Question: Do you think if your playing a character in a play can influence your daily life?

Rose Turner answered on 16 Jun 2017:

Hi Kira,
Thanks for the question! Yes I do think playing a character can change you, at least for a short time. A couple of years ago I played a character who was giving evidence in a court case about something terrible that had happened to her. The script was actually taken from a real court case (and I actually met the real lady afterwards), and because the things the character was describing were so awful, I had to raise a lot of emotion to make it convincing. Even though you are acting, the emotion is still ‘real’ – when an actor cries onstage, the tears are real! You might have heard about some Psychology research that has shown that when you do something, it acts back on your emotions e.g. when you smile you feel happy, or when you run you feel scared (though some of this research has recently been called into question). So You can imagine what acting sad does to you – it can make you feel quite sad! So I think the experience of inducing a very emotional state can affect you – at the very least it can leave you feeling very drained!
On the flipside being in a play is one of those experiences where you are really ‘in the zone’, or as it’s called in positive psychology, ‘flow state’. When you’re in flow state you’re completely immersed in something that is challenging (but not impossible), that involves a sense of achievement, and during which you lose track of time. Lots of sports are like that. There is evidence that doing ‘flow’ activities has very positive effects on our happiness. So I think playing a character can have a very positive impact on our daily happiness too!