Page 3 of Method Acting

Amos Beddington

The eight of us sat at the round table reading the very brief script outline. The thing with reality TV was that, yes, while it was technically scripted, a lot of it wasn’t. This was an exercise in method acting, after all. We were to become the character. We were to behave, to act, to be in our everyday lives as the character would be.

Which was ourselves, but not entirely.

We had character names, but these characters were to be us. They would go to our classes, hang out with our friends. For as long as there was a camera on me, I was Elijah. Elijah James, whose boyfriend of twelve months was Dominic Davis.

Dominic, played by none other than Chase Soria. Chase, who was super popular, hot as hell, loved by all. Insatiable flirt, serial dater, but never serious. Apparently. Not that I’d noticed.

Not that I cared.

Not that I’d known that he’s dated both girls and guys, a different person every other week, but was happy to keep his options open, impossible to nail down.

Not that I’d heard these things. Not that I’d cared.

Because I knew damn well he’d never looked at me.

That I knew of.

Because for all the times I’d looked at him, never once had I caught his eye.

I clearly wasn’t his type.

Not that I cared.

Maybe he wasn’t my type anyway.

Maybe I could lie to myself about that because, while I told myself the all-American guy next door was not my type, I kept finding myself drawn to him. Spotting him in a crowd, seeing him every time he crossed the quad, or finding myself wishing he’d look my way just once...

So yeah, this whole production was going to be a true test of my acting skills.

How to act the part of his boyfriend convincingly while acting like I didn’t care.

“Elijah James,” I read out loud when it was my turn. “Twenty-year-old fine arts student, gay. Boyfriend of Dominic Davis.” I gave a quick glance up to Chase, though he was reading along, not looking at me. “We met in our second year of college. Elijah is brooding, serious. Aloof and mysterious and prickly to everyone but those who know him.”

I glanced again at Chase, as I often did, to find him still reading along, still not looking at me, and wait... did he smile at that?

What did that mean? That I was prickly?

I went back to my outline. “Elijah is loyal and fiercely protective.”

So, my character was basically me.

Had he been written with me in mind?

And after everyone had read their character traits out loud, I realized all these characters were similar to the actor portraying them. And then I realized it was for good reason.

So they’d be believable.

So we could spend this entire production being this character, method acting, without too much disruption to our normal lives.

“My character is basically me,” Chase said. “Funny, well-liked, popular.”

“Humble,” Holly added.

Chase laughed. “No, that’s not listed here.”

“They’re all like us,” Max said.

---