What Bruce Lee Can Teach Us About Acting
For Lynn
I’ve always loved Bruce Lee. The movies he made, his love of acting, his fearless pursuit of excellence, and the development of his own fighting style – Jeet Kune Do. As a kid, he was one of my heroes. He achieved more in his short life than most do with twice the number of years he was alive. His work ethic was insatiable, he put in the hours, he sought out the best, he achieved for greatness by dint his own hand.
I thought in today’s blog, I would use some wise words from Bruce Lee to explore some concepts in acting.
“Be water my friend”
Flow around your opponent rather than trying to meet them head on. This is vital for scene work. Characters do not often make a head-on collision, they negotiate each other. They deal with each other with different strategies to achieve their goal. When we are acting scenes, we must use tactics, psychophysical actions to achieve our goal which attempt to negotiate what the other actors is doing in the moment.
“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.”
Bruce Lee knew that being stuck to one system or one way of working caused fundamental problems in fighting styles. Actors should look for what really works. Many techniques look pretty, sound fascinating but are as useless as a chocolate fireguard.
Find a way of working that works for you, but study hard when you study, so it is not you that is causing the failure. Do not be snooty about where you find the answers. A tiny acting school might have more answers than the fancy institution.
“Empty your cup so it may be filled.”
Bruce Lee was quoting the zen masters here, but his point is clear. If you need help, if you need to develop technique in acting that actually works, you must empty your cup first. No acting teacher can teach you a damn thing if you aren’t willing to put aside your preconceptions. The number of students that insist on defending ways of acting that have never actually worked for them is legion, it’s down out of safety, but if you want to learn, empty your cup first.
“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
A personal favourite of mine. Reaching is more important than to be reached. The act of stretching for your goal may be the real goal. In your training, in your acting work, aim towards the goal of the most beautiful instinctive, truthful, moment to moment acting. And then accept the chaos of performance. Set goals to stretch yourself, not necessarily just to tick off.
“What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become.”
Bruce Lee is narrowly avoiding quoting Aristotle who believed that our characters came from what we do. In other words, what we do becomes who we are. Character is habitual action. In acting, or skill development, the habits we acquire of thinking or doing, they become what we will perform. Build great habits, obliterate your bad habits.