The actor’s craft requires emptying oneself to objectively reconstruct another

Evidence

The actor Alla Nazimova puts this as follows: “The actor himself should be a creature of clay, putty, capable of being molded into another form, another shape. An actor must never see himself in [a] character. I study the woman. I look at her under a magnifying glass and say to myself: ‘Is she right? Is she logical? Is she true to herself ? Can I act that woman? Can I make myself over into her?’ I am nothing. I am nobody. I have to reconstruct my whole self into this woman I am to portray—speak with her voice, laugh with her laughter—move with her motion. But if you can see the person as a living creature, quite removed from yourself, you can work objectively to adapt yourself to the part.” — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 366

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the actor’s instrumentality: the actor as emptied medium capable of being molded, distinct from expressing oneself.
• ADDENDUM: Pairs with the essays’ themes of selfhood and identity construction, specifically the ‘Grafting’ essay’s metaphor of remaking oneself through grafting onto another.