Actors Who Know Little About Acting - Part 2
By Jason Bennett

May 1, 2005

Acting is different than other professions because there is far more to learn about acting than most others I can think of! More – not less!

Acting is the study and communication of human behavior in service of telling stories. The best actors are experts on the human condition. And they are experts in using their bodies and voices to communicate all kinds of human struggles. They are expert storytellers.

It takes years of hard work and dedicated study to develop these skills and build your knowledge.

One of the major reasons some professional actors have no real respect for acting is that many acting classes out there are terribly inadequate or even damaging.

These acting classes are frequently taught by teachers who would rather be performing than teaching. You deserve better than to study with a teacher who would rather be somewhere else. Often those kinds of teachers don’t even have much training themselves.
Left out of most awful “acting” classes are the most important aspects of truly great acting classes: intense exercises to develop your imagination, intense exercises to free up all your emotions and intense, organic voice and movement work.

What remains is hardly anything: intellectual scene study and audition coaching. In these classes, you run scenes and monologues over and over. That’s about it. You get director-like comments from the other students and the teacher. Your work is “polished” and “naturalized” with tricks and repressive rules about what good acting is.

But you don’t learn any real acting process. You learn few or no acting tools. And the habits you learn might make you seem “real” in an audition, but can actually doom your long-term chances for an acting career.

There is a huge difference between “scene study” classes or “acting for the camera” classes and a truly great acting class – a huge difference. And if you’re not sure what I mean, then you better start worrying that you have never been in a truly great acting class.

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. In fact, ask yourself if you hold yourself to even higher standards. Because if you are going to be a truly great actor who has a chance at a long-term career, you must hold yourself to the very highest, Olympic standards of acting! You owe it to yourself and you owe it to the audience.

Work on your acting process every day. Develop and expand your imagination. Delve deeply into your psyche and get to know yourself. Develop your voice and body. Eat well. Sleep a lot. Exercise a lot. Learn the tools that great actors need – the Sensory Process, Externals/Outside-In, Imaging, Subpersonality Work and Improvisation.

It takes years.

Study, study, study!

Robert Cohen, author of respected books about acting, said, “For most actors, success is achieved through study, struggle, preparation, trial and error, training, discipline, experience and work.”

Great actors are extremely disciplined, committed, intelligent, educated, well-read, political, ethical, fit, knowledgeable about psychology, passionate, bold, and are able to access all their feelings. They have vividly developed imaginations, are masters of their voices and bodies, and are highly sensitive and responsive to their surroundings.

How are you doing in these areas? It’s never too late to do your work.