My Absolute Top 10 Tips for Actors
ONE: Acting isn’t pretending, it’s not performing, it’s being truthful in every moment on camera. We’re already truthful in life, so we know how to do it, but somehow, whenever we think about acting, we start to pretend, or get fake. Stop. What’s required in each scene is authentic behaviour. Honestly. You do that all day, every day, you’re already authentic, but it’s about finding ways to tap into that when you’re having to behave authentically under imaginary circumstances.
TWO: The great enemy of authentic behaviour is self consciousness which manifests itself in physical tension which attacks the body and the breathing. To evaporate self-conscious, you need to give the consciousness something else to focus on. That’s because when we have something that directs our attention away from the self and holds the focus of our attention, self-consciousness just vanishes.
THREE: To redirect our focus of attention, we need something achievable to really do in the scene. The words will come out regardless, because they’re written down, but by having something to achieve in the scene, we can direct our behaviour in certain ways. What specific I advise is that you have a TASK, something that can achieved from the target actor in your scene. The target actor is the actor playing the character that your character wants something major from. It could be “a commitment”, or “for them to tell the truth” and “to knock them off their high horse.” Whatever it is, really do it to that other actor, the words are set in stone, but your actions, the things you do are not. And so you direct your attention towards the other actor and attempt to achieve your TASK.
FOUR: The other person is a living, breathing, constantly changing entity. If you attempt to achieve your TASK, there’s a good chance that they’ll change. That’s great. Transform your TASK into something physically achievable. So, if it’s to get a commitment, see if you can get them to shake your hand. Don’t just thrust your hand out, but see if you can engender that behaviour in them, see if through your actions, you can get them to do it. But here’s the trick, it doesn’t matter whether they do, or they don’t. It’s you attempting to get that which will lead you to authentic behaviour and bust your self consciousness.
FIVE: The way that we achieve our TASK is through strategy. We call the small strategies that we employ TACTICS. They’re really easy to use, because we use them ourselves all the time. TACTICS are verbs that can be done to someone else. COAX, NUDGE, BITE, (they’re psychphysical so you’re not actually sinking your teeth into them) CHALLENGE, CONFRONT, PUNCTURE, BERATE. Prep these for your scene, know which tactics will work well for the scene and use them when the need arise. You can pre-plan which to use when, but that’s not really authentic because you need to respond in the moment to what your TARGET is doing!
SIX: Connect to what doing your TASK is like by finding a parallel in your imagination or memory. What’s getting a commitment from a friend like to you? It’s As If…. Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to puke up all your emotional history, you just use it to make sure you remember what doing that TASK is like. Otherwise the TASK is useless to you. Ah yes, getting a commitment from a friend is like that time when my friend wouldn’t commit to going on holiday with me, what did I do then to persuade her? In your imagination you must still use a real person, but day dream to imagine what that TASK is like to you. What would you do to the person if you needed to get the TASK achieved? Do those things to the TARGET actor.
SEVEN: Learn the lines cold. That means so you don’t need to think of them. If you need to reach for the lines at any time, you’ll be distracted, self conscious and dead in the water. Learn them without intonation or tonal inflection though – in other words don’t fix your speech patterns – otherwise you’ll struggle to change moment to moment.
EIGHT: Trust the writing. It’s done, it’s dusted. Trust it now.
NINE: Listen carefully to what the director wants. They may be good, they may be great, they may be abysmal, but if you listen carefully you can work out for yourself what the director wants from you.
TEN: Everyone in our industry has their own language from the grips to the director and writer. Actors are no different. Actors speak the language of action. Don’t expect everyone else to speak your language though, but always translate whatever you’ve been asked to do back into action. Directors often talk in terms of the results they want and often you’re on your own as to how you deliver these results. So, the director tells you to get more aggressive, you need to think of the types of behaviour, the tactics that aggressive people might use. When you do these tactics with the same intention as the character, you give the illusion the director wanted.