Great acting is unselfconscious.
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.
“You are interesting to the extent that you’re interested”
This is one of my favourite acting ideas. I heard it first in an early interview with Jeff Goldblum and he had learned it from his teacher Sanford Meisner.
It’s the idea that as actors one of our key jobs is to put our focus outwardly, on the world, the task and, most beautifully, on our scene partner.
They say there’s nothing more captivating than watching someone tying their shoes. They are unselfconscious and completely wrapped up in their simple objective- tying their shoe.
This is the gold standard we are going for as actors. We want to honestly have our focus, energy and intention on doing something.
I say ‘honestly’ because we must fight the natural human urge to be liked and thought of as good. And there’s the extra thing for actors of auditioning, where we have to somehow forget we are seeking to be cast.
Part of acting is learning to ‘honestly’ place our focus.
That’s it.
It’s riveting when someone does that. Don’t worry about being interesting, get interested.
“Sit like you mean it!”
Here’s an interesting story…
Today I was editing videos for my website and wasn’t having a good time. For some reason I just wasn’t in ‘flow’. I was lethargic and it seemed I wasn’t getting anything done.
Flow is that thing they talk about that ‘just happens maybe sometimes if you’re lucky’. Hmm… I don’t really like things I can’t rely on.
So instead of hoping I’d hit my flow, I decided to pretend I was in flow instead.
I sat up, adjusted my gaze and facial expression as if things were going REALLY well.
What do you know, after a few minutes like this I’ll be damned it felt like I was in ‘flow’. The edits zoomed by and I even enjoyed the hard work.
A question I’m asking myself: What do I need to wait for and what is actually in my control that I don’t realise?
When the going gets good
I noticed recently I only wrote in my journal when things were difficult or not going the way I wanted. I supposed it’s why we have the phrase ‘nothing to write home about’.
The problem with this is it’s training my brain to not notice when things are going good. The journal becomes the ambulance at the bottom of the hill, something we reach for as a tool for fixing things.
That’s okay- that’s part of why we journal.
But here’s a note to myself to remember to journal when things are good. Often when things are running smoothly we simply don’t notice. Then when we look back we don’t perceive those long stretches of smooth sailing.
If your perception of your life is just what you remember at the end of it all and you only stop to take note of the hard times, what do you think your perception of your life will be?
We must notice when it’s hard and we must MUST notice when it’s good. Our poor little brains put so much effort into creating an ideal environment for us, we have to do them a favour and spend time focusing on that stuff!
What is really working for you right now that you are not paying attention to?
A time for learning and a time for delivery
Learning moments and delivery moments.
We have to choose what we want.
I was exporting a large number of edited video files a few nights ago and as I geared up to hit export, I realised it may have been possible to do it a different, maybe more efficient way. I did a quick google and sure enough, there it was; this other method I could use and would probably use on into the future
I had a choice- do I go ahead with my work as planned or do I take the time to learn this new thing.
The new thing would have been useful… but mostly if I knew it right now. It’s not so useful if I add the learning and implementation time. And I needed these things exported right now.
I think of this as ‘11th hour learning’. It wasn’t the time to learn something new.
There’s a vocal warm up tape that I use before shows, though it is designed for auditions.
There’s this part that cracks me up where she goes “Remember this is an audition, you want to show them what you can do not try anything new!” I used to giggle at this in my actorly way because surely it’s all about the discovery of newness each time! Well I think she was speaking specifically about singing auditions in which you definitely don’t want to try belting for the first time.
The more I think about it though, the more I agree.
There’s a time for learning and there’s a time for delivery. And sometimes you just have to get on with your job and deliver the goods.
You can have both, just not at the same time I don’t think.
The actor and the swear word
Andrew Scott is one of my favourite actors- and someone (dared) ask him how he remembers all those lines.
Even though this is every actor’s least favourite question- Andrew managed an answer that has stuck with me.
He said that generally actors have no problem remembering swear words. If their character really get’s to give it to another character in an outburst or argument, the indulgent part of every actor has ZERO trouble remembering that sequence.
The same goes for any text that an actor finds silly, gross, weird or unusual in some way.
What’s really happening is the text is causing an emotional movement in us. We are creating an emotional map; physiological reactions that embed the specifics of the text in our brain. It seems to live there ‘rent free’ as the kids say.
The game then, Andrew says, is to make every word your character says as interesting as the swear word. Our job is to connect to each and every word so they fall out of us as effortlessly as that weird part you could recite in your sleep.
We can’t force ourselves to remember things- it has to resonate emotionally for us. Brute force won’t do it, we must soften and connect.
Soften and connect- now that’s a pretty good way to be in general, don’t you think?
Fudge Factor
Fudge factor- we all need it but no one wants to admit it.
Am I the only one who grossly underestimates how long a task will take?
I pop things in my calendar with the best intentions and when it comes to the allotted time, I get about 25% done of what I thought.
The answer is fudge factor.
What is it? It’s adding 15 – 30 minutes to the task in your calendar.
Yes, it means you fit way less in there as you plan your day, but that accounts for the super optimistic scheduler in you.
Would you rather not get an ambitious day of tasks done…
Or complete a humble chunky block of work?
Work in fudge factor.
The boring bit and the best bit
When you’re making something, sometimes there’s an aspect or part that you find boring.
The chapter in the book you don’t like. The song in the album you always forget.
You’ve got it there because it makes sense, it follows the rules and it does the job…
But it doesn’t light you up like the other bits.
Here’s a challenge- how can you transform that bit into the thing that excites you the most?
What would you have to do in order to make the boring bit the best bit?
Don’t let your art bore you, dip in pink paint and swing it ‘round till it sprays the walls.
Get a thrill out of it!
Real life magic and self fulfilling prophecies
Have you ever noticed how you get precisely what you expect?
If you’re a gym goer, here’s an example you might relate to. You need to do 10 repetitions of an exercise. You pick the weight up; “Oof, that’s heavy”. You say to yourself “Hmm… well, if I get to 8 that’ll still be good”
What number do you get to and simply can’t push any more?
8.
I realised this internal mechanism one day when I mis-read my workout tracker and picked up a heavier weight than I was supposed to… but I still completed the number of repetitions for the exercise I was supposed to be doing.
I had accidentally increased the weight I was able to lift. I had thought it was my physical body preventing me from lifting more, but in that case it was psychological.
Just because I expected to be able to do it, I could.
It’s also said that you’ll use all the time you give yourself to complete a task. If you set a ten year goal, you’ll likely take the whole ten years to get there.
Set the same goal for one year and you move a little different.
It’s worth questioning and sometimes changing our expectations to match the results we want.
The edge
We’d all do well to remind ourselves what it really means to grow.
Growth sounds great! It’s what we all want and on paper it’s a no brainer.
When it comes down to it though, growth is sweaty, unsure and uncomfortable.
We only grow when we are at our edge. When we try something and it truly “might not work” to quote Seth Godin.
To grow we have to risk something. We have to try something new. And we have to be okay to be in the unknown.
It’s good to remember that sweaty fearful feeling on the edge is the knocking hand of growth.
If we remember this is what it means, we’re much more likely to linger in the uncomfortable and seek it often.
The edge is where the magic happens. And the best part? Each time you meet the edge, a bit more earth grows and extends out the reach of your edge.
After a while you’ll look back at the ground you’ve covered and you’ll hardly be able to see where your edge used to be; there’s just solid earth in it’s place.
Sweat. Grow. Extend. Repeat.