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" Last month, I was sitting at the corner of the bar in a restaurant in Yonkers with a friend of mine when, out of the blue, up walked Bill Murray. My friend knows him \u2014 they play golf together \u2014 but I had never met the guy. We shook hands, they talked, I looked him up and down before I turned back to my drink. I listened, drinking my Mount Gay, eating some little plate of sashimi, as Bill Murray and my friend engaged in the most understated ball-busting session I&amp;#039;ve ever heard. I stayed out of it. I watched him in the mirror now and again. Murray was drinking lemon juice, with cayenne pepper in it, and maybe something else \u2014 I don&amp;#039;t remember \u2014 like a splash of maple syrup. He said he was coming off a fast. It made him look ragged. Every time he sipped the drink, he raised his eyebrows, pinched his lips, and glanced sideward. Only then did he look like the movie guy. I kept thinking, What makes this guy so watchable? He looked bolted to the frame of the world, like he controlled the space he stood in. He was completely aware of everything around him, even me watching him in the mirror. After a while, I nudged into the conversation and asked about the time he had playfully taunted my friend in the middle of a golf game \u2014 something about not spilling orange Gatorade on his white shirt. Bill Murray looked at me hard. I actually felt a little scared, not because the question was inappropriate, but because the moment was so in his control that I didn&amp;#039;t have the least little idea what he was about to say. I hadn&amp;#039;t even asked a question, but I was waiting for an answer. &amp;quot;That wasn&amp;#039;t about golf,&amp;quot; he said. I believed him. He had something.  Presence. I&amp;#039;ve never understood why some guys have that, whereas most guys seem to go wanting. I once met the King of Morocco. He looked right at me, but it was like he could see the horizon behind me at the same time. A guy who can control the space he&amp;#039;s in without showing the mechanisms of that control \u2014 his money, his accomplishments, what the world owes him \u2014 is a man with power. I have a limited set of these abilities. I can scare the hell out of my sons just by standing a certain way in their bedroom door. I can make my dog leave the room just by staring at her with a certain conviction in my heart. I&amp;#039;ve learned how to make a bartender look at me without shouting or raising my hand. But insofar as presence goes, those are about my limits. But I thought, Why couldn&amp;#039;t I learn presence? Why couldn&amp;#039;t I climb into another skin? Why couldn&amp;#039;t I look at my public self as a sort of performance, one that I could manipulate to get what I wanted? It seemed to me that the core of it was crafting a new persona, creating a new dynamic with public space. That sounded like the crap that actors always say about live theater, but for the first time since my sophomore year in college, it made a little sense.  I went to my community theater and auditioned for a part in A Midsummer Night&amp;#039;s Dream. There I was, surrounded by eight high school kids, six college kids, a half dozen fourth graders, a local librarian, the tire guy from Wal-Mart, one dude I vaguely knew from karaoke night at the local bar, and a retired French professor. I read for the part of Theseus, the Duke of Athens.  How hard could it be? Just before the whole thing started, I whispered to myself the inexplicable phrase my baseball coach made me repeat before my cuts in Babe Ruth: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m the tits on the bull.&amp;quot; I stepped forward and, for a brief second, I felt that I had the room. But when I spoke, the words came halting and sudden. I didn&amp;#039;t know how to use my hands. I bumped into one actor and backed into another. Whenever I said anything, everyone looked puzzled. I misread at least four words.  I got the part, but only because I was the only one who read for it, I have gray hair in my beard, and on my second read, I stood with my hands on my hips, like a fucking pirate, which helped me keep still.  But I worked hard. I read the play, act by act, every night in bed. I broke down the double entendres. I busted my ass to memorize two long monologues before rehearsal even began. But every evening, when I stepped on the stage, I was struck by this one thought: I can only be me. I am nothing like a duke. The room \u2014 the one I wanted to own so badly \u2014 leered at me. From all over the rehearsal hall, people shouted, &amp;quot;Louder!&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Volume!&amp;quot; When I stepped off, it seemed that even the children were cringing a bit. I needed a lesson. I went to New York to meet with Jeff Daniels, who had just closed a play and was willing to give me an hour&amp;#039;s worth of instruction. Standing in the living room of his Upper West Side apartment, him in boxers and a T-shirt, me trying as hard as I could to take the room over, Daniels told me, &amp;quot;Get the character down into five words. Try that first.&amp;quot; He dropped in an armchair heavily. &amp;quot;Do you want me to stand?&amp;quot; I asked. He looked at me, heavy lidded and nonplussed. &amp;quot;You are standing.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I mean, should I sit or stand?&amp;quot; He sighed.  &amp;quot;I want to stand,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been practicing standing. I don&amp;#039;t sit.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t sit?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Not when I&amp;#039;m practicing,&amp;quot; I said. I looked at him then, flummoxed. &amp;quot;I suck at this,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;I mean I just really don&amp;#039;t want to suck.&amp;quot; I was talking about acting now.  Daniels looked at his watch \u2014 ten minutes were gone. &amp;quot;You need to be practicing everywhere, standing, sitting, in the kitchen, on the toilet. Do that so you know the words, so that you know who you are. And you have to give up this &amp;#039;I suck&amp;#039; routine. It really gets in your way. Now let&amp;#039;s have the five words.&amp;quot; I decided it was time to describe the guy who wanted to control the room. Me. Fuck Theseus. I&amp;#039;d come all the way to New York, and I was substituting who I wanted to be for the part I was playing. &amp;quot;Cocky,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;A little arrogant.&amp;quot; He nodded. I went forward. Visualizing myself entering a restaurant, feeling the room respond. &amp;quot;But I think he changes,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;By the end of the play, I think he feels older than everyone else. He&amp;#039;s sick of waiting.&amp;quot; In its own way, it did sound like Theseus.  &amp;quot;Arrogant is easy,&amp;quot; Daniels said. &amp;quot;You can do arrogant. Just make it be a part of everything that you do. Question every person who approaches you offstage. Don&amp;#039;t talk to anyone who&amp;#039;s younger than you. Sneer at them a little. Bring the arrogance with you to the part.&amp;quot; Fair enough, I thought. Control is arrogant; looking for people to respond to your very presence is arrogant. I got that. We worked awhile, and when I recited a monologue from memory, one I actually thought was pretty good, he looked about as blank and hopeless as an exasperated nun. &amp;quot;My God,&amp;quot; I said, &amp;quot;was I that bad?&amp;quot; He raised one finger off his head and sighed. &amp;quot;You have a lot of work to do,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;If you want to transform, you have to do more than put on a costume with your voice.&amp;quot; Actors are always talking about transforming. At some level, I knew then I was doomed. Let the sucking begin, I thought.  So I fessed up and told him my idea about taking over the room. Any room. Not just the theater. In fact, that would be over soon. I didn&amp;#039;t care about the theater. I was doing this to develop some presence. He seemed excited for a second. &amp;quot;To take over a room,&amp;quot; he said, &amp;quot;you have to own the idea of the room. When you act, you are the idea in the room.&amp;quot; He was still talking about acting. I was talking about me. Daniels looked at me very hard then. He told me I was right for the part. Suddenly I was paying attention. He told me to give myself permission to change. &amp;quot;Go ahead and be a king.&amp;quot; Jeff Daniels leaned in and got very serious then.  &amp;quot;If you are a king,&amp;quot; he said, &amp;quot;then by rights you own the room.&amp;quot; I have to admit that he changed a little right there in front of me. Transformed, I guess. It was acting, I think.  And me? For a moment, I forgot my fat little hands, my herky-jerk gestures, all of my heavy, obvious movements on the creaky, hollow stage of the world. I stood. Daniels slumped back in his chair \u2014 he wanted to see where I was going with this. I was looking down at him, and I thought, Wait a minute. He doesn&amp;#039;t know what I can see. He doesn&amp;#039;t know what&amp;#039;s in my head. What he thinks of me \u2014 and what he will give me, and how he&amp;#039;ll treat me \u2014 is based on my control of his perception. This takes some thought and work, but that&amp;#039;s why good actors make money. All a man like me wants is to be treated like, well, a king. Suddenly, I owned what I&amp;#039;d come to get. All I did was straighten up and button my coat. I wanted to take this out of that apartment. I was ready. This was his living room. My hour was almost up. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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