I found my character in a painting

Let's talk about diving into the creative abyss, shaaaaaaall we? Not with that methodical, spreadsheet-loving precision, but with the kind of wild abandon that makes your mind crack open like an egg in a frying pan.

First things first: forget everything you know about "proper preparation."

Throw it out the window and watch it scatter like confetti in the wind.

You want to know how to prepare? Maybe it's sprawling on your couch at 3 AM, letting some obscure film wash over you like a fever dream, your subconscious picking up breadcrumbs that'll lead you somewhere magnificent. Maybe it's not preparing at all. Maybe it's letting your brain simmer in its own juices until the perfect moment presents itself from beneath the folds of your unconscious mind.

Let me weave you a tale about the day my perspective on character building got turned inside out like a cheap suit in a hurricane. There's this friend of mine, let's call him the J-Bagel. His of those rare souls who could tell you the sky is purple and you'd start seeing violet clouds – who dropped this bizarre nugget of wisdom on me over too many cheap cocktails names after famous actors at the Ritz balcony bar. Chatting about how I'm going to create this character, which was on at the time the biggest most important gig of my life. Steaks were high, and so was i a lot of the time back then.

"Find your character in a painting," he says.

A Painting? Really? What kind of metaphysical bullshit was this?

But here's the thing about advice from people who've earned your respect – sometimes you've got to let go of what you think and just say yes.

So there I am, weeks later, drowning in character prep, stressing about this and that and is that believable is that not?, HAVE I DONE ENOUGH WORK?! When I stumble into this gallery. And holy mother of madness, there he was. My character, staring back at me from behind two centuries of oil paint, wearing the kind of expression that answers questions you didn't even know you had.

Fast forward to me in the truck before shooting, pulling on wardrobe. Something clicked. Something that defied logic but sang with truth. That painting had given me something no amount of traditional prep could touch. Did it make sense? Fuck no, Did it work, yes.

We're all carrying every possible person inside us. Every saint, every sinner, every beautiful disaster. The lover who'll burn down cities for a kiss. The warrior who's forgotten how to cry. The child who never learnt fear. They're all in there, swimming in the soup of your consciousness, waiting for you to let them out to play.

But how do we coax these beautiful monsters into the light? With what I call "radical gentleness." It's like trying to tame a wild horse while blindfolded – you've got to be brave enough to reach out, but gentle enough not to spook the magic.

That's where the sanctuary of class comes in. It's your laboratory, your thunderdome of emotional discovery. Where else can you let your freak flag fly at full mast? Where else can you take those raw, unfiltered pieces of yourself – the ones society told you to bury – and splash them across the walls like a Jackson Pollock painting?

This is your space to fail gloriously, to crash and burn so spectacularly that the ashes form something entirely new. Your fellow traveler's in this madness? They get it. They're all searching for their own beautiful disasters, their own perfect storms.

Remember: the most dangerous thing you can do is play it safe. Safety is the death of creativity. So go forth and find your own weird way in. Let your preparation be as unique as your fingerprint, as strange as your dreams, as wild as your heart.

Because at the end of the day, that's what makes this whole crazy dance worth it – the courage to be magnificently, catastrophically yourself.

Catcha later cowboy xx