There is only one bad thing about being an actor, and it is a nearly insufferable, agonizingly terrifying thing. This is the horrific torture device I call goop--known as "make-up" to some.

I do not understand how women can stand to put this stuff on their faces every day. It is literally frightening stuff; not only must the wearer deal with the incredible uncomfortable feeling of having slime all over his or her face, but he must also brave the horrible process of getting the stuff on in the first place. It is torture, I assure you, from the basic goop (foundation) that we have to glop upon our faces with sponges to the freakishly bizarre stuff we have to rake our eyelashes with, precariously close to poking out our cornea (mascara), to the most insidious, malevolent torture device of all: THE EVIL STABBY EYE-PENCIL OF DEATH (eyeliner). Even after four years of acting, I still have to be held down in a chair and have someone else stab my eyes out put that terrible eyeliner on my face; I don't have the courage to attempt it myself (I've never been into self-mutilation). The Spanish Inquisition (which nobody expects, incidentally) never harbored any device nearly as cruel. And do not even get me started on latex and glues and such terror--when I played the role of Jacob Marley's ghost in A Christmas Carol, I had enough of that to last a lifetime.

...And it's a pain to get off your face! That can provide amusing anecdotes though, such as the time when a friend of mine was pulled over for speeding on the way home from a performance. The cop was greeted by a horrifyingly made-up face when the window was rolled down. Needless to say, stunned profanity ensued.

Whether white, green, skin-colored, or anything in between, this stuff is terrible. TERRIBLE. But we actors swallow our pride and wince at the pain, suffering through it all for the benefit of you, our dear audience. The show must go on.