Deja vu all over again

I mentioned last month that young people wanting to become actors keep making mistakes that will doom them to failure.  Here is another one:  the student who goes to college to study acting but also is a student athlete and has signed with an agency because they want to get started as an professional as soon as possible.  Now this person has so much going on that they cannot possibly do any of  them well.

My advice is to slow down.  It is a huge error for someone to be in too big a hurry to become a professional actor.  These are the ones that get scammed and lose thousands of dollars to the scam artists just waiting for them. But you have to slow down for other reasons as well.  You can't just leap into being an actor.  I know someone you heard of did it, but you have to realize that you are not that someone.  So you need to learn to be an actor and get a lot of experience acting before you try to be a pro.  It is a sad thing for you to watch TV and see all those actors your age.  Why didn't you do that? Simple. Your parents didn't make it happen for you.  If you had had the ability to be a teen TV actor, someone probably would have noticed and supported your dream. But you may have been (and you may still be) dreaming with no foundation for the dream to come true. 

The foundation is:  experience in lots of plays, training in lots of professional classes, training to be charming and personable, and developing an attractive look.  Remember attractive is only partly being good looking.  It is also being charismatic. Some where in this blog is my port on that subject. 

If you don't have  all the parts of the foundation, work on the ones that are missing and get the foundation as solid as you can.  This will take a number of years.  It may take more than your high school and college years.  It took me twenty years after college!  Now I have to insert here that I did not spend all my time trying to become an actor.  I had insured my failure to become a pro by not constantly working on it, by taking a job that gave me a fairly comfortable life style, and by getting married and having a family.  But since acting was connected to every aspect of my life, the opportunity finally care around, and I got an audition. Because I had a great foundation, I passed the audition and got cast as a wedding dancer in Duchess and The Dirt Water Fox. That led to another audition, and because my foundation was even better than before the wedding dancer audition, I passed this audition as well and got cast in the role of Krater in "How the West Was Won" TV series with James Arness.  I went on to be in several other films and TV series. I became a SAG actor (in those days SAG and AFTRA had not merged).  Now some twenty plus years from when I had to stop acting, I still get residual checks for my previous work.

OK. Got it?  Slow down and get a solid foundation. Then when opportunity knocks, you will be prepared.  Remember 'luck' is when preparation meets opportunity. God bless, Doc

Doomed to Failure

Sometimes I cannot believe it is happening.  Aspiring actors from all over the world, of all ages and of both genders write and do things that doom them to failure as actors.  Just recently, for example, I had spent a month or so corresponding with a young lady who wanted to audition for my free acting lessons. She understood that I only teach students who I believe have a chance of becoming professional actors.  A high school student, she postponed her audition until school was out.  She assured me how serious she was about acting and so I made an appointment for her to audition.   When I talked to her and her father on the phone, they both said they would be at the audition. Come the day of her appointment and she does not show up! No phone call, just a no show.  I cannot stress how important it is for anyone under 18 to get their parents on board about their acting career.  If they do not, they cannot possibly become actors. No matter what scared her away from her audition, she should have called to say she could not make it. By not showing she is doomed to fail. The professsional word has no time to waste on such behavior.

Another behavior that I hear about all the time is the aspiring actor who has an interview at a talent agency but does not know what to say when they get there. These people are all inexperienced, have read nothing about acting as a career, and have never been in a play. They always ask me how to dress, what to say, do they need a monologue, what monologue should they do, etc, etc, etc.  They never tell me the name of the agency and in many cases I can tell it is one of the scam agencies  and they are walking into a trap.  They know nothing about acting and so they are doomed to fail or worse to be scammed out of hundreds of dollars. Just telling me the name of the agency could make the difference for them.

Related to these people are the scores of those who write me and ask me to tell them the name of an agent who would represent them.  These uninformed writers are those who believe the myth that agents make people into stars.  I  never answer these with the information they desire.  These usually are those who have never acted but know that they are greatly talented, or those whose  friends and family say that they should be actors.  Somehow it never occurs to these people that they should be in a school or community theater play. So I tell them to do that and hope they are not too much trouble for the directors of such plays as they may audition for.

Well, it is a sad thing. The more I deal with aspiring actors, the more I am aware that almost none of them, and there are thousands of them, will ever make it.  They are doomed to fail if not by such behaviors as those above, by just not having what it takes.  It is not easy. There is no step by step formula to becoming an actor. There is no magic secret nor boost that will advance them to the next level (whatever that is).  It does not rely on luck. Those who believe such things join those that fail.

To become an actor, one must act.  Make sure you have been in enough plays that there is some indication that you have ability.  Then, if you have the other qualifications, you may not be doomed.

A bit of this, that and the other.

This --  Aspiring actors of all ages still don't get it when it comes to choosing a monologue for auditions or classes. An aspiring actor has to have a vast background in plays that he or she has read, attended or performed. It is from these sources they are most likely to find a good monologue for their needs. That is numero uno.   Dos, they need to pick a monologue that is from a role that they could logically be cast in.  Ultimo, it is the performance of the monologue that makes it a good one.  There is no such thing as being overdone if done superbly. 
And well done monologues are filled with the dramatic qualities that the innocent keep requesting that their monologues have. They need to read other posts about monologue on this blog from a year or more ago.

That -- Inexperienced and uninformed aspirants keep wanting to know how to get an audition, how to get discovered, or how to get a big break.  Sad. Truly.  Those who get auditions are experienced, informed and in the case of youngsters, guided by their parents.  An agent is almost always needed.  These people are always looking for LUCK that will make them an instant star like someone of whom they have heard.  But,of course, they are not that someone. They need to read the previous post, "You have to have it!"

The other -- Heard on TV a couple of days ago about the futility of majoring in the arts or going to professional school unless you were truly in the top five percent. It is not cost efficient to go to college or professional school unless you are way ahead of most everyone else to start with. Forty grand a year is outrageous for an education, especially for a field in which it is so hard to get a job.  I remember a young fellow from a couple of years ago.  His parents borrowed to the hilt to send him to two years of Acting School.  He completed the course. He has done no acting since. Seems to have lost interest in it. Now there is putting your parents into poverty for a good purpose!  Fist of all acting school is no needed by the truly talented and second of all college is not needed by the high school honors grad who wants to be an actor. What these kids need is lots of experience and some career management by their parents. Worked well for the talented and handsome Brad Pitt whose mother yanked him out of college to take a professional job.  Aspirants have to be realistic.  As I said at the end of the first paragraph, you have to have it or you ain't gonna do nothin' in this business.  I love all of you, but it is the truth.

What are they thinking?

It happened several times in the past few days.  People of all ages, teens, twenty-somethings, thirty somethings, forty somethings and fifty somethings. have written to me saying that they a just dying to become an actor but they have never done anything.  They saw one particular film that made them thing that they have to do that,too.  They are trapped in boring circumstances, a good job that pays well,but is not exciting, or they are bullied and know if they were an actor they would be admired instead.

Only problem is that it ain't gonna happen.  How do I know?  After all the young girl in the Chocolate Factory film with Johnny Depp had never done anything before!   And now she's a star.  I know an actor who was a sculptor until he read for his first film.  He had no previous acting training nor experience.  He got the second lead in his first film and the lead role in his second film.  Such stories and the magic that is film, the illusion it creates of greatness and consequential events and great loves and romances seem to erase any sense of reality and logic from peoples' minds.

These starry-eyed dreamers have no concept of what acting and being an actor is all about.  They just know that the images on the screen are wonderful and that they want to be wonderful as well.

Now, I have to separate two things.  The dream and the  purpose of plays and films. Okay?
First the dream is an un realistic fantasy set off by the purpose of the drama.  The purpose of the drama is to remind ordinary people that they are extraordinary. Theatre and film's purpose is to show mankind how wonderful he can be, how wonderful he is, and as Shakespeare put it, "how like a god."   When the audience member does not understand that the purpose of the drama is to make him or her feel wonderful and important and extraordinary for a few moments and that after the film or play, they are returned to being wonderful only in their dreams. They still have to go to work in the morning and live their seemingly hum drum lives.

But if they would take it to heart, what the theatre and film are telling them, that all of us are extraordinary in some way, and do something about it. Get involved in a charity or even a political movement, being careful, of course, of not choosing some leftist wacko group. But to get involved and start being something more than just a hum drum person.  If they want to be actors, then they have to get involved with the drama somewhere. Community theatre,  acting classes, acting schools, etc.  Being an actor is how to get started being an actor.

You know, I get many questions telling me that the writer has done all this acting and studying, but what should they do next?  I have to tell you that I really believe that the people who become actors do not have to be told how to get started or what to do next.  They just know what to do and do it.  If they are actors, they keep acting in every and all opportunities. They know now to move forward in their career and get agents.   Perhaps they learned this form others they worked with, and perhaps they read how to do it in a book just as "Acting As A Business" by O'Neil.  

I am afraid, you see, that those who have not on their own found out how to get started and how to become an actor are never going to make it.  The ones that make it are born with enough drive to go and get it on their own.  

You have to have it.

Got an email this morning in which a young actor I know said that he had more and more recognized that acting is all about money.  And of course it is in the business side of acting.

I am constantly amazed that youngsters think that without and experience and training they are going to get a major role in a major film.  No way can that happen except for the super extraordinary person who leaps from being in a high school play to stardom as Ann Margaret did when she was cast in "Bye Bye Birdie."  She was recognized as having all the unique qualities needed to be a bankable star.

Theatre and making movies is not about being a good actor.  It is about making lots of money. Productions cost millions and millions of dollars and no one is going to gamble on an unproven person who does not have all the unique qualities needed. The reason so many actors never become professional in spite of having a great deal of talent is that they lack the charm, personality, and look that people want to pay money to see.

The look is not always beauty or handsome. Jack Nicholson is not a handsome man. But he has so much charm that we will pay to see him again and again.  And his look is so unique that he always is distinctive in his portrayal.

The reality of becoming a professional actor is not that you need an agent or training or experience so much as it is that you need to be able to give a unique rendering of the character from your look to your charm to your talent.

Money talks.  You have to be an actor that producers know will help bring money in at the box office.   This is also true in the amateur theatre where the producers want to at least break even on their productions.  So the actors cast in the leads and major roles are those that the audience will want to come an see because of the actors' reputations of being effective in previous plays.  Yes, money is often the reason why someone else got the role you wanted.  You have to be unique and pleasing to the audience--an asset at the box office to succeed.

The few actors who are unique and pleasing as those that make it.

An Actor Prepares

This morning I heard from a student I had in class forty years ago.  He wote to comment on a post I had made on Facebook regarding the sorry state of acting in today's theatre.  Most of that post was an article by Arthur Penn, the famous director.  My former student wanted to let me know how he has achieved success as a professinal tenor, performing opera.  His message is one that actors need to take to heart-- that it takes courage and conviction, dedication and perseverance to succeed as a professional performer.  What he has experienced is not unlike what a good actor experiences in preparing for his career.

I am greatful to this former student of mine for reminding me that training is important in the search for success.  I have perhaps downplayed that importance in much of my writing. But it is necessary for the actor to keep his voice and body in tune through constant coaching and instruction in classes.

Here are the portions of his letter to me that are most applicable to actors:

 
"I AM a great guy, and this fact has NEVER helped me find work! Perseverence and drive, living like a Bohemian, showing up to every audition and spending everything on lessons and coaching is what works. No one cares, at all, that I have had a more than colorful life. They only care about how I sound and how I look and whether or not they can somehow use me in their house. I am only what I can offer at that very moment and all the rest does not make any difference whatsoever.

"I have been monumentally lucky in that I am FINALLY making my big-assedTiroler Festspiel Erl this summer singing the Duke from Verdi's Rigoletto. This offer was made following my FORTY-FIFTH audition. What a boon! What a coup!"

It is difficult for us to imagine attending 45 auditions for a role.  I have read of actors attending half a dozen or more, but never so many as this.  It is a tribute to the directors who want to have the best possible production, and it is a tribute to the singer/actor who endures and succeeds!

Acting and Playwrighting

Some concepts about plays that a playwright and actor need to know:

a. Plays are not conversation, nor are they discourse(Discussions of an idea).

b. Plays are stories told in action. Everything Aristotle wrote about play writing (which he called Tragedy making) indicates that.

c. Plays are stories about someone's emotional reaction to a situation and what that reaction causes him or her to do.

d. A playwright fashions a play, he does not write it. He expresses the fashioning of the play by writing down what he has created in terms of stage directions and dialogue..

e. Thus the fashioning of the story is what the playwright does first. He tells the story in theatrical terms, which means he creates an situation and places a person into it. That person has an emotional reaction to the situation and does something that expresses the reaction. (either the situation or the character's response to it is a disorder that must be repaired) A chain reaction of his action causing an emotional response that causes an action that causes an emotional response......and so on until the story is complete by order being restored. The playwright creates no dialogue until he can tell the story in terms of action/reaction with no dialogue at all.

 

As an actor, you need to be an emotional responder to the stimuli of the play moment by moment.  Those responses will also contain the action of the play (what you need to do as an actor).