June 1, 2009

Awkward



So you think the audience is secretly judging and criticizing you? So did Kristin Stewart at last night's MTV Movie Awards.

Upon receiving her award for Best Female Performance, she proceeded to give her acceptance speech, clearly nervous. While balancing the heavy award in her hand, she lost her grip and it went flying several feet onto the floor as she desperately tried to catch it.

She sped back to the microphone, finished her speech somewhat incoherently and blurted out, "So... I was just about as awkward as you thought I was going to be."

Did the audience think she was going to be awkward? I doubt it. Did she create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps. When all you can think about is how nervous you are and how much you're going to embarrass yourself in front of the audience, you are practically making it happen.

Kristin may be shy and uncomfortable on stage, but she is a trained actor, and maybe next time she has to appear as herself, she can try my trick of playing herself as a character. There's a strong, confident young woman in there somewhere, the one that converses easily with friends, laughs and has a good time being herself.

Implementing some relaxation, breathing and grounding techniques might help as well.

But setting herself up for failure by assuming that she will fail... that's an unfortunate habit that needs to be broken!

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4 comments. Please add yours! :

simonr said...

I do a lot of work with actors and dancers at the moment (no idea why, it's just working out that way) and I'm constantly struck by how many of them are genuinely shy..

....the stereotype of some getting into acting to hid the 'real' them is more true than we realise, it seems.

S

Lisa Braithwaite said...

That's the case with me, and one reason I got into acting when I was a kid. On stage, I felt so confident and larger than life, whereas in reality I was incredibly insecure. It's a great outlet for shy people!

casacaudill said...

"Did the audience think she was going to be awkward? I doubt it."

No, they did. She's ALWAYS awkward and it's the industry's perception that indeed she is. She's a terrible public speaker and anytime she's supposed to appear somewhere, the Twitterverse and blogs are abuzz with how awkward her appearance will be.

Lisa Braithwaite said...

Well, then she has to stop believing what the media says about her and be who *she* wants to be.

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