The Artistry of Acting for Everyone
Super Task
When you act, you must have a fire in your gut. It’s hidden. It’s far below the surface, but it is always there. A fire. You must sit with the burn. You must stand with the burn. You must speak with the burn. You must listen with the burn. Whether it is comedy or...
Individuality: It’s Going to Cost You
I’m very ambivalent about drama teachers and the classes that people go to. I think people’s instincts are crushed by bad drama teaching. I’ve watched it happen...It’s so often that the people who are actually the best are the ones who are thrown out of drama school...
Dialogue Class
We practice speaking and listening. We don’t practice conversing. We practice nothing else but speaking and listening. Nothing else but that simple back and forth of communication. It is a conversation with no subject. But the first thing that happens when two people...
Overcoming Shyness
Acting is an art of expression. And though we don’t train to focus on feeling (as feeling is a result and not an action) the truth is, the deeper a person can experience feeling, the better the acting. But experiencing feeling is hard. When you feel, people can see...
Humour
The ability to find humour in a script is easily one of the most important skills an actor can have. It’s humour that differentiates the maudlin from the deeply beautiful. It’s humour that ends the self indulgent drama and gives us the freedom of realism. And it’s...
Acting and Fame
I want to talk about fame and acting. I think it hurts people more than they realize— I know it hurt me. You know the metaphor about the carrot dangled in front of the horse? Fame is like that. It will always be out in front of you. No matter how famous you become, it...