearsals. For instance, I’ve participated in a number of what are called ‘mastermind groups,’ in which like-minded individuals support and encourage each other to accomplish goals in their careers and personal lives. In one such group, one of my goals was to complete this book by writing every day. Another person’s goal was to unleash her inner goddess in everyday life. She was innately shy, especially around the opposite sex. Thus, her task for the week was to let out her confident, sexy, playful, and feminine side by “flexing her flirtatiousness.” When she came back to the group, she reported excitedly about flirting everywhere – at the gym, with her waiter, with a bank teller. She was exhilarated and full of self-confidence – and she was having fun!

Relationships and Marriage

“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant.”
~ 1 Corinthians 13:4

As they say, all work and no play makes for a very boring life. What better place to have fun and explore the various parts of yourself than in a safe and trusting relationship?

If you are married or have a significant other, you have an opportunity to stretch into your sensuality and sexiness. Life is short, and marriage can last a lifetime – so you better put some fun into it.

Although it’s definitely fun to play with your inner child and inner goddess, on a more serious note, you can also nurture the intimate and loving aspects of yourself within your relationship, such as patience, kindness, and tolerance. These ways of being in relationships can be practiced, much like rehearsing characters from a script or through improvisation. Exploring ourselves and our partner within a relationship is a way to enrich and improve the quality of our lives. I am referring to all kinds of relationships—with colleagues, children, sisters, brothers, friends. Every relationship offers the opportunity to explore the traits we would like to develop and/or strengthen.

Understanding Character Breakdown

“When you engage in systematic, purposeful acting, using and stretching your abilities to the maximum, you cannot help but feel positive and confident about yourself.”
~Brian Tracy

Studying characterization from a dramatic perspective is useful as a guide for determining where and how you fit into certain types, as well as where your strengths and weaknesses lie. In the context of acting, characters are classified into three broad categories:

Leading Roles – Those who carry the show

Supporting Roles – Those who support the leading roles

Background or Extra Parts – Serve as filler, like the “extras” in a crowd scene

Yes, every actor wants to be the star. I know you won’t believe it, but none of these character types are any better or more important than the others. All three are necessary to the cast, with the exception of very small productions that don’t require extras. Every part is equal in the sense that they’re needed, just as in life: where would we be without followers, or without the different kinds of people needed and willing to carry on the work of the world?

Which category do you fit into – leading role, supporting role, or extra? Chances are you’re all three, depending on the situation. The flexible person adapts to circumstances, and can sometimes lead, and other times follow. Of course, some people are simply born leaders. For our purposes, the important thing is to figure out which type of roles you feel most comfortable in, and in which ones your performance is weak. If, say, you’re accustomed to leading, you’ll probably feel most comfortable playing a leading part. In that case, following the theory of “Stretch Work,” you would be expanding your repertoire by playing a supporting role, or even an extra, more often.

It’s not easy to play a supporting role in a play or movie. Humility is called for: you can’t go around upstaging the lead players throughout the production or there’ll be nasty consequences. Maybe your role is just to actively listen, acknowledge, support, and encourage. How easy do you think it was for the Roberts Duvall and deNiro, both well-established Hollywood superstars, to play supporting roles in The Godfather Part II, while Al Pacino, a rising young whippersnapper, starred as Michael Corleone? Think of them whenever you’re called upon to support the lead in a production.

ACTING Exercise: Cast yourself in a supporting role

Although many of us want to be leaders, there are times when the more appropriate role is to listen and support others – especially if you’re married or have children or siblings. As the oldest daughter and sister in my family, I tend to be the most outspoken. I am the Ate, which is a respectful term in Tagalog meaning older sibling or cousin. As I’ve gotten wiser, and because I truly wish to encourage others, especially those in my family, to stretch into new roles, I’ve learned that sometimes my role as older sister or daughter is not necessarily to take charge and figure things out, but rather to take a step back and really listen, encourage and support whatever’s going on. Sometimes my role is to give my little sister the opportunity and encouragement to move into leadership roles. So, find a situation in which you can exercise these vitally important active listening and supporting skills.

Perhaps your child comes home with a problem. Instead of telling him or her how to solve it, ask how they feel about it and encourage them to find the solution. Provide support with comments like “How does that make you feel?” or “What do you think you should do about it?” and ”How can I help you?”

The Power and Burden of Assumptions

One of my pet peeves as an actor and in my life is being boxed into a certain type or way of being, whether it’s based on someone’s assumptions of me or some way in which I hold myself back. I was typecast at a very young age, so I had to challenge people’s assumptions early on. As a young woman, a Filipina, an actress, a model, and a single mother, I’ve had people make certain assumptions about me. It seems that no matter what roles you hold in life, people will always make assumptions. My goal is to not be mastered by whatever is assumed to be my weakness, but rather to find the strength to move beyond these assumptions.

In learning to understand our resistances and the power of the subconscious, we must pay attention to the high impact we can exert upon ourselves and others. The words we speak, or the assumptions we mistakenly make about a person can affect them, even if unconsciously, for the rest of their lives.

Challenge Assumptions

As an actor, it is my desire to continually stretch and transform myself into a variety of roles. So far, I’ve had the opportunity to play a terrorist guerilla leader, a sword-fighting evil temptress, a secret agent, an eighty-year-old woman, and even a French boy – Francois – in a children’s play. In real life, I have the same desire to stretch into bigger ideal life roles – as an actress, of course, but also as a business woman, entrepreneur, investor, dancer, mother, writer, and author. I’ve experienced enough of being boxed in by others; it’s a stifling feeling I hope to never have to face again.

“Somewhere in the archives of crudest instinct is recorded the truth that it is better to be endangered and free than captive and comfortable.”
~Tom Robbins

In real life, this same approach can open up a world of opportunities and possibilities of growth and success, whether by improving your relationships, finding out more about who you are, or exploring a line of work that you never knew you were good at. This takes us back to the very first chapter, to understanding the way we learn and the opportunity to live up to our fullest potential. We can’t know unless we try. It’s like building a repertoire of food, wine, or music, except in this case you’re building a repertoire of ways of being. If life is an art, it stands to reason we should try to find as many ways as we can to have fun and be creative. Unless you explore it, you won’t know whether it’s in you or can work for you.

Case Study: I met a highly successful financial advisor in his late 40’s who was leading a financial workshop. I was inspired by his charisma and moved by his presentation. He shared his personal story with the audience. Not too long before, he’d been known as a wallflower—all his life, he’d been shy and awkward.

For six years, he had worked in an environment in which he sat behind a desk, almost invisible, doing paperwork. Encouraged by a colleague, he ventured into financial advising, although he doubted he was equipped with the personality to be successful at it. Slowly, but surely, he took action steps to stretch his weaknesses. He started by practicing presentations alone, then for his close family, and finally for friends. Pretty soon, he was leading workshops and seminars in crowded rooms.

He’d discovered and unleashed a part of himself he’d never known he had while sitting behind a desk. In fact, this man was possessed of a natural charm, wit, and charisma that never failed to move audiences. Consequently, he became successful—and, perhaps more important, he loves what he’s doing. He loves to share his story with audiences. Now, he pursues and presents his work with as much enthusiasm and passion as a child exploring the world for the first time. This natural energy continually attracts more clients, leading to greater success.

Interested in reading more?  ACT From the Inside Out is available in our store.