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Actors Who Know Little About Acting - Part 1
By Jason Bennett

May 1, 2005

There is more to learn about acting than most any other profession. Truly great actors study acting for years before they develop a specific, real acting process. And those truly great actors are in great acting classes and with coaches their entire lives...

Appallingly, the majority of people auditioning and calling themselves “professionals” hardly know anything about acting. And lots of them brag about it!

I know of no truly great, respected actor who hasn’t studied acting for years. But I can think of some very talented actors who stopped studying and quickly fell into bad habits or started imitating their previous performances.
“If you respect yourself and your life and you want to do truly great work, ask yourself if you hold yourself to the same standards as a professional ballet dancer, a nuclear physicist or a heart surgeon.”

Occasionally “professional actors” call my school and communicate, without realizing it, a profound lack of respect for acting. They sound like they think of acting classes as a last resort – something that losers do. They call because they haven’t booked a job in months (or years) and they are desperate – quite late to be calling for the training you need before and during a long-term acting career.

When I ask these actors what acting methods they studied and what tools they use, they usually recite their performing resumé and the names of their past acting teachers. That’s not what I asked so I ask again. Most of them act like my question is strange. They stammer and laugh uncomfortably, totally caught off guard. Some even seem angry. The bottom line is they can’t really explain their acting process. And this is very bad news for their career (or lack of one).

If you can’t explain your acting process and the tools you use when you work, you probably have no chance of succeeding beyond community theater. And if you think there isn’t much to learn about acting in a truly great acting class, then you have never been in a truly great acting class. If acting classes are optional to you and not a first priority, you know very little about acting and the work of great actors. And you don’t have any real respect for acting.

“If you can’t explain your acting process and the tools you use when you work, you probably have no chance of succeeding beyond community theater.”

Can you be born with “it” and have the “natural” ability to act? Sure, just like you can be born with the natural ability to become a Master ballet dancer! But can you imagine someone auditioning for the principal dancer in a world-class dance company having studied dance for only a year or two? Or imagine if they never studied dancing at all. They would be laughed out the door.

Can you imagine an ice skater trying to qualify for the Olympics having only trained for a year or two? Absurd.

Can you imagine a nuclear physicist claiming to be an expert about nuclear physics, saying she was just “born with it,” bragging that she never actually studied physics? Insane.

Can you imagine a heart surgeon saying he was just born with the gift of doing heart surgery and that he only studied for a year or two the tools of his trade? Criminal.

Actors Who Know Little About Acting - Part 2 >>>

Jason Bennett is an acting coach and teacher in New York and Los Angeles, and is the director of “The Jason Bennett Actor’s Workshop.” You may visit the school on-line at http://jbactors.com. Write to Jason Bennett with your questions about acting and you may see your question answered in a future column. Write to: jb@jbactors.com