It’s one of the first things I learned from my teachers at drama school. It’s being able to be watched and, like many of the most sought after skills, the path to getting there is indirect.
We cannot push to be unselfconscious and we can’t even pull to do it. When you try to be comfortable being watched, that very tension manifests in the opposite which is self consciousness.
So how do we do it? Well I don’t have all the answers, but there seem to be patterns that help actors get there.
- Listen. Miranda Harcourt taught me about ‘reversing the flow’. She said it’s like the selfie function on the phone is switched off and you’re staring directly at the world and people around you. Listen with all of you; your physical senses and your psychic senses. Someone who is listening, truly listening, has a great chance of being unselfconscious. It’s pretty awesome to watching someone who is listening and for them not to be monitoring or adjusting themselves.
- Place your focus. All acting is is doin things- it’s in the name. So great actors have the ability to place their attention on an activity and wholeheartedly do it. They don’t feign doing it or display that they’re doing it; they really do it- in the imaginative reality of the piece. Believe it or not those are two different things; You can feign an action in imagined reality (bad acting) or you can really do it in imagined reality (good acting).
We can’t create unselfconsciousness, but we can place our focus outwards and invite it in.
