Acting is Learned Through the Body

Acting exists through and in the body. Too much thinking and you have time to get scared. Too much thinking and you become the worried perfectionist trying to get it right.

Acting is instinctive, spontaneous, improvised from moment to moment. Planning kills it dead. Acting is about action and active reaction, all of which is based on psychophysical impulse.

But thinking kills impulses.

Many of our students want to ‘talk’ because they’ve spent their lives understanding through active cognitive reflection. But not all skills can be learned this way, and acting is a physical art and therefore is learned like other physical skills through the body.

When you are in the moment of performance, truthfully places in the vulnerable place where anything could happen, the body is your only resort.

The mind will critique and scold, interfere and undermine. It will tell you that you are no damned good, that was wrong, you didn’t do this part right, that was better last night, did that differently last take.

The mind second-guesses you.

In acting, you must act before you think. Thought gets in the way, makes you self conscious, engendering physical tension, and this focus back on the self kills your spontaneity.

The body, which is truthful in all things it does, requires simple instruction and then a good push into the terrifying unknown.

Acting exists through the body, as singing or dancing or cricket. When you come to learn to act, you will not be helped by ‘understanding’ it, you are chasing something that doesn’t exist, instead acknowledge that acting is first and last a physical thing and then do it.

Acting is action, achieved through the body. It is not emoting or pretending, both of which start in the mind. Acting is doing, do and stop thinking so much.