STOP “ACTING”

So often, when I work with actors, I am simply getting them to get out of their own way.

To stop “Acting” (with a capital A).

To stop doing the needless things that are part of their acting routine.

Many times an actor will be putting so many unneeded things out there, that I have a hard time seeing the scene. I have a hard time seeing the actor. He is unclear, and difficult to see through the fog of fear-based needs and choices he is putting out.

Sadly, many actors aren’t even using their “authentic voice”.

Instead, they are literally speaking differently than they normally would.

This inauthentic voice, or “false personae” was created by the actor out of fear. Fear that he isn’t “enough”.

One of my favorite exercises is specifically designed to get actors to stop “Acting” and use their authentic voice and personality.

I will have the actor tell a story that relates to the core of the scene he is performing.

I ask that the story be from high school or college. I find that when actors are forced to recollect something from their past, they are too involved in the process of recalling the event to be able to continue “Acting” or using their false personae.

Plus, we care more about those stories because events from our youth had more impact on us then those in our adulthood. We were more vulnerable in our early years so things affected us more deeply.

Talking about their youth, reminds people who they really are. They touch their genuine sincerity and earnestness.

I will then interrupt the actor mid-story and have him jump right into the scene.

I make sure to clarify that I am not asking the actor to take the emotion from the story into the scene, but instead just remember how he really thinks and communicates.

An actress was doing a scene in my workshop and I could tell she was “Acting”. She was not trusting that she could just be, but instead was controlling and presenting each moment to us.

It’s as if she was putting quotes around everything she was doing, instead of really doing it.

At one point she was talking on a phone in the scene.

I asked her if she was talking on a phone, or

(fingers making air quotes)

“talking on the phone”.

She shyly admitted that she had been

(fingers making air quotes)

“talking on the phone”.

As a matter of fact everything she was doing in the scene had quotes around it. It’s the difference between really doing something, versus

(fingers making air quotes)

“doing it”.

She knew that she was approaching everything from a false, acting way, but she didn’t know how to stop.

In her scene she was playing a receptionist who really enjoys her job. So I had her tell me about an activity she really enjoyed in high school or college. Mid-story we jumped right into the scene, and it was suddenly so alive and real for her.

She had remembered who she really was, and how she really thought and communicated.

After an actor leaves the audition room, the casting director will often make notes beside the actor’s name, in order to remember their performance.

Very often the casting director will simply write “real” or “not real”.

When a casting director writes “real”, it means he feels that the actor is “hirable”. Whether the actor is right for this particular role is yet to be seen, but at least they can feel secure bringing in an actor who approaches the material in a “real” way.

And what does it mean to be “real”?

It means they weren’t “Acting”, but “being”.

They weren’t involved in “showing”, but instead were “experiencing”.

Don’t misunderstand. Being “real” doesn’t mean that the actor is insane and truly believes that he is living the reality of the scene. The actor doesn’t hallucinate that the walls have disappeared and he is suddenly in a different locale.

The goal in performing a scene is to be only thinking the thoughts that the character is thinking. The more thoughts you have outside this, the less “real” you will be.

Again, it’s not that the great actors have something you don’t. It’s that you have things that the great actors don’t have. And those things are “needs”. Needs to impress, to look a certain way, to be something that you believe you aren’t.

When something real happens in an audition there is an electrical charge in the air. That charge is felt every time something genuinely unplanned and unexpected happens to the actor. The audience can smell it. It’s like when you would shoot off those old metal cap guns. Remember that smell of the burnt powder in the air?

The more moments you have like that in an audition, the better chance you have of booking the job.

A friend of mine was watching a rather uninspired performance of TWELFTH NIGHT. Either the actors had been doing it for a while and had grown bored of their performance, or simply had not been directed well. But for whatever reason, the actors were going about the performance in an unauthentic way. They were “doing it” instead of really doing it. My friend had leaned back in her seat, uninvolved with the proceedings.

Well, this production happened to take place in an old church, which quite literally had “bats in the belfry”. Halfway through the show the bats decided to pay a little visit to the stage, and began swooping through the proceedings.

This, at first, scared the crap out of the performers, some of whom took cover. But as the play continued, there was a completely different energy. Everyone was “present”. My friend said that the rest of the show was dynamic, exciting, and absolutely riveting.

I’m sure you’ve had the same experience. Perhaps an actor forgot a line, or an understudy is on, or it’s simply opening night and no one is sure of their blocking. And suddenly things are really “happening”. The actors are no longer “in control”.

It can be a subtle switch, but you know when it happens. Sparks are flying, and the air is alive with electricity.

I describe it as a “switch”, because that’s what it seems like for me. Allowing yourself to be real can be as simple as flicking a little switch in your head. It is locating that switch that can be tricky. It’s as though you’re fumbling for a light switch in the dark. But every time you find it, and turn it on, it becomes easier to find it the next time.

I’m embarrassed to admit that in college I used to do push ups before a performance trying to “get there”. Then, later in life, I used to smoke a cigarette right before I’d do a scene. But looking back, it didn’t make my work any better. Now I see I was doing those things because I didn’t trust that I was enough, and I didn’t have faith that my higher power would be there to help guide me through my performance.

In her one-woman show, “Elaine Stricht: At Liberty,” the famous actress discusses her bout with alcoholism due to stage fright. She said she never went onstage without drinking first because she didn’t want to “go out there alone”.

I’m so glad that I no longer feel “alone” onstage. Now, I see not smoking as my way of letting the universe know that am coming from a place of trust and faith.

Do what you want before a performance, but don’t make the mistake of thinking you NEED to do a specific thing in order to be in a place where you are really doing things.

I believe that sometimes it’s the things you DON’T do that can book you the job.

So many actors are involved in doing too much. They are “Acting” with a capital A.

If these actors would drop the unneeded things they are doing and just simply say the lines, they would then be free to be involved in the things they should be involved in, like having spontaneous thoughts, reactions and feelings.