Lessons via John Hurt

Today’s post is a guest blog from my Right Hand Man at Acting Coach Scotland, Mr Ian Watt:

John Hurt – the guy from the Alien chest-buster scene & sack-over-head in The Elephant Man – was interviewed by The Big Issue in last year and said he’s asked the same question in every interview – “How do you act?” He’s been an actor for over 50 years but admits he can’t give an answer.

Later in the interview he shows he’s got a firm grasp on how he works and describes his process in terms which sound quite familiar to everyone at ACS.

“When you go on set, you don’t know how you’re going to play it.” he says. “You know what it’s about, but you don’t know how the other person is going to play it, so you’re open.”

Sounds like he’s done his analysis on the scene but stays open to how he’ll go about it and what he’ll do is determined by what the other actor does and not a prescribed scene he’s set out to deliver.

He also talks about being professional as “being on time and all that stuff but it’s also about finding your way to the goods even when you don’t feel like it.”

This doesn’t sound to me that he works on finding his character or feeling emotion.

We use TASK to drive our action and deliver the goods by pursuing a TASK which we’ve chosen to represent what the scene has set up as the character’s WANT. We are able to pursue it whether we really feel like doing it or not.

He also describes his acting roles like “he is living and breathing them, there and then.”
We say it as being in the moment not “becoming” the character but by living and reacting to what is happening right in front of us in the here and now.

He adds about shooting a film which had no rehearsals “It all happens so fast because you’re there. You’ve got to be on form.” he says.

He’s managed to do his job to an exceptionally high level for over 50 years and get paid big bucks for doing it. He might sound vague on how he achieves this on a regular basis but over time he’s found the pieces of the acting jigsaw that work for him.

Taking part in a particularly unsuccessful scene class, I thought how great it was to have a common language to work with and a complete set of tools to check when something isn’t quite clicking. We can sort things out by going back through our analysis and check we’ve a good understanding of what the scene is about. We can fine tune our chosen TASK and further personalise our As Ifs to increase the stake levels or urgency, we can rehearse working with TACTICS and play with gibberish and As Iffing into the scene.

Maybe there is a bit of “magic” when it all goes right – but when you’re in the middle of it when it’s not going well, you’ll be glad you’ve some real tools to help you put yourself right.

You don’t need 50 years of professional experience to sort problems out. Don’t become despondent when things are going off the rails, be confident, you know what you’re doing and you can work to put it right.

Ian Watt

Acting Coach at Acting Coach Scotland