by MELISSA CHAPMAN
Way way back many centuries ago not long after the bible began I was a student at Hunter college where I took an acting class.
I was enamored with it, except not so much with my assigned scene partner- who seemed to lack my mutual hygiene rituals. We were assigned an act from Prelude to A Kiss- which is a romantic comedy (aka we had to act as though we were totally digging each other). Unfortunately I was not so much digging this guy on any level and was even slightly physically repulsed by him.
Still I soldiered on and we spent a lot of time together. At coffee shops, at his apartment, at my apartment, going over our scene, rehearsing our lines and as CRAZY as it began to seem, I started seeing him in a whole new light. I don’t know if it was me responding to the character (and not as the actress but as Melissa) but I actually began to look forward to our rehearsals.
I craved spending more time with him and I was convinced he was kinda starting to dig me too. And in the scene where we were supposed to kiss at the end- which I had originally NIXED that from our rehearsals- well I suddenly felt like we should add it back in.
I was supposed to be acting, but throughout the course of spending so much time pretending to like this guy- I actually began to like this very unhygienic guy. But while I was falling in love with him- he was not falling in love with me. He was clearly a much better actor, and was really just acting/pretending to like me.