by Regina on Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:57 pm
THE 10 MOST COMMON PROBLEMS OF ACTING
1. Inability of the Actor to stay out of the way of the Character.
This is the Ego wall. "Never let yourself get between you and your character." - Michael Caine "Your character will never come to life until you lose all awareness of the self." - James Caan
2. Creating a Back Story.
"Creating and Writing a Back Story is the most important element in Creating your Character." - Billy Bob Thornton
3. Lack of Research (Laziness).
"Many Actors are just too lazy to Research. I will sometimes spend months just researching, creating and studying my character." - Peter O'Toole
4. Too much effort and time spent analyzing the script and character.
Dramatic interpretation is a result, not a cause. For the actor who knows the story, interpretation will take care of itself. Analyzing a scene or a character is like disecting a frog; the frog always winds up dead. "Acting is not a murder trial, don't look for a motive. Create your character, know the story and then just do the scene." - Gene Hackman
5. Learning Dialogue.
Too many actors try to "Memorize" Dialogue instead of "Learning" it as they Learn the Story and this begets "Recitation". "I don't look for someone to recite dialogue when I cast, I look for someone who can bring something to the story I haven't thought of. I look for creativity." - Ron Howard
6. Deciding the outcome of a scene before you do it.
NEVER make Choices Before you do the scene. "The Worst thing an actor can do is to decide the outcome of a scene before you do it." - Jessica Lange
7. Listening.
"The most Important thing an actor can do during a scene is to Listen." - Meryl Streep "Never listen to the Words, listen to the Person." - Jack Lemmon "Listening is being able to be changed by the other person." - Alan Alda
8. Trusting the Instincts of the Character.
The Actor should trust the instincts of his character, by never negating an impulse of the character that is based on inflow. "Never feel your body, make your body feel the character." - Kevin Spacey "The body doesn't know it's acting. - Sigourney Weaver
9. Being concerned with your Performance.
Again, Ego. "...take care of the story and let genius take care of itself." - Sir Laurence Olivier
10. Duplicating your performance on call.
There is a plethora of actors today who are not sufficiently gifted for this trade, but a trained, ungifted actor is surely preferable to a gifted one with no training at all. "It is, I believe, safe to say that no actor ever produced a truly great effect in acting except as a result of long study, close thought, deliberate purpose and careful preparation". - David Belasco, "The Theatre Through Its Stage Door."
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