An actress weeps: corporeal dissonance in the actor's experience of performing testimony in Eduardo Coutinho's Joga de Cena

This article explores actor experience when performing testimony in a screen performance case study. It examines the work of celebrity actresses Andrea Beltrão and Fernanda Torres in Jogo de Cena (dir. Eduardo Coutinho) in relation to Damasio's concept of the neural self. The discussion draws on specific moments in which the performers break frame while performing the role. Unexpected embodied dissonance and the actor’s response to this are considered, as is their perception of how these responses could indicate a limitation in their artistic capacity and a clash between their aesthetic structural architecture (their acting method), the real narrative they are 'enacting' and their own values. Tears, narrative, performance and self are in the mix as this paper considers how the actor’s corporeal experiences reveal some of the challenges of performing testimony.