Learning to Act

I get a lot of people asking me if I can help them learn to act. For an acting coach, that’s a tricky one. Why ? I hear you ask. Because surely if I’m good at my job, the answer is yes. Also, aren’t I always saying ANYONE can learn to act.  Yes it’s true, I do feel anyone could learn to act. To me, living truthfully, which is the first half of Meisner’s famous quote is possible for all of us. It’s the second part that takes the gift. How do you connect your truthfulness to the work of someone else? That’s a tough one and it’s the very thing that separates all of our acting techniques from each other.

Before I can teach anyone to act, they need to want it. Not just think they want it, but really want it. It needs to drive the hottest spike of pain through their skull to think of, or to see themselves doing anything else. Not an adolescent crush on acting, not the thought that you could be in the movies, but a gnawing pain in your very being that will not shut the fuck up until you act. If you have that as a starting point, perhaps you could learn to act.

But WANT is not enough. In the past, I heard a lot of people tell me they want to act, they want to write, they want to direct etc etc. I say fine, because I know they won’t make it. How do I know? Because want is not enough. The actions you take towards you goal signal your intent, not your words of desire. If you want to act, show me with your actions.

Well, you think, I’m reading your bloody blog aren’t I? Isn’t that action? Well, it’s a start. Well, I want to come to class, is that a start? Sure, but what else are you doing? My favourite people in the world are those who just do what they need to do, regardless of all else. The people I admire, didn’t let ANYTHING get in their way, not money, not education, not disability, not ANYTHING. They get out and do.  Life is action, or it is stillness. There is beauty in stillness. Those who appreciate stillness have a calm like no other people. BUT inaction isn’t stillness, it’s action tempered by fear.

We fear. We fear failure. We fear someone proving to us that we aren’t as good as the best people. Let me tell you something I think I’ve learned. That’s vanity. That’s all it is. Vanity. Excessive pride, coming before a long, long, long fall. The difference between the successful people and the unsuccessful people is the level of action that the successful people were willing to take. When you put your desire into action, it’s amazing what happens.

Stop making excuses, there are always plenty of them and you’ll never run out.

Take action or move on.

-Mark-