Observations on Acting

by Janus*

Observations on Acting

So many ragtag pieces of info are addressed here that the title could be "Grab Bag."

Again the caveat: Disagree if you wish, but realize there are other valid approaches which MIGHT work if your own approaches are (1) not getting auditions from submissions, (2) not getting callbacks, (3) not getting you cast.

[*Janus is a New York actor and acting coach who wishes to remain anonymous. These reflections were written after witnessing a month of casting for a New York theater project.]

1. What You Should Already Know
I open up to 50 self-submissions a week or receive email requests for interviews. The packages are ALWAYS hand-addressed, sometimes scrawled illegibly; the cover notes often a ripped out notebook sheet, the resumes a disorganized mess.

APPEARANCE, BOTH YOUR OWN AND THAT OF YOUR PRESENTATION PACKAGE, counts. Your success begins with that package and resume. (An email asking about submissions should not top 50 words.) No attachments. Links to your sites are OK. Use the spell check. And invest in a computer with a printer, a cell phone, and learn to use labels.

2. Headshots
Must every actress think her headshot has to be "glamorous"? Do you have a clue how few glamorous roles there are and how many hundreds of truly beautiful young women there are? If you are pretty, or nice looking, or even "odd," DO NOT GO for glamour.

Same for men. Look real, and alive, and get life in those eyes. And learn to smile. Also stop the shy poor-little-sensitive-James Dean pose. Teach yourself to smile via the mirror and candid snapshots from a cheap camera. YES, you can learn to smile GREAT. Look at the great smilers: Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise. Name your own choice. But commit your whole being to those smiles.

Every time I have commented on an uncommitted smile, the actor/actress has remarked on his/her teeth or gums. So what? Realize that a stunning smile full of life overcomes the most dreadful teeth. And if your teeth bother you, get them fixed. There are relatively cheap ways which do not require three years of braces. Look like yourself in your headshot. REAL IS IN.

Unless you are traffic-stopping gorgeous you have a better chance of being called in if you have an interesting face/figure. Does anyone think Gene Hackman is or ever was handsome? Or Kathy Bates? Yet they have a lifetime of constant work.

3. Exude Energy
I recently saw a good play with good solid actors doing good solid competent work. And good solid boring acting. Interest is not created by yelling every so often. Find a word or phrase that allows for a non-conventional reading. Find the important word in the sentence and then occasionally do not emphasize it.

Dishwasher acting is the opposite of energy, and energy does not mean LOUD. Energy is INTERNAL. It is a state of being. It is a personal quality.

I sat in on four interviews one recent afternoon. Three perfectly adequate actors (dull, but adequate), four reasonably nice looking people. ONE actor with inner life that was fascinating. It is not conversation. It is not handsome/gorgeous. Inner energy is inner life.

One of the saddest cases I ever saw was a young actor with a fascinating face, good vocal quality, alive body, who, when he started to "act," turned into a slug (the creepy crawly kind). If you take the effort, you can create inner energy.

If you are wedded to the notion that Casting Directors have to take you the way you are, go be an accountant. Acting requires fascination, energy, imagination. LIFE. Stop creeping. It is nice to be diplomatic and sweet but on stage let that go and grab on to LIFE and VITALITY, even if the character is mute and paralyzed.

4. Create an Inner Being
Few things are more inspiring to watch than a Tina Turner concert or Mick Jagger or Janis Joplin -- and I don't even like their music!! But they have energy that is magic. They are magnetic.

Someone recently auditioned for a role and the director said, "That was almost perfect. But there seemed to be a pane of glass between you and the character." Believe me, that was not a compliment.

Does Tina Turner have a pane of glass? We think not! Your energy, your being, your vitality, your imagination -- these must thrust through that pane of glass. There are occasional actors whose techniques are so great that you know they are acting but are so enchanted by the acting that the pane of glass does not matter. Think, for example of Jeremy Irons or Maggie Smith. You do not have to admire or like any examples mentioned here. You have a choice, be greatly trained in voice and technique OR exude inner energy. (Ideal is both.)

A tornado has no self-consciousness. It is what it is. Learn to be an inner tornado. Like Tina, or Mick, or Janis.

5. GET SOME BOOK LARNIN'
That is, read!!!!! And no, TimeOut is not what I am referring to. I am talking about BOOKS and POETRY that give you some new awareness of the human experience. Who in this 20,000+ audience has read Faulkner recently (especially The Sound and the Fury or Light in August)?

I do not know HOW it happens--well actually I do know--but it takes too long to describe--but GOOD books create an inner life, an awareness of people, images, feelings that will make you grow as a human being and give you the potential for being a better actor.

You do not have to enjoy them. Just read them, study them, understand them. Learn from them. Reading for pleasure is great, but reading to learn about life vicariously creates an inner world. Great literature has passed the test of time and is called "great" because that is precisely what it is. Story, story, story is fun, but learning about human nature will make you a better actor.

And savor the words of literature. Learn to love WORDS. Good books and poetry stretch your imagination. And language is music that we create daily. And how about museum trip to look at paintings? Or some music other than what you usually listen to. How about Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings"?

When did you last read Dylan Thomas or Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Spring and Fall"? Read it and ponder. Then you will find that you have become a better actor without paying a nickel to an acting coach. I know "soul" is laden with religious overtones. Try to think of "soul" as referring to SELF.

I know that a great soul does not make a great artist (actor, in this case). But reading to enhance the soul (in a strictly NON RELIGIOUS sense) is just about the fastest way I know to become a greater actor.

6. Over-memorize your lines.
This is perhaps the most important of all advice (next to aiming for "non-acting acting): Memorize and re-memorize your lines. Know them so well that that they come out without nary a thought. Only when the words are totally in your mouth can you start to picture them, to create mental images from the words. These pictures arouse emotions.

You do not have to dig deep into memory (most of us do not live long enough to experience the full range of human emotions and consequently do not have a world of memories to call upon). "Acting" acting (to be avoided like poison) comes from just memorizing your role. Period. But "Non-acting" acting allows the words to be your words. And this comes from memorizing way beyond what you think is necessary. Then you can start to play with the images evoked from the language. And those images tap into the well of emotions gained from reading and living.

7. DO NOT ACT.
Stop acting. Listen to people on the bus. Listen to people talking anywhere. And listen to good TV programs and watch good films and buy audio tapes with great actors. LISTEN. Stop ACTING. Woody Allen tells about the superb interviews and then he has the person do the scene and they turn into "actors." There is a sound in the voice that says "Look, ma, I'm acting!" Get rid of it.

8. Voice and enunciation.
Women, you speak too hiiiiiigh or too girlish. Variety is nice but avoid like plague that high veddy veddy Restoration pitch. Or high and squeaky. Nothing is so profoundly distressing than a high pitched female voice. Of course some women are sopranos. But if you listen to trained opera singers (even coloraturas--the highest register), they have lovely speaking voices.

Men, find someone who can help you breathe so that you can drop that tenor into a baritenor or light baritone. AND FIND SOMEONE, all who aspire to acting, who works on breath. I recently heard a passage from King John performed from the neck up. When asked if the actor had ever been told that his neck had no connection to the rest of his body, he replied that his vocal coach had been trying to get him to change for three years. OK. Good luck. This person is unteachable.

Do you think Richard Burton was born with his voice? Get an audio tape of his Coriolanus. Listen to it daily. Men and women. Your voice will never be the same. Hooking the breath to the body should take about 12 good lessons and then a lifetime of awareness. The inner movement of breath though every cell in the body is as important as the development of Self through books, poetry, Samuel Barber, the Beethoven Quartets or Nessun Dorma. Get breath.

About enunciation: stop mumbling. Even on camera. You do not have to sound like a RADA grad but when I hear people in the foyer say, "I couldn't understand his words," well, that is no compliment. Locate the words that will be hard for the audience to understand. Just pray those words have consonants--which make articulation much easier.

Here is a test sentence: "I looked from the window in the attic and I saw the avenue clotted with trespassers." Trespassers" will be understood unless you swallow the first S, because of all those glorious consonants. "Attic" will carry if you put the "K" at the end. But "Clotted" require conscious attention: Add energy to the CL, the ah sound in the O, the punched T's and the ID for the "ed." Otherwise that entire image will swoosh right out the door without entering one ear.

9. Final subject: The audience.
It seems to be a no-no to consider the audience. But they must hear you, they must understand you, they must be led. Aristotle says the purpose of drama is to educate and to entertain. Who? The AUDIENCE.

Think of them when you want to pull in and mumble like a turtle. Think of them when timing a joke. Think of them when you turn upstage to play a scene to your partner and the audience cannot see you and only half hear you. Do not look out at them (you will drop automatically out of character) but never forget they are there. Without an audience you might as well act in your living room. Honor them. They are valued guests.

Get energy (Tina Turner, Mick, Janis). Get education. Become a being who is aware of life in all its splendor and its squalor. Read. Learn what it means to create your own light. And yes, this will help you land a job every bit as much as going to classes. You will be a greater actor. That is a tested promise.

Janus.