How To Research a Part

As homework for my class at Margie Haber Studio, I was just given a 4-page scene from the pilot episode of a TV show set in the world of the FBI. My teacher, then asked the class how we planned to prepare. "Boil a lot of water, drink a lot of tea, and eventually get down to work?" I offered. She was not impressed. Instead, she offered up these ideas for learning what is involved in living the life of an FBI agent:

• Read a book on the FBI
• Read a crime blotter ( http://www.crimeblotter.org/map/ )
• Interrogate someone, about anything. "It's my understanding this market stocks papayas. Yet, I don't see any papayas."
• Investigate something. Try and put the pieces of a mystery together.
• Call your local FBI bureau, tell them you're preparing for a role, and ask if they have any PR people or agents who would be willing to answer your questions.

Now this may seem a little preposterous, but I don't think I've ever done preparation for a role in this way before. I tend to just read the script a lot and build up a world imaginatively. Which, now that I think about it, seems like a pretty good way to create a performance that's not grounded in reality.

Whenever I get despondent about acting as a career choice, I'm usually able to re-motivate myself with the promise that acting is a way to experience all that life has to offer. I can be a policeman one day, a fireman the next, a schoolteacher, a doctor, a recluse, a roustabout - basically I'm paid to explore all of my childhood fantasies and I'm never forced to give up one in order to be another (forgot to mention: Astronaut!). But the fact of the matter is, it's been a hollow promise. I really haven't done much in the way of really exploring those other lives.

So my challenge to myself, and to other actors out there, is to: dare to live the life of the character.

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So what is it like to be an FBI agent?
Some preliminary investigation (one made-for-tv documentary and some web searching) on what's involved in being an agent has turned up:

• To be an FBI agent, you need a 4year degree and at least 3 years professional experience.
• Agents are haunted by unsolved cases for basically their entire lives.
• Agents undergo extensive training that simulates emergencies just in case one ever occurs, sometime you'll simulate something for years before you actually encounter it.
• Agents work incredibly long hours, get little vacation time, and are paid government wages.
• Working for the FBI gives most agents an incredible sense of purpose; your work has meaning. (This is the bit I'm most excited about playing)
• There is an acceptance that there will be another terrorist attack, and there is an accute fear that they won't have done all they can to prevent it.
• Agents often have to be hyper-vigilant in situations where nothing bad ever actually happens nor was going to happen (putting together security plans for big sports matches, etc).
• Working as an FBI agent often involves less action than working as a regional police officer, but it offers the promise of working on some of the largest and most important cases in the States.
• You might get the opportunity to work in beautiful foreign locales.

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Oh, and Creation #23 was a cold-reading from an episode of Law & Order. I haven't acted across from someone else in about a month, so once I got through the fear and anxiety of being rusty, it felt really good to be back in the swing of things.