The Best Advice
I’m taking care of the NIDA grads over the next 3 months
So my brain is once again shifting from my own work to:
“how can I help these performers progress best?”
It is therefore important for me
Being on the other side of the curtain
To be clear about what’s most worth investing valuable time and resources in
So
Let’s get clear
What is the best advice I can give to an actor right now?
Focus on being the best
And everything else will take care of itself.
What do I mean?
There are many things in combination that can help build a sustainable career
Kindess
Agents
Social media
Networking
Etc
However…
Kindness alone won’t build a sustainable career for you
Agents alone won’t build a sustainable career for you
Social media and networking alone won’t build a sustainable career for you
At the end of the day
At some point
On set or in the casting room
Everything will go quiet
Everyone will stop what they are doing and look at you
A camera will be pointed on your face
And Someone will say
“Action”
If…
In this moment…
You are able to give your best work
Your most generous work
The career will build itself
The work will come
The money will flow
Agents will beat down your door
Lovely relationships with great colleagues will develop
Companies will fight for you to wear there clothes
Social media followers will frantically click buttons
You get the point
Acting skills
Your ability to actually act on cue
Your ability to give your most generous work in between “action” and “cut”
This is the thing worth focussing on most
It’s been said before:
“Be so good they can’t ignore you”
And I really do think we inherently know this
But it’s easy enough to just say “be really great at acting”
Much harder to turn this into an actionable process
There are teachers all around the world
Classes running late into the night
Many decade-old acting books being combed through
All giving their two cents on how to get better
But how the hell do we know what to actually focus on?
Well
This is where individual choice comes in
Theatre?
Screen?
Improv?
Distinct characters?
Supporting roles?
Superheros?
Simply put…
What floats your boat?
What energises you beyond words?
What do you go to bed dreaming about?
What makes you forget to eat? Not need to sleep?
Who inspires you?
Who makes you insanely jealous?
What’s the kind of work that makes you go “HELL YES!”?
For me?
When helping other actors
I have a heavy bias toward leading roles on screen
So for today
Let’s go down that rabbit hole
Let’s just pretend that you want to get as good as you possibly can at playing leading roles on screen
Well
What skills does one need to get good at in order to give leading role calibre work?
There are three main areas one needs to become proficient at in order to give leading role level work
ONE: Darkness - Ownership of fear, your shadow, all parts of yourself that you judge as “bad” or “wrong”. Can you channel this and allow pure fear to flow out of you on demand?
TWO: Light - Ownership of love, vulnerability, all parts of yourself that requires you to surrender to the human standing opposite you. Can you channel this and allow pure love to flow out of you on demand?
So we have darkness and light
Light and darkness
The “boy and the beast”, so to speak
These are two out of the three main areas
A heavy amount of training steers in the direction of these two skills
Many a class have I sat in until the early hours of the morning (literally)
Watching teachers push and pull actors into the extremities of these two areas
But
Time to ask an important question
When watching lead roles on screen
In any film or show
How often do we see these two parts released?
Exactly
The majority of training focusses on pushing and pulling actors toward releasing darkness and light
Fear and love
Yet
These areas make up a small minority when it comes to professional work on screen
Interesting to note the majority of training is focussing on the minority of skill set actually required in ones career!
This leads us to our third area required for leading on screen
In order for actors to earn the audiences support when releasing darkness and light
They need to spend the majority of the job doing what I believe to be the most under-utilised area in training
THREE: Breathing as one’s self
The vast majority of what you will be asked to do in terms of acting on screen
Will be breathing as yourself in front of the lens
This will make up 95% or more of your professional work
If you can do this well
You will be asked to release the other two main areas
But if you can’t breathe as yourself in front of the lens
Chance are you won’t be consistently asked to release the darkness and the light
So if breathing as yourself is so bloody important
Why do acting classes focus so heavily on the screaming and the crying?
Well
Because it’s more interesting
It makes people feel like they are progressing way more than breathing does
For a teacher to hold a students hand, ask them to close their eyes and drudge up all their childhood woes…
Yeah there’s gonna be some tears and people will applaud and everyone goes home feeling buzzed
But will the teacher be there to help the actor get to that same place tomorrow on set?
Nope
It’s a short term win
And as great as short term wins can feel
I’m most curious about the long term work
The boring stuff which no-one what’s to focus on
Persistence...
To rock up to class or practice
Week after week
And focus on breathing as ones self on screen
That takes discipline
That’s boring as heck
So of course people aren’t going to do that
But back to what’s most valuable
The people who are on set
Getting paid to lead shows and films around the world
They are getting paid more than anyone because they can do the thing that so few can
Breathe as them-self
So back to my initial question
What is the best advice I can give to an actor?
If you are wanting to give leading work on screen
Then focus on getting as good as you can at breathing as yourself in front of the lens
Do this
Invest in this
And everything else will take care of itself
I really hope this helps
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