Can anyone be an actor?

Anyone can train to be an actor, anyone can learn the skills required. Personally, I think if acting ISN’T the capacity to BELIEVE in the imaginary and act upon your capacity for delusion, then yes, it’s possible that anyone can be an actor. However, of course, it’s not as simple as that. We’re all inclined towards certain things more than others. We can all learn to paint, but not everyone will be Picasso. We can all learn to play soccer, but not everyone will ever become Cristiano Ronaldo, because a gathering together of factors has brought him to become the best in his field. You can learn it, you just might not be the best in the world.

Without a doubt, it certainly helps if you are psychologically or psychophysically predisposed to performance. By performance, I don’t mean that they can act, I just mean that they have an element of the performer about their own character. This may be that they speak loudly, aren’t afraid to speak in front of strangers, and can remember lots and lots of lines, but that also doesn’t mean that you are going to become a great actor.

So can anyone become an actor? Don’t you need talent to be an actor?

Well, one look at the average soap opera would show that you don’t need a GREAT talent for acting, but you must be able to perform. You must also be able to augment and suppress certain elements of your own personality, through the characteristics that you choose to express in the pursuit of acting.

Of course, many people go to acting school to learn the technical side of acting. It’s not just being able to read a play, analyze it for action and work off the other actors. There are technical considerations, things that you need to learn that only production can teach. There are elements of the craft of the actor that can be only learned on the job, and these are not dependent upon the whims of capricious talent.

It takes much more than simply talent, and perhaps talent isn’t enough.  I am continually surprised when inexperienced actors that demonstrate no initial ‘talent’ in my classes end up producing incredible scenes.

Those people that struggle the most, are those that are inflexible in mind, those that have difficulty affecting (others) and being affected (by others). Those people that talk but don’t listen, watch but don’t see. Those people that are particularly unaware of their self. Everyone struggles to learn something new. It always feels awkward and wrong to learn a new skill, but it is those people that cannot get out of their own way (by themselves or with help) that will struggle the most with becoming an actor.