In the last few days I have witnessed someone behaving in a very judgemental manner, not only is it singularly unattractive, it is also unnecessary.

Passing judgement on people, in my opinion, is basically making assumptions and as we all know when you assume, ‘you make and ass out of you and me!’

Just because someone appears in a way that may not appeal to you, it does not mean the person themselves will not appeal to you. Take a homeless person for instance, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people rant about them, “lazy, good for nothing, druggies etc etc” How on earth do they know anything about that person, without having spoken to them? I was on the radio a couple of months ago, discussing homelessness, the exact reason why escapes me and at this point it isn’t relevant anyway. What is, is the fact that a lot of homeless people were interviewed and listening to their stories was very moving, many of them had been very well established members of the community whose life had taken a turn for the worst and they ended up on the streets – not sure that equates to a “lazy, good for nothing”. Yet, people still look down their noses at them, just exactly who made them in charge of deciding who is a good or bad person just by their appearance. It is possible that a finely dressed and well educated person is a “druggie or a criminal etc” but because they look nice, that’s ok? Bollocks! Oh and in case you didn’t know some of our greatest actor’s experienced extreme poverty and even homelessness before getting that all important role to help them get back on track, not sure they could be classed of lazy, good for nothing, either!

Since witnessing the afore mentioned offender, I have been reminded of an interview Dustin Hoffman did about his role as ‘Tootsie’. He was discussing having his make up done to appear as a woman and when they had finished and he saw his reflection, he said “can’t you make me prettier? I am playing a woman, I think I should be prettier” – or words to that affect, don’t quote me. The make up artist replied by explaining they could only work with the face he had. What happened next was so wonderfully moving and honest, Dustin started to explain that when he went home that day he realised that he had been going through life only seeking out the company of the pretty people and it suddenly occurred to him that he had been missing out on all the other great people out there because he had dismissed them purely down to their appearance. – Good for him to acknowledge that, we should all take a leaf out of his book.

That was an actor talking about judgement effecting his personal life but being judgemental as an actor when you are working, can be just as profound. Your job as an actor is to study your character until you understand them fully and can think like them, if you pass judgement on them, you could completely misinterpret who they really are. For instance, take Robert De Niro in Cape Fear, he will have got right under the skin of Max Cady but I would put money on the fact he didn’t judge him for his behaviour, how could he if he was going to play him realistically? He would have ended up creating doubt in our minds about the authenticity of Max by formulating his own opinions on him, a very dangerous choice for an actor.

So considering how potentially damaging being judgemental as an actor is, just put that into your real life, you could be missing out and misunderstanding so many people just by their appearance, actions, behaviour etc. Please be sure to understand I am talking about judgement here and not opinion, they are 2 entirely different things but are often confused, but I won’t go into that now, guess what – yep in another blog!

If you find yourself being judgemental, give yourself a minute to ask yourself one simple question. “Do I know anything about that person?” If the answer is no, then ask yourself another one. “What could I learn from that person?”.  If the answer is yes, then ask “What more can I learn from that person?” I am not saying you need to go and speak to them, although you may be pleasantly surprised if you do, I am simply saying, we can learn from everyone no matter who they are because nobody knows everything. If we gave everyone the opportunity to tell their story we would learn a lot.