I Have Always Wanted to Act, But.........

I am constantly troubled by the great number of people who contact me and say that they have always wanted to be an actor or actress but they couldn't (for various reasons) and now that they are older or out of school or whatever they want to be an actor.  Or they say, "I have decided half way through my medical degree (or whatever) that only acting will make me happy." Or they say, "I have never done any acting but people tell me I ought to be on TV." Or nowadays, they are quite liable to say "I can't find any employment, so I decided I want to be an actor."  Well, you are getting the drift of things.

This is troubling because these people obviously think that all one has to do to be an actor is find out who to go see and then show up and say, "Here I am. I am an actor. Put me in the lead of your new film."  Naturally, the business does not operated like McDonald's hiring a new order taker for the drive up window.  To be an actor, one has to have extraordinary looks, charm, personality and talent. In that order, one talent manager says. I would add that they also have to have loads of experience, some professional training (preferably with a noted teacher or school), and knowledge of the acting business and how it works. 

It is a formidable list of requirements for success in the profession.  No one would like to risk his or her life by having their appendix removed by someone who has never done that surgery.  Likewise, no producer is going to jeopardize a multi-million dollar production by hiring an unknown, untrained, untested beginner to start in the film or play.

What, then, is the inexperienced aspiring actor to do?  Obviously he or she must get some acting experience ASAP.  This is what community theatres, theatre clubs, and youth ensembles are for.
I encourage every aspiring actor to work in amateur theatre to find out if they have the qualities on which it is necessary to risk investing time and money. 

Then there is another thing that bothers me about most of these people. They almost always say how much they love acting and how much they have always wanted to act.  So why the heck haven't they been acting in school and community theatre?  Whatever prevented them from doing it then may well prevent them from doing it now. People who become actors are likely to be people who are constantly performing in plays, musicals and, perhaps, student or indie films.  You can't stop them from acting, and they cannot stop themselves from acting as well.  I think of  Heath Ledger, who, immediately upon graduating high school, hopped in his car and drove the length of Australia to seek a career in acting.  Nothing could stop him from being an actor. But we need to remember that he had all the other qualities for success as well as tremendous drive.

Acting is not something to consider lightly.  Everyone has heard how difficult it is to become an actor.  They need to make sure they have the qualifications before attempting acting as a profession.

Acting without Acting

Lao-Tse, the founder of Taoism, said,"To act without acting is the goal of Taoism." Though he was not speaking of theatre and cinema, what he said has great import to how today's actors approach their craft.

Many actors are self conscious when they begin acting. This is due to their not concentrating on the proper things. They need to concentrate on the stimuli of the scene, rather than concentrate on the fact they are on stage or in front of a camera. Acting needs to be as natural as possible and that is only achieved when the actor is not self conscious. Thus, they need not act the part, but represent it as though they were actually in the imaginary circumstances of the play.

"Isn't acting pretending to be someone else?" some ask. No pretending to be someone else is deception. Today's actors do not pretend,nor do they deceive. They respond naturally and without inhibition to the emotional circumstances at each moment of the scene. It is the response of the individual actor that makes an honest representation of the character. To pretend or deceive takes a conscious effort by the person doing the pretense or deception. The actor must not think about what he is doing or how he is doing it Rather, he just does it. He acts without acting.

Another place that actors find themselves defeated by self consciousness is in the interview or cold reading. Because, they are not prepared for what happens in these circumstances, actors often put on a personality for interviews and try to make detailed characters out of their roles in cold readings. Such things cause perceptible pretense. And in neither situation does the actor want to come off as not being genuine. To avoid this, the actor just needs to respond naturally to the questions of the interview and then just read the lines of the cold copy naturally without a layer of character added. When casting nowadays, directors want to use the actor who, without changes, best represents the role..They are not casting the character. The character has already been created by the playwright or screenwriter. They are casting the natural human being who best represents the character.

Actors need to learn to do naturally what was at the time the most difficult thing a director ever asked me to do on stage. He wanted me to be myself and be charming. At that time, I had not learned how to act without acting. It took a while to catch on. Work on it. No pretense. Just be yourself and be charming.

Should an actor practice being in character in public places not on stage?

It is absolutely wonderful when someone asks a really good
question. This evening I was asked if
an actor, in order to better play a character not like himself, should practice
being that character at home, or in other places out side of the theatre. The following is an edited version of my
reply:

Not at all; that is
nonsense. You should keep your acting and your character on the stage. To act
or try to be your character off stage is not only rude to people around you, it
could be interpreted as mental illness. Theatre and cinema exist, so we can feel as important, attractive,
charming, and brave as we do in our imagination. But we must not try to be in public what we imagine ourselves to
be in private. (Read Theatre, Religion,
and Football, an article on my web site under Acting Theory.) Neither us, nor
the actor, nor us as actor are the character. The character is a fiction
created by a playwright. (Even historical characters must be somewhat
fictionalized in plays and films.) The character only exists in the
imaginations of those who read the script. That is until an actor takes the
place of the character on stage or in front of the camera. When the actor does
that he establishes the physical part of the character, the walk, the gestures,
the posture and the voice (if they need to be different from his own--which
they often do not). And he represents the character for the audience to see and
hear. The vast majority of casting of actors in roles actually want the actor
to simply look and sound like himself when playing the role. (Once, I was
playing the next-door police detective in "The Gazebo." The director
said to me, "Ken, stop doing all those character bits and just be yourself
and be charming." It was the most
difficult acting assignment I had ever been given. I did not consider myself as
being charming, so I had no idea what to do. I had not yet learned that it was
important not to "act" the role. It is the actor's job to simply
stand in for the character, and the actor does not have to make up a lot of
gestures or plan facial reactions. Rather than pretending, the actor allows
himself to have full and honest emotional responses (his own, unplanned
emotional responses, pleasant and unpleasant) to the stimuli of each moment of
the play as it occurs. He does not pretend to feel or pretend to respond. He
feels and he responds. So you don't need to practice being the character off
stage. The character does not exist off stage. He only exists in the imaginary
circumstances of the play and no where
else (except in the case of historical or real people as characters). So you
stop representing your character when the director says "cut," or if
the play or scene ends. Keep your performances fresh, spontaneous, and
vulnerable. And keep them only on stage.

It Is Difficult Beyond Description, Yet Possible

The more I work with aspiring actors and the more I get into what
makes an actor successful, the more I am aware of just how terribly nearly
impossible it is to succeed at professional acting. There are lots of reasons
for that including the colossal number of aspiring actors and the nature of the
business.

It is difficult to imagine how many
aspiring actors there are. Every year
in the US alone, more than ten thousand graduates of academic and professional
acting schools are added to the total. Then there are the thousands and thousands of those who do not go to school , but who just try
to become actors without that expense. And no wonder when the cost of college acting majors and acting schools
cost thirty to forty thousand dollars a year! But numbers and cost are not the
only obstacles to be overcome if one is to be an actor.

The acting business is a very closed
society that only allows newcomers when such newcomers have such a look,
personality, experience and talent as to make the business want to include
them. Each actor who gets into the
business does it in a little different way. The way professional plays and films are cast contributes to the closed
society. Except for small roles, films
and plays mostly are cast from the actors that the producers and directors know
and trust. Only rarely are they willing to give a newcomer a chance. Sure there
are sometimes ‘open’ auditions. But these are mostly sham. They are required by the actors’ union and
are really just ‘going though the motions’ rather than honestly looking for new
talent. But new talent is found.

In spite of all these things new talent
turns up on TV and on the stage and in the movies. There are some who call this luck, but honestly, it is when
preparation meets opportunity that new faces appear. This means that to become a professional actor, one needs a heap
of experience and training. I think the
experience is the more important. Even
when some people in the industry say that the actor’s look is most important,
they also say that charm, confidence and talent are also important for
success. Experience and training hone
one’s charm, confidence and talent. When the actor with these qualities meet the casting director looking
for the same type, new talent often is seen on TV and in the cinema or on
Broadway.

Acting: A New Definition

I think we need an entirely new definition of acting because of the motion picture. It has taken a
Century for it to happen, but what was acting a hundred years ago, even fifty
years ago, is not what acting is today. Looking at a list about screen acting
that I was sent, one item is "be yourself, that's who they
hired." This completely eliminates
the business of characterization, doesn't it?

I have been writing that I
don't think there is any such thing as the Academy Awards "Best
Actor". Screen acting is mostly
the technology of filmmaking and has very little to do with what the actor
does. Film acting is doing nothing
except feeling emotion that is expressed naturally in the eyes. The actor does not try to show anything with
his uyes, he just does it naturally.

Returning to what Don
Richardson says acting is in “Acting Without Agony: “Acting is being other
people,” I think we have a basis for defining acting and what an actor does
when he ‘acts.’ Acting is assuming
that you are someone else (the character in the film or play) and behaving as
though you were that person. You enter the imaginary world of the screenplay
and you respond emotionally to the stimuli in the world of the film. Do you have to go through a rigorous
preparation of creating a character? No. The screen writer has done that. Only if you are portraying a historical
personage whose mannerisms and speech are well documented do you need to
research and practice those things. Other wise, in fictional roles, the actor’s job is much easier. He assumes being the character the
playwright or screenwriter has created in the script: and, using the dialog and
blocking given him, he behaves as though he were the role. He needs no information that is not in the
script, no backstory, imaginary biography, or character analysis. The actor and the character are one and the same when the actor is acting.

David Mamet also gives
insight into what acting is in “True and False.” He says that the actor stands in lieu of the character. Since the character is not a real person and
cannot be on the set, the actor must represent the character by taking his
place. Thus, Acting is taking the character’s place on stage or in front of the
camera, When he does that he is being
someone other than himself. And yet the
actor is still himself. It is his
emotions that must be expressed in the dramatic situations he finds himself.

What Stanislavsky originally
wanted as well was for the actor to be himself on stage. Mamet, Richardson, and
I agree, as do many, many other acting teachers and directors.

Why We Want to Be Actors--Honestly

Hundreds of young people have contacted me wanting to be actors. They almost always include in their email that they are not interested in fame or money or that they want to influence the world for good.

Really??

With almost no exceptions, every actor I have known gives up on having a professional career because they have not achieved the success in fame and money that they had hoped they would. Acting is a very selfish undertaking. . You do it because YOU want to do it. You want to be known as an actor.. Yes, you want to entertain the public, but that is because you want them to adore
you.

Acting, most people believe, will bring them fame, money and admiration. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to reach that high a point of success as a professional and for those things to happen. It does on rare occasion actually happen, and that is what continues to spark the wide-spread interest in becoming an actor.

Everyone wants to be admired. Humans have a need to be thought worthy. And many people choose acting as a means to attempt to meet those needs. Now, let's leave it at that. These are not
bad things. They are normal things. People do not have to apologize nor make up some altruistic motive for wanting to be an actor. Those of us who have been in the business for many years know that such motives are false. Though it is true than many actors do philanthropic work, we know that people want to be actors to meet their basic needs for acceptance and admiration -- for love in many cases.

It is more than tiresome to read how aspiring actors try to justify their acting on some sort of philanthropic base. That is just baloney. You love acting. Enough said. Who cares why
you want to act? What matters is how good you can act. I know that when talent agents get cover letters from young people that include altruistic reasons for wanting to become actors, they just laugh and through the letter in the trash.

So it is time to be honest about why we want to become actors. We want to do it to feed our egos and to make us feel important. That's fine. Leave it there. You really do not have to tell anyone why you want to become an actor. They actually know already. So stop covering up your selfishness. It is OK. But don't flaunt it either.

It is just as bad to say openly that you want to be an actor so you can be rich and famous. Since this is true of all actors, it becomes boring to hear it repeated and repeated. What you should always say is, "I want to become the best actor I can be." And let it go at that. No problem. Best wishes and God bless, Doc

PS. Don't talk too much about wanting to be an actor. Just be one.

How not to be embarassed when acting intense scenes on camera

First, I would say relax and not worry about it because you are most likely a beginner and are not working in the same way that professionals would do. That is, the production is not as effectively done, and the acting, therefore is not as effectively done. Second, If you mess up because you get embarrassed and laugh, then shoot it again, that's what the pros do. And they do exactly that--they giggle and break character. Third, you are an untrained actress, inexperienced outside of home made and school videos. It takes a long time (years) for actors to learn to be perfectly comfortable doing intense scenes. The best thing you could co is to be in some school plays and get more acting experience. Finally, putting yourself into the imaginary circumstances of the film and doing the role is something you need to concentrate on. Use your imagination to create the situation and characters of the film, then stay focused on that so you don't think about yourself being anything other than the character. This,of course, sounds easier that it is to do. But with practice you can become quite good at it.
One of the things an actor has to do is reveal her emotions. You have heard of good acting being vulnerable? That means that the actor shows his or her true inner emotional feelings. Sandford Meisner, perhaps the most famous of movie acting teachers said it takes twenty years for actors to finally be able to do his technique which accomplishes what we are discussing here. You have to be able to be so involved in the moment of the scene that there is nothing in your head but the moment. You never think about the fact that you are acting and there is a crew there. You just do the scene--you just react honestly and without inhibition to the stimuli of the scene.