“Acting has always been so cool to me. It really shows commitment and devotion among actors, especially young actors,” sophomore Anthony Hanranhan said.

     At their core, actors are communicators. Through their work, they influence society and mold the world. Theater and acting allow people from different cultures and times to communicate with one another through art. People criticize actors and put them in a box of ¨good¨ or ¨bad actors¨, but some tend to not see the effect it could have on those entertainers.

    “You’re not going there to get a job. You’re going there to present what you do,” ”Malcolm in the Middle” and “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston said in an Oscars interview. He then went on to advise actors who are struggling getting roles to motivate them.

    “There was this time on stage when I was performing the play An Experiment and it was my time to say my line but I messed up luckily the other actors quickly used improv to cover up my mistake,” junior Amani Clark.

    In a study done by The University of Sydney, “782 actors show a quarter have experienced ‘debilitating performance anxiety’ at some point in their career and many have relied on alcohol and drugs to cope with the pressure and burden of their roles.” This study shows that many actors lack motivation when dealing with anxiety.

    “What motivates me in directing has to be the energy of the actors and the emotions before going on stage. Even the fears are important to me because it shows that the actors care and are determined,” theater director Caleb Dalby said.

     Stories about acting have always been a way others connect, but many actors may go through unnecessary hardships to achieve their roles. Jared Leto sent a dead rat to his fellow cast members on the set of Suicide Squad. “I did a lot of things to create a dynamic, an element of surprise, spontaneity, to break down any walls that may be there,” Leto told E!. `

     Good acting is most commonly described as a performance that makes the audience think and feel. Other indicators are good technique and exceptional talent. Often audiences look down on method acting, which is a system that actors use when approaching a role where they try to “become” their character and inhabit their psyche. Many connect the ideas of ¨good¨ or “bad” acting and method acting because they both show the limits actors will go.

     “The controversy of method acting shows the extremes actors will go,” Clark said.

     When talking about “bad actors”, many don’t assume talking about the actor themself, but rather the behavior between takes or backstage. The actor who treats others badly like in method acting isn’t necessarily a bad actor, according to Craft Film School.

     “I feel like people can’t divide good acting and bad acting without being biased or unethical, because defining good actors and bad actors is more of your opinion than something a person can state,” Hanranhan said.

    Many actors work hard and are even denied a chance to make it into the fame industry like most actors. A recent study by the Queen Mary University of London referred to surveys that showed that only 2% of actors make a living from the profession and that 90 percent of actors in the notoriously turbulent profession are unemployed.

   “Acting shouldn’t be viewed as overall good or bad, it should be seen as an expressive way people can frame themselves or use their passion as an outlet in life and their future,” Dalby said.