So I’m sitting at my desk working on a project when very gradually the left side of my face decided that I no longer had the right to tell it what to do. I still had feeling on my face, but the muscles had stopped responding to the commands of my brain and sagged with nonchalance. This new day-to-day companion of mine is called Bell’s Palsy, and as of this writing, I’ve had him for 40 days. Currently, I am embracing the victory of being able to move my left cheek and lip just a little.
My niche in the New York City market is being the musical theater guy who can play the other ten characters on the show. In the world of print, I’m the kind of flexible face that looks great through a fisheye lens. Commercially, my marketable expressions link reliability and comic disorientation. My career as an announcer depends on my lips as articulators. In five minutes, all of that stopped. As the left side of my face continued to slide down, it felt like every part of my multifaceted career had been taken away from me. Who am I if I don’t have my face? I felt a strong urge to hide under my bed at home until it was all over, hosting my own pity party.
Did you know? There’s something about 33 Chilean miners being pulled off the ground and a good friend working on stage 4 breast cancer to put things in perspective. A dedicated and loving husband also helps. I chose to talk about it. I changed my Facebook profile photo to reflect my current Palsy Chic and chose to post about how my career strategy was changing. From that, I have had a wonderful outpouring of encouragement and support from family and friends. These are some of the things that I keep learning.
BEING HEALTHY IS BEING FLEXIBLE. No matter what we look like, there are roles for us, even if our market is limited. In October I had been a bit grotesque. So, I reached out to my commercial and camera printing agents and encouraged them to introduce me for Halloween commercials. I responded to background actors’ calls for anything requiring hospital patients or low-brow types, informing them that I had Bell’s Palsy and that it would be a shoe. My voice-over agent continues to send me for featured campaigns, knowing that even if my face suddenly healed, I could recreate the Buddy Hackett sounds coming out of my mouth naturally. Last week, I was updated on the set of Onion Sports Network because they needed someone to look like a creepy member of the Russian Olympic Committee. I still have the same skill set and experience. My brand has just temporarily changed.
LEARN TO PRIORITIZE. It’s too easy to oversold when we see an open space on the calendar. When Bell’s palsy hit, I had to put my mind on prioritizing vital recovery and rest. I left the time to open ten medical appointments (including chiropractic and acupuncture), a schedule to take four prescriptions and four more natural supplements, and an MRI. I also turned down five concerts for which I had time on my calendar, but which would have consumed psychic energy to memorize and work on the music. It’s amazing what we can do when we make that prioritization decision. What is that urgent for you? Practicing your vocal technique? Get to the gym? Writing your script? Make the decision to prioritize it and the time you need for it will open up for you.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR A NEW APPROACH. The voice teachers had been telling me for years to relax my jaw and lips. Well guess what? I don’t have them now and my singing has improved because I HAVE to place the sound around the soft paddle with the tip of my tongue pointing up and back. (One of the ways that I know I was correctly approaching a note in my upper range is that I feel like my left eardrum is about to explode. It hurts, but it’s tangible for now.) -People play and my facial expressions were quite limited to those of Carol Burnett’s “Nora Desmond” character. Well, the limitations free you to make more creative decisions and I explored the differentiation of my characters with different toolboxes: tone, regionalisms, vocal texture, choice of resonator and the rhythm of the character’s heartbeat.
PEOPLE DON’T CARE WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE IF THEY ARE TRUSTED. This is something I constantly hear from casting directors and agents. No matter what your body type is, confidence is sexy! Since Bell’s palsy began, I continue to meet with directors and casting agents and keep my appointments with my clients. It’s really as simple as explaining why my face looks this way and then once done, jump in and do what I do. People have been totally fine with it. I even made a video for It Gets Better Broadway, reaching out to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, recounting how, even with my face in this condition, I have a husband who sees me as the most handsome man in the world and what if they just hang on They will be there to have something great too. This brings me to the last point …
OUR MISSION IS TOO IMPORTANT TO ACCEPT DEFEAT. As an actor, I have the privilege and responsibility to help my audience go through whatever it is that they need to process right now. I’ve been developing this craft for forty years and I’m very good at it, so I choose to raise my voice in the song, bring as many characters to life as a script can contain, and hit the “soul point” of my audience with a story, either in a commercial or on a lectern.
So what is your mission? What gifts are you going to bring to the world with your trade? What long-term vision burns so strongly deep inside you that you could lose your legs, not have a penny in your name, or have your twenty-year-old lover abandon you and still find a way to report back? set the next morning? Name that mission, put it on your mirror to remind you every day, and you can change with whatever adversity life throws at you.