Fake it

Lamont Dozier is the guy who wrote "You Keep Me Hanging On" for The Supremes, as well as dozens of other hit songs (on his own, or as part of the Holland-Dozier-Holland team at Motown, he wrote “Baby I Need Your Loving”, “Baby Love”, “How Sweet It Is (to Be Loved by You)”, “I Hear a Symphony”, “It’s the Same Old Song”, “Reach  Out I’ll Be There”, “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)”,  “Where Did Our Love Go”, “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “You  Keep Me Hangin’ On”).

So you have to say Lamont Dozier knows a few million things about writing great songs. But it's interesting to note that he said that as a younger man, he would break up with his girlfriend every so often just to get that heartsick feeling that comes from breaking up with a love - just so he could write a song about it!  Now, I read that he has been married for over thirty years, so hats off to him and the missus. I'm glad that he's able to work (he's scoring Broadway musicals these days) without bringing about self-imposed pain.

I think that's an interesting approach. In acting, they have something called the "Stanislavski method" - which is defined as a "technique in acting by which an actor strives to empathize with the character being portrayed so as to effect a realistic interpretation."

Serious actors (you're excused, Mr Cage) practice this. If they are going to pretend to be a firefighter in a production, they will ride with real firefighters for a spell. Those hired to play bartenders will sling Gin Rickeys in a real bistro, and so forth. It makes for a more credible performance.  And think of Gary Sinise having his legs cut off* to play the part of Lt Dan!

I once consulted a doctor about a spine problem and he had me undergo a test in which pain signals were sent through my central nervous system while a meter recorded just how much I twitched, lying there in my BVDs. The doctor said it was a painful, but necessary test, and volunteered that in medical school, he was obliged to submit to one of the tests that he might one day perform on patients, and he had chosen that one. He was also the doctor who told me, "I can see what the problem is, but I don't know what to do about it."  But he did send me to the great Dr Neal Naff, who not only saw the problem but also knew how to fix it.

Medical arts, performing arts, they both take skills and preparation and training, and a mindset that involves empathy. But can one not play a butcher without actually slicing up pork chops?  In the 1976 thriller "Marathon Man," Dustin Hoffman played a student who wound up involved in a deep plot involving a Nazi war criminal, portrayed by Laurence Olivier. As the story tells it, Hoffman stayed up for days on end, enduring long spells underwater and running actual marathons, just to put himself in the same agony as the character he portrayed.

And the brilliant actor Olivier's comment?  "Why don't you just try acting?"
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*I know he didn't.