Thoughts and Actor Life

Not Getting Truthful Feedback From Your Friends And Family

I was watching American Idol today and there was this one particular part of the show that just seemed so wrong to me. What happened was that at the very last audition they showed this girl who also brought in her friend to the audition as apparently she loved one of the judges a lot. After a lot of goofing around, the girl began to sing.

Unfortunately her singing was really bad and the judges tried not to laugh. To make it worst, her friend that she brought in with her was trying not to laugh at her performance too it seemed. Once the judges gave their opinions to her, she started to cry and say how all her friends and such say how she had a great voice and all.

I was just looking at that and was thinking “Are they really friends?” It’s one thing to not want to hurt other’s feelings, but it just seemed so dubious that the person’s friend was laughing at her in the background which implied to me that she fully knew that her singing wasn’t very good. When you think about it, isn’t better to tell the person the truth?

That’s a really difficult thing with acting and film in general too. Whenever you show people your work you want honest feedback as it is the only way you know whether or not what you are doing is believable/convincing to others as well. It doesn’t help much when people tell you that it looked great just because they are afraid that it will hurt your feelings.

Of course there is such a thing as subjective opinions, but for situations like this if you truly believe it wasn’t good then you are helping the person more by giving them an honest feedback. With that in mind too, if you are looking for a training buddy to brush up on your skills it could be a good idea to find another professional who doesn’t know you too well to increase your chances of getting honest feedback.

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  • Friends are worthless as critics. The whole situation is fraught with social ramifications if you say the wrong thing… it’s the “do I like fat in this” thing.

    I’ve gotten the best feedback from acting teachers that don’t know me well and the acting class (to an extent).

    To an extent actors need to be their own judge and know what good is and be able to know it when you see it, otherwise you are always at someone’s mercy and can be in for a rude awakening some time.