Have you ever wondered how actors cry on cue? Crying is so natural and uncontrolled in real life – how on earth can that be replicated to order?
In this article, we look at how to cry on command, using a range of physical tricks and emotional triggers.
How to cry on cue
Most actors have to cry on command at some point during their careers, and it’s one of the hardest acting skills to master. However, like other acting techniques, you can learn to cry on cue – and there are lots of professional tips and tricks to help you turn on the tears. These techniques can use either physical or emotional triggers, and we’ll take a look at both of these in turn.
How to cry on demand using physical tricks
Most actors will have a few handy little tricks ready if they need to cry on cue. Often, the emotion of the scene will help those tears flow when they’re needed, but it’s always good to have a back-up plan. And yes, actors do sometimes use a chopped onion…
Before we look at how actors cry in more detail, there’s one important piece of advice that you’ll need whatever method you use: keep hydrated. Tears are made from water, so if you’re dehydrated, your body won’t waste precious resources on producing tears. Make sure you’ve had enough water before your crying scene to give your system that extra boost.
- Yawn
If you can, make yourself yawn a few times before you’re asked to cry on cue. This naturally causes your eyes to glisten as well as softening your face, which gives you a great physical starting place.
- Use a menthol stick
You can actually buy something known as a “tear stick”, which looks like a clear lipstick and is infused with menthol. Apply it below your eyes before you need to cry, and rising fumes will make your eyes water convincingly. Yes, this is as unpleasant as it sounds, but it is effective. Use sparingly, and be careful that it never comes into contact with your eyes.
- Or an onion!
Don’t have a menthol stick to hand? It’s often easier to get hold of an onion. Your colleagues won’t be impressed and you definitely can’t whip out an onion on stage, but if you’re struggling to cry on command during a shoot, the irritating natural chemical (syn-Propanethial-S-oxide) will do the job for you.
- Try keeping your eyes open
Here’s another little physical trick you can try. Try to keep your eyes wide open without blinking for 30 seconds. After this length of time, you’ll feel your eyes start to water.
- Pluck a hair
This may be one of the stranger pieces of advice we’ve heard on the subject, but plucking a nostril or eyebrow hair causes a natural reflex that makes your eyes water. Some people have a stronger reaction than others to this, but all of us have this to some extent. Try a quick pluck just before the cameras roll.
How to make yourself cry using emotional triggers
Some actors are able to cry on cue using emotional rather than physical triggers. This is a great skill for stage actors to develop, as they don’t have the luxury of being able to prepare off-camera. If you can learn how to cry on cue using your emotions alone, you’ve gained a really helpful acting technique that you’ll always be able to draw on.
- Be in the moment
If you focus too much on the end result (crying), you might miss the emotion of the moment. Thanks to all that preparation, you’re fully in character and will be responding as them, not as yourself. Because you’re immersed in the role, you’re in the right place to feel their emotions. If you become too concerned with turning on the tears, you could lose this connection and actually find it harder to cry on cue.
- Use your own emotional triggers
Find parallels between your own experience and your character’s situation. Method actors draw on their own emotions to create an authentic performance. When you work on character development, think about any parallels between your experience and theirs, and tap into your own memories.
- Think about your character’s backstory
Again, all your character development work will help here. If you’ve created a fully realised backstory for your character, their tears will occur in a broader and deeper context. When you work on their history, think about what it is about their story that will make them cry in certain future circumstances.
- Imagine something sad
What makes you cry? Not your character, but you? This is less about drawing on past emotion and all about imagining something that makes you well up. Puppies and kittens often feature largely in people’s tips for conjuring up a tearjerking scenario. As actor Chris O’Dowd admits in this Graham Norton interview, “For me, it’s Battersea Dogs’ Home commercials”. He explains that when you’re really in the moment, crying happens naturally; however, after a lot of takes, you do need something extra to draw on.
- Music, books, film and poetry
Is there a song that always makes you feel emotional? Create a playlist of sad songs to use when you’re working on character development or learning this particular scene, creating an association between the moment and the music. Think of a passage in a book or a scene in a play or film that you respond to emotionally. Keep it in your mind, ready to pull out when you need it.
Don’t sweat if there are no tears
Our final suggestion is simply “Don’t cry”. This sounds like very odd advice given the context of this article, but some actors never learn how to cry on command. Rather than making strange gurning faces at the audience or camera, they focus on other physical signs of distress or sadness. Think of other ways to demonstrate your emotions: you’ll give a far more authentic and moving performance with a trembling lip than fake sobs.
Your job as an actor, as actor Brian Cox explains, is to tell the story to the maximum of your ability, and “when you don’t tell the truth, it doesn’t resonate.” If there is a scene requiring the actor to cry, what the director is actually asking for is the character to convey a certain emotion, be it sadness, distress, fear, depression or happiness. Focus on portraying the emotion above producing physical tears, and the result will be far more truthful.
Actor Sir Michael Caine once said in an interview how the secret to crying is not to tear up, because “Men will do anything but cry.” By holding back the tears, you can create a deeply emotional moment:
“You must fight the tears. And when you fight the tears, the audience will cry for you.”
Practise crying on command, standing in front of a mirror or filming yourself. Which methods work best for you? Do you have emotional triggers that you can call on, as well as a physical trick up your sleeve for backup? Like many acting techniques, practice really does make perfect, and you’ll soon be having audiences welling up with you.
Do you want to know more about how a professional actor approaches a role and how they get into character? Actor Brian Cox covers a range of acting techniques in his BBC Maestro course on Acting, as well as talking about his extensive experience of stage and screen acting.
