Mark Evans Studio

 The leaves are turning, the days are shortening, and apparently we’re all expected to start liking pumpkin. Transitions can unsettle us. We get comfortable. We find a rhythm. Then something shifts. But perhaps, as artists, we can meet change with curiosity rather than resistance. How is this next season going to affect me? What might it bring out in me? Energy, melancholy, excitement, irritation, hope? Whatever arrives is useful. It becomes part of the ever-growing collection of experiences we carry into our work. And feelings are remarkably temporary things. We can transition into frustration in seconds and, sometimes just as quickly, transition out of it. We are not required to remain loyal to a feeling simply because it arrived first. The same is true in our acting. We can become strangely attached to our idea of a scene. We decide where the emotional moment happens, what the scene is “about”, how a particular line should feel. Then we spend the scene trying to preserve it. But...

There are moments in this industry when the business of acting can become louder than the reason we started. The emails. The auditions. The waiting. The self-tapes. The callbacks that don’t become bookings. The endless wondering about what’s next. And sometimes, without even realizing it, something starts to shift. The excitement gets quieter. The work feels heavier. We become more focused on getting somewhere than on the extraordinary privilege of being an actor. So, as we head into the fall, I want us to remind ourselves of something: Acting is incredible. We get to step into another person’s life and, for a few minutes, experience the world through their eyes. We get to tell stories that make people laugh, cry, question, understand, remember and feel less alone. We get to play. We get to imagine. We get to collaborate with wildly talented, passionate, strange, generous, complicated human beings and create something that did not exist before we walked into the room. That is extraordi...

  There is a particular kind of energy we can bring to our lives that feels productive, but often isn’t. The frantic energy. The tense determination. The feeling that if we just push harder, move faster, concentrate more intensely, somehow we will get better results. But what if the opposite is true? What if we could accomplish just as much, perhaps even more, by dialing down the frantic energy and simply taking a breath? It is surprising how effectively we can work, create, perform and communicate when we remove some of the tension from the equation. We don’t necessarily need to be less committed. We don’t need to care less. We simply need to stop gripping so tightly. Tension rarely serves us in life, and it definitely doesn’t serve us in our acting. Think about a scene that requires enormous emotional intensity. The instinct can be to tighten everything - the jaw, shoulders, stomach, hands, breath. We think that because the character is experiencing tension, our body must be tens...

  Ten months ago, my son was smaller than a sesame seed. Just sit with that for a moment. Today, I’m looking at his tiny ears - perfectly formed. His fingernails, impossibly delicate. I listen to the little grunts and groans he makes as his lungs learn to do a job they were never asked to do before. For nine months he relied entirely on an umbilical cord. Now, every breath is his own. Every cry, every stretch, every yawn is another step in his remarkable introduction to the world. How is any of this possible? The more I stare at him, the more I realise how disconnected many of us have become from the sheer wonder of nature. We walk past trees without noticing the way they continue to grow. We barely think about the complexity of a flower blooming or a bird navigating thousands of miles across continents. Creation surrounds us every second of every day, yet we’ve somehow become numb to it. And then a child arrives and reminds you that life itself is the greatest miracle you’ll ever ...

Life has a funny way of reminding us what really matters. Last week, my family and I jumped on a plane to San Diego because it looked like our son was about to arrive. Our incredible surrogate was showing signs that things were moving quickly, so we packed our bags, kissed our routines goodbye, and headed west. A week later... We're still waiting. We've spent three nights in a hotel, followed by several days in an Airbnb that could have benefited greatly from a deep clean, and now we're about to move into another Airbnb as we continue waiting for our little boy to make his entrance. Today, my four-year-old daughter quietly said, "I miss home." It was as though she'd reached into my own head and spoken my thoughts out loud. So we started making a list. "I miss my playroom," she said. "I miss our shower," I replied. "My toys." "Our coffee maker." "My bedroom." "Our bed." "The green car and my car s...

  I heard someone say something on a podcast recently that has been echoing around my head ever since: “Stop trying so hard to make the right choice.” It struck me because it feels so relevant to life in general, but especially to artists. And for us as actors, it couldn’t be more applicable. So much of an actor’s life is spent searching for “the right.” The right interpretation. The right emotion. The right objective. The right way to deliver a line. The right audition. The right agent. The right career move. We become convinced that somewhere out there is a correct answer, and if we can just think hard enough or prepare long enough, we’ll find it. But acting doesn’t work that way. Neither does life. The best work doesn’t come from trying to be right. It comes from being present. From listening. From responding truthfully. From allowing yourself to be actually affected by what’s happening instead of trying to manufacture the “correct” performance.  When you’re focused on maki...