Not. Smiling.
You would be surprised at just how hard that is for me. There are three instances where I am not supposed to smile, where the attention is directly on me, and I slip. The first two are places I can manage (I think), all I have to do is relax my jaw and think about starving children (I don't mean this to be politically incorrect, it actually depresses me enough sometimes to suppress a smile). The third time, however, is insanely hard. My character has to fight off another character, using all of my strength, I have to push one of my good friends off stage.
Let me tell you, it's hard for me to make the distinction between his character and his actual person. When I'm physically invested in something like pushing a guy off stage and acting pissed off and upset, the last thing I'm thinking about is my face. And the whole time, I have this reflexive smile on my face.
I tried to pass it off like it's in my genes. Both me and my dad have the tendency to grimace when we are working on something and we get these really toothy grins. My friend has been trying to help me by randomly coming up to me and pushing on me and trying to get me to fight him, but I can't take it seriously, I can't separate character from reality in that.
The director mentioned to me after I brought my problem to him that when I dance, I have a very neutral but intense face. Maybe I just have to think of the scene as choreography. If my friend and I can somehow choreograph it so that I feel more like I'm dancing, then I can try and bring more of my character into it and actually fight him off...
Without smiling.
I'm a smiley person. I'm the one who should be nicknamed "Smiley," not some 17 year old has-been country singer's daughter. *cough* Anyway. My natural impulse is to smile, unless I'm really, truly, and honestly disgusted with someone.
Stupid smiling reflex. People learn to override gag reflexes...Why can't I override my smiling reflex?
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