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I think the transformation is rooted in actors’ commitment to their characters—their unapologetic dedication to tearing off every shred of themselves and getting down to the truth of who it is they are portraying: the angry wife who gave her all, and is disappointed in herself for not demanding it in return; the singer who depended on her man to make her a star and took his fists and kicks because she was still grateful to him for believing in her; the college basketball player struggling to hold on to her identity, knowing that doing so flies in the face of the ultrafemme, play-yourself-short, bow-to-the-man narrative society writes for women. When one commits to the truth, it becomes impossible to ignore both the character and her story. It is in that magic where the best stories lie.
I learned the value of committing to my truth from my father, who in my eyes was one of the greatest storytellers of my time. He was unrelenting in his insistence and masterful in his delivery, completely unsatisfied with his work until his audience was whooping and hollering and laughing out loud. It was the embellishing that gave his stories their luster; no matter that he was standing there right in your face, telling a bold-ass, black-ass lie, he committed to building the padding around every detail to really make his listeners think he was telling the truth—even if the subject of said story knew better.
Take, for instance, the time when he convinced my friends that I ate bugs as a child. “I’m telling you! You ate ants!” he insisted, to the howls of a handful of my friends who’d come over to chill for a spell. It’s a story I’d heard him recount all my life, but on this particular occasion, at the tender age of twelve, I’d finally figured out that he was just trying to embarrass me, the hallmark of parents’ interaction with their children’s pals. Life isn’t complete unless you take your kids down a peg or two in front of the numbskulls who hold your children in high regard and regularly celebrate their cool factor.
“Daddy, I’m not crazy,” I insisted, while my friends, lounging lazily on the swings at the park, continued to laugh. “Are you trying to say I would be sitting in the corner, eating ants that were crawling on the floor?”
“Yeah! You’d be eating ants!” he insisted. “Deny it if you want to, but I was there. I know what you used to do. You’d pick them up with your little fingers and watch them wriggle around and then pop ’em in your mouth.” The story would be embellished, of course, with his acting out the actual eating—this oversized man with the same huge, expressive eyes as mine, pinching his fingers together and scrunching up his nose and sticking out his tongue like some kind of hungry, odd-looking anteater on the prowl for a quick meal.
“Well, what kind of father were you that you let your child get out of your sight to go eat ants?” I asked in mock anger. My friends just laughed and laughed. But Daddy wouldn’t let it go. By the time the banter died down, he really had me believing I ate bugs off the floor. Committed. He committed to his story, however absurd.