Lights, Action, Tears

They're called tear sticks. In a pinch, an actor called upon to cry for a scene might grab one of these menthol wax sticks, apply it to their eyes, and voila, instant tears. Some acting purists frown upon them, while others view them as a perfectly acceptable tool of the trade, writes Rachel Handler at Vulture. "If you give a good show, you give a good show," as comedian Kate Berlant puts it. (Berlant has a one-woman show, Kate, in which she attempts to genuinely cry.) "I think only a psychopath would be like, 'It doesn't count if they're not real tears.'" The sticks are just one part of Handler's wildly entertaining investigation into how actors manage to weep on cue. She visits experts of all kinds—acting coaches, psychotherapists, actors themselves—in the hope of uncovering their secrets.

The problem is, there are no secrets. Or at least not a one-size-fits-all secret. Some, particularly film actors, are taught how to channel traumatic memories or invent them. But try doing that on stage every night, as Corey Stoll has to do in Appropriate. "A lesson I learned early on—and that I have to keep relearning—is that it's not important that the actor feels it," he says. "It's about the audience feeling it." In his case, he starts on the outside, not the inside, by mimicking the physical movements of a breakdown. "It's all about faking it and then I start to feel it." Sophie Nelisse of Yellowjackets reveals she once got an assistant director to bully her and tell her she was a terrible actor before a scene. The result? "We got what we needed." Handler herself tries the various techniques, usually—but not always—with comically bad results. Read the full story. (Or check out other longform recaps.)