50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong
A few months ago, I said on Twitter that I want a T-shirt that’s based on Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, only the wave is made of dice, and the rest of the work is gaming stuff.
You know, something like this:
Today, that T-shirt exists, thanks to my pals at shirt.woot … and while you’re there, you may want to check out The Wil Wheaton Sale, which has a bunch of shirts and things I curated … you know, for kids!
Yay! Happy Friday.
I just came across this post at Uproxx, where someone transcribed my words to baby Violet earlier this year. It makes me so happy that it exists in this form that I copied it to have on my blog forever.
“My name is Wil Wheaton. It’s 2013. And you’ve just recently joined us on planet Earth. So welcome. I’m an actor. I’m a writer. And I’m a Dad. Your mother asked me to tell you why it’s awesome to be a nerd. That’s an easy thing for me to do because I am a nerd.
I don’t know what the world is going to be like by the time you understand this. I don’t what it’s going to mean to be a nerd when you are a young women. For me, when I was growing up, being a nerd meant that I liked things that were a little weird. That took a lot of effort to appreciate and understand. It meant that I loved science, and that I loved playing board games, and reading books, and really understanding what went on in the world instead of just riding the planet through space.
When I was a little boy, people really teased us about that, and made us feel like there was something wrong with us for loving those things. Now that I’m an adult, I’m kind of a professional nerd, and the world has changed a lot. I think a lot of us have realized that being a nerd … it’s not about what you love. It’s about how you love it.
So there’s going to be a thing in your life that you love, and I don’t know what it’s going to be. It might be sports, it might be science, it might be reading, it might be fashion design, it might be building things, it might be telling stories or taking pictures. It doesn’t matter what it is. The way you love that, and the way that you find other people who love it the way you do, is what makes being a nerd awesome. The way you love that, and the way that you find other people who love it the way you do is what makes you a nerd. The defining characteristic of [being a nerd] is that we love things. Some of us love Firefly and some of us love Game of Thrones, or Star Trek, or Star Wars, or anime, or games, or fantasy, or science fiction. Some of us love completely different things. But we all love those things SO much that we travel for thousands of miles … we come from all over the world, so that we can be around people who love the things the way that we love them.
That’s why being a nerd is awesome. And don’t let anyone tell you that that thing that you love is a thing that you can’t love. Don’t anyone ever tell you that you can’t love that, that’s for boys … you find the things that you love, and you love them the most that you can.
And listen: This is really important. I want you to be honest, honorable, kind. I want you to work hard. Because everything worth doing is hard. And I want you to be awesome, and I will do my very best to leave you a planet that you can still live on.
PS: don’t read the comments at uproxx, for they are full of gatekeepers and jerks who just make comments.
It’s no secret that, when we were teenagers, I had the biggest crush in the history of big, awkward crushes on Debbie Gibson.
I just came across this 8×10, taken in 1987 or early 1988. It still has little bits of tape on the back, because it hung in my bedroom until I moved out of my parents’ house in 1990.
Whenever Debbie came to LA, she would have these parties at a diner in Hollywood. They were really innocent, fun, milkshake and hamburger filled affairs. Pretty much everyone who was part of the Teen Hollywood Scene at the time was there, and a lot of photographers and teen magazine people were there, too. It was good publicity for everyone involved, and even though I wasn’t crazy about having my picture taken then, I always went to her parties, because I hoped that somehow, some way, she’d get lost in my eyes.
So this happened.
Aarrgghh BBC London’s gone all weird and now we’ve been given BBC South East! What’s happening?! Is this it?! Is it happening? #zombies
— Simon Pegg (@simonpegg) November 22, 2013
@simonpegg Suggest going to the Winchester and having a pint until it all blows over.
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) November 22, 2013
@simonpegg SEE WHAT I DID? SEE WHAT I DID THERE? I AM SO CLEVER I BET YOU’VE NEVER EVEN — OH GOD I LOVE ME.
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) November 22, 2013
@wilw I don’t get it. 😉
— Simon Pegg (@simonpegg) November 22, 2013
It’s important to be easily amused, kids, because then you are easily amused.
When I was a kid young actor, I got by on my instincts and ability to take direction. As I got older, I began to realize that instincts only go so far, and I felt a need — a very strong need — to formally study the craft of acting, and to gain a deeper understanding of the art. I spent years studying in various programs, most of them based on the Meisner technique. I learned how to break down scenes into beats, how to understand what my characters wanted and needed, and how to make emotional and intellectual connections to my characters, as well as the other characters in the scene.
One of the fundamentals of Meisner is “keep it simple.” It’s something a lot of inexperienced actors don’t do, because they (understandably and incorrectly) believe that unless they are doing something with every line, every beat, every reaction, every moment, then they are not acting. The trick is that almost all of acting is reacting to things going on around you, and letting those reactions happen naturally, through the lens of your character’s needs, wants, fears, expectations, and circumstances. The very worst thing for an actor is to get caught acting, so the other trick is to know all of that intellectually, and then let it all go so it happens emotionally, naturally.
I have nearly three decades of experience performing as an actor in all sorts of productions, from dramas to comedies, from stage to television, from period pieces to contemporary ones. I feel very confident in my ability to do the work an actor needs to do to be prepared and to create a believable character. I haven’t always been in fantastic works of art, but I’ve always done my best to bring something meaningful to the piece, and do justice to the writing (the number of actors who don’t understand or respect that the thing we’re doing existed as a thing long before we ever held the pages in our hands, and should be respected as a result, is staggering).
I’ve been working on The Big Bang Theory this week, and I’ll be on Stage 25 Monday and Tuesday next week, before I return to my corruptible, mortal state on Wednesday. This is the first episode I’ve done (and I’ve done a bunch) where I finally feel comfortable as an actor, like I know what I’m doing, like I deserve to be there, like I’m not going to get cut for screwing up the jokes. You see, all that stuff I said about being an actor? It’s true, but working on a show that’s shot in front of an audience is fundamentally different from everything else we do as actors. I was talking with John Ross Bowie today about it, and he said, “single camera and theater can not prepare anyone for what it’s like to be on this stage when the audience is in the seats,” and he was right. I often tell people that it’s like playing baseball: it’s very different being in the outfield than the infield, even though you’re playing the same game.
Today, during our run through, I pushed a line too hard for some reason, and after the scene was done, Chuck Lorre reminded me that I didn’t need to do that. “This is one of those times when you can just let the words do the work,” he said. He was right. Letting the words do the work is the difference between a scene being funny and obnoxious, sentimental and sappy, clever or obvious. It made so much sense to me, and even though it was something I knew, it was something I had forgotten. It was like putting a quarter into an old videogame (let’s say TRON) that you haven’t played in years, and after dying on the light cycle level, realizing that you remember the pattern, but had forgotten it because you didn’t need it until just that moment.
I’ve been an actor for as long as I can remember, but in recent years, the majority of my creative life has been spent writing and producing. I’ve been using different tools in my creative toolbox, and I was grateful to Chuck for reminding me where I left the tools for this particular job.