What I learned from Dakota North
Keke Palmer and Nathalia Ramos in “Babysitting Dakota”
I was in the mood to post a #throwbackthursday today, so I started to go through old photo albums when I came across a clip from my episode of True Jackson V.P. I smiled to myself as I watched it back and remembered how much fun I had on that set with that cast and crew. Yet at the same time, I couldn't help but cringe at my character, the famous supermodel Dakota North, and her shocking behavior. I remembered how embarrassed I was to act out some of the scenes in rehearsal. I would start laughing or apologize to Keke for how I treated her. But as I delved into my work, I started to get to know Dakota and understand her on a much deeper level. See, on the surface Dakota might seem rude, entitled, cruel (all of the above), but beneath that is a young girl who is hurting. She may seem to have the perfect life, but that comes with it’s own set of struggles. She may be a “supermodel”, but she has insecurities just like the rest of us. She is lonely and just wants to be a regular kid with real friends someone times. She just hadn’t been equipped with the right tools to express those emotions, so she lashes out in the only ways she knows how.
When you think about it, that’s the case with most bullies. They are often insecure, lonely or unhappy people who haven’t been given the right tools to deal with their struggles, so they lash out or put people down to bring themselves up. As actors, we learn how to do the work to understand our characters perspective, what they are feeling and why they do what they do. We are trained never to judge them. So then why do we so often judge people in real life? Why don’t we spend more time trying to understand their perspective? If we did I am certain that, more often than not, we would empathize with one another and discover that we have more in common than we thought. We could find ways to co-exist, or even thrive together, rather than creating hostility and divisions. That’s my wish for everyone today. I think we should all make an effort to think a little more like actors. Put ourselves in other peoples shoes. Judge less. Try to approach challenges from different perspectives. Maybe through thinking differently we can find commonality.
What do you think?