• Sometimes you have to go backwards

    Updated: 2011-04-25 17:31:17
    Well, today is a holiday here, but I thought I would blog nonetheless. Last week some of my students experienced something quite unpleasant. After working intensively for two hours, they learned something new about their craft and they were full of confidence about applying it to their scene, but when the scene came to be [...]

  • Moment to Moment

    Updated: 2011-04-22 12:00:46
    When you act, you must be present in the moment, in connection with both text and scene partners. If you get ahead, you will anticipate and this in insincere. If you think about how it was yesterday, you will be held behind and invite self-comparison with previous efforts. Say you know that you say a [...]

  • I love David Simon

    Updated: 2011-04-21 11:30:57
    This blog isn’t about acting, but it is relevant to actors, so I do hope you’ll read it nonetheless. I’ve been working long hours on my acting book, so something different for today please… It’s true, despite being happily married, I think I love David Simon. Who is David Simon? A former journalist turned writer [...]

  • Playing Real People

    Updated: 2011-04-20 12:00:31
    The recent History Channel docudrama ‘The Kennedys’ is excellent. With Barry Pepper and Greg Kinnear, giving outstanding performances. One of my students asked about whether you need a specific approach to playing real people? I have written about this before and there’s a section about it in the book that i’m writing. I often talk [...]

  • How to Write A Back Story or Character History

    Updated: 2011-04-19 12:00:15
    “Class, today I want you to create a backstory for the character you’re playing…” If you ever hear me say this, you can stand up and ask for your money back immediately.  What’s more, you can have the shirt off my back and the keys to the studio! The well-meaning acting teacher or director asks [...]

  • Momentum

    Updated: 2011-04-18 11:30:33
    We learn by habit.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s Spanish, Cooking or the Guitar, we learn through practice that forms habit.  The item necessary for habit to form is forward motion, continued effort, we could call this Momentum. The best students I’ve ever had were not necessarily the smartest or the most talented, but those [...]

  • Introduction to Stanislavski

    Updated: 2011-04-17 11:00:11
    And after all that, some of my newer students asked me to give them a little introduction to Stanislavski, to give them some background and history to this debate and I’ve agreed to do that here. Konstantin Alexeyev or ‘Stanislavski’ as he is known by his stage name is remembered as the father of modern [...]

  • Bette Davis ‘visits’ Answers for Actors

    Updated: 2011-04-17 01:01:56
    "You've got to love the actual sweat more than the lights and the glamor..." Bette Davis For those who have seen and appreciate Bette Davis' work I offer you her candor below on the business in an interview from the 1970s. For those 'actors' who only know of the name of Bette Davis by way of a raspy, Kim Carnes retro 80s download stop ignoring those who came before you. Don't be ignorant. ("But you are, Blanche! You are...")

  • Stanislavski Revisited

    Updated: 2011-04-16 12:00:39
    Okay, okay, there’s a lot of people got their panties in a bunch about my recent blog about Stanislavski. Let me reiterate that my central point is that Stanislavski is not so useful to beginners. His work, particularly the newly translated and assembled stuff like ‘An Actors Work’ and ‘An Actors Work on a Role’ [...]

  • Tongue Twisters for Actors

    Updated: 2011-04-14 20:08:22
    This is as much for me as it is for you. It’s a list of some tongue twisters in English that I use. I hope they’re useful to you, they’re useful to me for having them in one place! Here we go: A cricket critic (repeated) A cricket critic, a critic of the criket A [...]

  • Acting is Learned Through the Body

    Updated: 2011-04-12 18:18:00
    Acting exists through and in the body. Too much thinking and you have time to get scared. Too much thinking and you become the worried perfectionist trying to get it right. Acting is instinctive, spontaneous, improvised from moment to moment. Planning kills it dead. Acting is about action and active reaction, all of which is [...]

  • Interested in Acting? Don’t Bother with Stanislavski!

    Updated: 2011-04-11 12:00:51
    He is the father of modern acting. His contribution to acting theory and practice is without question an important one. But if you’re discovering acting for the first time, you’d be better off avoiding his books entirely. His books are very poorly written and I should know. My earliest contact with any acting theory was [...]

  • The Script is the Actor’s Greatest Enemy

    Updated: 2011-04-04 11:00:57
      …or so said Sandy Meisner anyway. But you know, I understand what he meant.  Bringing to life the words of another person, when you don’t inhabit the intentions that caused those very words to spontaneously issue forth is very very difficult.  But that’s the thing that all acting techniques have in common. It doesn’t [...]

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