How We Got Acting Wrong

We made a mistake many years ago, we came to the conclusion that acting was a creative art in the sense of an individual consciously creative act, the creation of character, a distinct other, into whose shoes, the actor could step.

If you want to blame someone, then rest the burden on Stanislavski, the father of modern psychological acting. He believed that the actor had to create a new ‘soul’, because to him, the writer only provided the bare bones and the actor filled in the rest, the complete the character as a fully three dimensional person.

What he failed to realise is that you are already a person and the humanity you bring to the role is what fills in the rest and makes your contribution unique.

Acting is not creation of other, is not transformation of self, it is the revelation of self.

Critics of our approach say “doesn’t that mean you play yourself in every role?”

Don’t be naive. Who do you think is playing each character?

“ah yes, but what about the superb Gary Oldman, doesn’t he transform himself for every role.”

If by transform you mean “puts on a different moustache”, then yes. Oldman is smart, he chooses projects that have him playing very different roles, with very different characteristics, costume and yes, facial hair!

Acting has nothing to do with character, which inevitably draws us into a self consciousness. I have never in the last 4 years of running my own studio taught a single characterisation exercise. It’s all total nonsense, a waste of time, baffling to actors, sometimes fun and entirely impossible to reproduce as a consistently supportive approach.

We got acting wrong but we can’t see it, because we don’t want to see it, we love the histrionics of making up a character, we love feeling like serious creative artists at work, that feeling comforts us, we find fulfilment in it, but it doesn’t help. Disappointing as it is, there is another way.

Understand the play, understand the scene, turn the fictional into the real, work from your partner and keep it simple.

Can it really be that simple? Oh yes.