I'm wondering if anyone has any tricks. I know how to get the emotion, but to get actual tears, sometimes it fails me. I don't really cry in real life. When I do, it's out of happiness. And it is not a happy time in the film I'm starting tomorrow.

I have done it before, but I'm not sure if I can do it everytime.

Focus on your objective in the scene, do your homework, and trust yourself.

Surprisingly crying is the easiest thing I can do in a scene. Honestly you need to trust yourself and just let go, don't be afraid on how you look or if you feel stupid, cry like you're the only one in the room.

It helps also to associate your tears to something thats happened in your life. Sometimes the situation in the script is enough to make you cry but when it isn't think of something that will make you cry, whether it's the death of your mother, etc. And DON'T EVER tell anyone what made you cry in the scene or what you were thinking about, it becomes less effective because everyone will know you're thinking about your mom.

Good Luck!!

Also they have these stinky sticks that you can put up to your nose and they make you cry. Onions work also.

My daughter cries very easily-but when she is having a hard time she focusses on something without blinking-that always gets the tears flowing for her. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the diverse advice! I have a few things to try now if they tears don't come on their own. The good news is that I start the scene crying, so I can have time off camera to get going, so I am not too worried.

Well, I agree with the previous posts. It is a little hard, but committing to the character and to the story helps. Also trust yourself, just let yourself go and commit. Something that helps commit is connecting to a past experience, although I've heard some people don't like to do that, cause it affects them more than necessary. Just my 2 cents.

Everybody seems to have different avenues to take on this, as some have said it's very easy for them, others, like me, not so much.

I'm am similar to you in the fact that I'm far more prone to cry or get tears going when something makes me happy.

Personally I don't find using things from my past useful or reliable as some of my friends do, usually I can find an "idea" to cry about, for instance I read about a little boy in iraq who was taken in the night by masked men, doused with gasoline and set on fire, he lived, but is horribly disfigured and can't look at people anymore.......that story alone was enough to get me going, just the "Idea" of that, you know? I can also use that same idea to get myself shaking with anger.

There was a time in my life where someone very close to me was in the hospital in the ICU, and everybody thought he was going to die, but my personal reaction was being strong and collected, it's my natural reaction to things like that, but as soon as the doctor came out and said he was going to live, boom, the relief and happiness was just overwhelming.

On the other hand, you're hired to DO something, and you've got to get that done, like another poster mentioned there are those stinky sticks you can get, and I actually have seen an actor keep an onion nearby, because in the end, you've got a job to do.

Do you absolutely have to cry? Sometimes the most powerful work is when someone's ready to cry, but they're fighting to keep those tears back. Other than that, it sounds like you need to be more in touch with your vulnerability, which won't happen overnight.

Hi Brent, the following works for me.

For me to get actual tears (besides getting the motivations etc.) is to do what I would call "organ stimulation". When it comes to crying I would use this on the heart, as we know that the heart is the organ we use as the symbol of our emotional core.

The mechanics is, I would use my fingers to massage the heart as if I wanted the heart to speak or to act instead of my self. I would let the organ (in this case the heart) take over the dialogue or action and the tears would come. I prefer to do this in rehearsals so that I can try to capture the moment and then re-live it on the actual shoot. I would find that at the actual shoot crying would be less difficult, because "the moment" would already be there for me to get into (for example my character looking at another character's eyes, etc).

I hope that can help.

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Originally posted by Brent on the Move:
I'm wondering if anyone has any tricks. I know how to get the emotion, but to get actual tears, sometimes it fails me. I don't really cry in real life. When I do, it's out of happiness. And it is not a happy time in the film I'm starting tomorrow.

I have done it before, but I'm not sure if I can do it everytime.

I think it's important to make sure your body is relaxed, your deep breathing, so that the emotion can pass through. I love Shay's advice about the article.

Just remember not to force yourself to cry. Let it happen naturally. If it happens it happens.

In real life, you don't sit down and just cry. Usually you are fighting it back until you can't fight it any longer. Then it comes pouring out. Make it real and it will show.

I think the issue with, if it happens, it happens is, that you're being paid to make it happen, so you better make it happen, because they can find someone who can, and you want that someone to be you. No?

Crying is the age old question of actors. I have been acting in Los Angeles for several years. And I have been crying since I have been zero-still to this day. Often actors are obsessed w.crying. The bizzare thing is many times actors who can "cry on cue" are bad actors, because they can cry on cue, and are not being vulnerable or truthful. I contend that if those of us who are bad at crying want to cry, we better get into character and focus on our partners.

I agree with the above posts that you need to be relaxed to create the phyiscal presence of tears. When training I had a bad habit of equating crying with real emotion, but honesty in the moment is ultimately more important than the waterworks being visible.

That said, I was hired to be in a play where I had to enter crying. It was a comedy, and for the life of me I was getting nervous each time I had to go out. The tears weren't coming and as a result I lost focus because I was more worried about tears than playing the scene. So I figured I would stare in the corner 'till my eyes dried out. The tears would start to flow, and then I was able to relax. After knowing that I had, at minimum, fulfilled the need to the scene, I could conentrate and the actual tears started to come.

Dear Readers,

The most important requirement of professional actors is that we entertain. The second requirement is that we tell the story that the creative team wants told.

Sometimes, especially in film or television, we do have to have tears on cue (or some kind of very powerful emotional reality). Certainly, just because we can get very emotional on cue doesn't by itself mean the acting is great. But it is a requirement in many situations. And there are many, many ways to achieve tears or other powerful archetypal energies.

The first issue is that actors need to be generally unblocked emotionally. This is a major goal of actor training -- unblocking vulnerability and emotions. Effortless access to a whole range of archetypes is one requirement of great acting. There are hundreds of exercises in modern training that unblock the rainbow of emotional expression.

This emotional unblocking work is done first and makes possible all the categories of craft technique that follow in this post. If an actor is blocked to begin with, no acting techniques can work. You need a teacher with an ability to distinguish what is going on in you -- an emotional/psychological block or a lack of craft -- big difference.

Once the actor is generally emotionally free, there are many acting processes to trigger vulnerability or tears:

1. Imaging: One can learn dozens of imagination and dream techniques, each unique and powerful, to stimulate emotions.

2. Sensory Process: One can learn dozens of sensory techniques to draw on past experiences, current relationships or create imaginative fantasies to stimulate the desired emotions. Sensory techniques involve using your senses: sight, touch, smell, sound, taste and energy.

3. Externals/Outside-In: One can learn dozens of physical, body techniques to stimulate desired emotions. One can learn dozens of vocal, sound techniques to stimulate the desired emotions.

4. Improvisation: One can learn dozens of improvisation techniques to stimulate the desired emotions.

5. Archetype Work: One can learn about one's own internal "image structure" and archetypes. And you can learn to "bring in" the desired "energy" and "emotion" by making a simple choice to. This technique is based on Jung's discoveries about the structure of the psyche, built upon extensively by modern psychologists and acting teachers like me. Developing instant access to these archetypes is possible and works well. It's like building a muscle at a gym. You need extensive energetic training in this method. And it is the ultimate tool because once you learn it, it cannot fail.

What often does not work...

Some traditional acting teachers promote the myth that "thinking" about the character's "objectives" or "actions" will cause whatever emotion desired. This is the experience of some actors, or it would never be taught. But there are large numbers of actors for whom this is completely useless.

And there are plenty of situations in acting where the character doesn't have any "objective" anyway, they are simply overwhelmed by a memory or song or whatever...to tears. And you have to be able to get there if you want the role.

So there are literally hundreds of incredibly specific processes, that are extremely diverse, that you can learn as options for on the job. They are all very powerful, and designed only to be used when needed. And when you know you have all these specific processes you are free to "trust yourself" because there is something to trust! Otherwise, trusting yourself is a very bad idea and can get you fired.

There is a lot to teach. And I wish I could teach it on a message board. But mostly the teaching can't be communicated in writing and frankly, in writing it is often misinterpreted.

It's an EXPERIENCE you have to have.

- Jason Bennett

It went well.

As I said in my original post, I started the scene crying, so the director gave me a couple minutes for me to work myself into it. I found that physical work got me there pretty well, and consistently. Trying to remember experiences and all that did almost nothing, and after the first take, did nothing at all.

Dear Brent,

Congrats on it going well!

Yes, I would never think "trying to remember experiences" would work. We each need very specific acting processes -- step by step approaches as I listed above. That's what actor training is for. Vague "thinking" doesn't generally work.

And...what works for an actor on one day might not work on another. And what works for one actor might be different than what works for another. And what works on one role might not work on another. And what works on a film set might not work in theater. This is why we need to learn a whole variety of extremely specific processes. This is why we need to learn many ways and many methods, very deeply.

Then we are on the way to being a Master actor.

Again, congrats. - Jason Bennett

In the book No Acting Please by Eric Morris, he talks about "Obligations," "Choices," and "Choice Approaches." An Obligation is what is required of you as an actor (such as crying, being angry, an accent, etc). A Choice is something that will allow you to fulfill that Obligation (your memory of your old dead dog, an onion, the text of the play, whatever). A Choice Approach is how you utilize the Choice (like creating the memory of your old dead dog through the Sensory Process, smelling the Onion, and many others... this is the hardest to explain concisely).

I have heard in my classes (and it makes quite a bit of sense to me) to have multiple Choices that can fulfill any Obligation.

Brent, I know that you've already finished filming, but it would be a good idea to figure out a couple of "Choices" that will allow you to cry on stage (or camera) in the future, and several ways to "activate" them (Choice Approaches) on cue. I'm working on doing the same with a lot of different Obligations right now, and compiling it all in a little journal (Eric Morris calls it a Choice Journal).

Good job getting it to work this time around! How was the rest of the filming?

I'd like add onto JB's post, which is a pretty comprehensive list, but here's something that recently worked for me: inner monologue. Of course, it doesn't have to be inner, it could be spoken too. Eric Morris mentions it in a few of his books, I believe.

I recently did a short film and was having a hard time accessing and maintaining a connection with my vulnerability (which is unusual for me), so I imagined speaking to someone in my life and expressing my feelings, hurt, concerns, etc. to this person. And it really helped. Of course, all the ones JB has mentioned have worked for me in the past, but in this instance, NOTHING was working! Talk about frustrating! Anyway, that's why I support the idea of having multiple tools to access whatever emotion you need.

In addition, vulnerability is very difficult for many people to access, since we're constantly walking around trying to conceal it. I study with Jason Bennett and have seen over and over how newcomers struggle to access and share their vulnerability but it can be done. It's certainly something that takes a lot of work, but when an actor truly accesses and shares his or her vulnerability, it's amazing. It's wonderful to watch. It's so incredibly powerful, which is what makes the difference between being able to cry on cue versus being able to share a part of yourself. It can be terrifying at first to connect with your vulnerability, much less in front of a classroom, but it has amazing results!