Acting Advice: The Engine of a Scene

Psychological Action is the engine of a scene.

A car without an engine cannot go. It may look pretty, but if the engine cannot bring the inanimate vehicle to life, it cannot go.

The engine of a scene is the psychological action that character is undertaking.

When we watch a scene, or a monologue, what we are really seeing is the performer enacting a character’s psychological action, carrying an intention through someone else’s lines.

In life, our words and our non-verbal communication, all come from our intention.

Acting should be no different. If the actor truly commits to a real-world/achievable psychological action, if they commit themselves wholeheartedly, then the words of the writer come to life, and the body comes to life with it.

Over 90% of what we communicate to an audience is done so non-verbally meaning the audience take away what you did more than what you said.  Without a psychological action to carry out in the scene, the scene has no engine, there is no doing without an engine.

Without a psychological action, actors attempt to make the scene by reproducing emotional states, and carrying a scene forwards by leaping from emotional island to emotional island, yet these islands are all fake, because they do not come from a real intention.

To practice a scene is to practice the psychological action beneath it. In the technique that I teach, we call it the MINDSET of a TASK. The actor must have a clear understanding of the MINDSET of the task that they will carry out in the scene. A task is the character’s desire transformed into something that is achievable in the real world. No matter how good our imagination, unless we can translate fiction to fact, we will not act truthfully.

If we are working on a monologue or scene, we must habituate the psychological action underpinning the scene before we come to use the lines. If we do not habituate the psychological action first, we will inevitably be tempted away by our first impression of the lines.

If the character wants another character to accept that they will never marry Chris because Chris is in love with Sam, then the psychological action of the scene is:

TO GET SOMEONE TO SWALLOW A BITTER PILL.

To discover the psychological action of the scene, is to bring the scene to life.  Behave like you want the other actor to swallow a bitter pill, and you will bring the words of the scene to life.