Acting Requirements

There are several things that help an actor’s career. You can have a father who is an important director in Hollywood, you can have a lot of money to produce yourself, you can be so beautiful that members of the opposite sex stop in their tracks when they see you or as in good percentage of Hollywood the same sex.But all that is for naught if you do not have good concentration. To be able to stay in the moment during a scene with a camera inches away from your face or a live audience a few feet away requirers excellent focus. Another important tool is intelligence. I know, when you hear some actors talk they sound like idiots but an actor has to be able to break down a script. He must pick up the style of the piece whether a comedy or drama or both. He must understand his character’s motivations and how his character fits into the story. The next is imagination. Many times an actor has to supply internal motivations that are not supplied by the writer which leads to interesting and original choices. If an actor comes supplied with these tools he will have a chance to make a living as an actor even if he is not beautiful or rich with a famous father.

Building a character.

Building a character.

When tackling a character, the first thing to consider are the external circumstances. Where has the character grown up? What kind of education? If the character went to a Ivy league school of coarse you would pick up certain mannerisms of the over educated. If you dropped out of high school and went to prison that will affect your external character in the way you talk and carry yourself. Sometimes dressing as the character will affect the way you walk and talk. The writer will give you most of these external circumstances but for some you may have to use your imagination such as if the character enters a scene and there is nothing in the text to indicate where he has come from , you have to make it up. Why, to give your character life, a character with a past, the present is performed and the future is the character’s hidden agenda. This is what he desires in life, what he is striving for. The playwright may not give this to you so the actor’s imagination must supply the missing details. What is the character’s physical condition? How old? Does he suffer from a medical condition? Arthritis or a back condition, is he always in pain? To achieve these external circumstances you would use sense memory to find how these conditions would manifest themselves in the character. These are the external circumstances of the character. The internal character will be discussed later.

Playing an Objective

Playing objectives means knowing why a character says a certain thing and what the character is trying to achieve by saying it. When studying a script you should first find what the overall objective of the character is that propels the character’s actions in every scene. Then you break down each scene and find the character’s objective for each scene that fits into the overall objective. Breaking it down further, every line has an objective. This makes your character clear and active. Objectives can be something that the character is not aware of himself.An example of an overall objective could be that MacBeth wants Lady Macbeth to love him more so he kills because it is Lady MacBeth that really wants the power and he wants to please her. Just following an objective and playing moment to moment eliminates the need to ACT. Emotions will come out of the action and will be spontaneous. You should play objectives or actions but never play an emotion because nothing looks more phony than forced crying or anger.

Auditioning

One of the most important skills that a actor must master is auditioning. There are many a talented actor whose career was stunted because they were not good auditioners. For most of the time when auditioning for film and tv an actor usually gets the material at least a day in advance. A mistake some actors make is to glance at the material to see what they are auditioning. You must resist this impulse. What you must do is go home or somewhere you can relax and read the material for the first time slowly. The reason for this is to feel those first impulses. When studying the material you should be able to determine the style of the piece, comedy or drama. Then after you figured what your character wants, where is he and what is he doing. When you have done this work feel confident that you will be well prepared for the audition. In the actual audition you play 2 characters, the one you are auditioning for and the person that you present to them when you enter the room. Take a deep breath before going in to calm your nerves and to give your brain a good supply of oxygen. Walk in confidently and look at the casting people in the eye and acknowledge them with a smile or nod. Your confidence will assure the auditioners that you can be dependable. You should not memorize the lines completely and never put down the script because no matter how prepared you are , with the script in your hand you show that when you get the part you will be even better. Do not be afraid of auditions but cherish them because it gives you the opportunity to show who you are and even if you don’t get the part they will remember you and maybe the next time.

Making an Entrance and Playing Moment to Moment

When you go to the theater , one of the main differences that is evident between an inexperienced actor and a seasoned one is the way they make an entrance. The seasoned actor enters as if he is coming from someplace. You feel if he is tired from work and what the weather was like outside before he enters. Sense memory exercises can help actors prepare for the “moment before”. This means that before you enter have in your mind where you came from, what the weather is and who you are. Upon entering only concentrate on your first moment. So why are you entering, are you tired from work, than what would you be doing if the scene did not happen. In the scene for instance, the other character confronts you about something, this will interrupt your first intention which is to relax after a hard days work but this other character pushes you in another direction , which triggers another objective. This creates for the audience the” illusion of the first time” which is essential, especially for doing film. All these objectives are determined when you rehearse and work on the script. This the first lesson for now. If you have any questions about the science of acting, auditioning or career advice, you may leave a comment here or go to my message board I have set up at: http://www.123forum.com/970

End of chapter 1

Well, I got the pilot for a tv series and thus ends the first chapter in my climb to be a working actor. Getting this job changed my life , mostly to the better but their were some negative consequences. Up to this time all my actor friends were struggling actors working as waiters or cab drivers. We would comfort each other in our misery of the struggle. Now I went from a struggling actor to the fast track of the business and as anyone knows a tv series can lead to fame and fortune in a short period of time. Friends that I had got drunk with, friends that I performed plays with me in the outer reaches of off-off, shunned me and treated me with suspicion as if I had betrayed them. They assumed that I would change so they beat me to it by not saying hello to me when we met unless I acknowledged them first. I should have been more understanding but I wanted them to be happy for me so I retaliated by walking away from alot of old friends who I felt were not true friends as they were jealous. But in looking back I am sorry for the way I reacted to their insecurity. I know how painful it can be to give everything you have to make it as an actor and to see someone who you think you are better than, all actors think they are the best, have some success while you languish in shit jobs, laying awake at night worried that you will end up in poverty with no children, alone and broke. I know because I have felt that way.

Going for the Gold

Going for the Gold

After I received my second callback for this pilot for a prime time tv series I had to have someone to handle any negotiations that may arise. I was friendly with a assistant casting director that was going out with a friend of mine. She told me that her boss wanted to manage some actors on the side. I guess it wasn’t a conflict of interest but I asked, “What about me?”. The nx day she got back to me and said this big CD would handle any negotiations if necessary. So now I had a manager and no agent. A couple of days later my new manager called me and said I had another callback for the pilot. It was the same material and when I went in there were about 20 people in the room for my audition. I auditioned and I thought I had a good response. When I went out of the room I recognized some of the up and coming actors in New York. I felt pretty good about myself having gone that far with such a big potential job. It was strange but some of my acting friends reacted in a less that supportive way. In fact they seemed downright jealous. A couple of days later the cd’s assistant called me in a state of amazement, I was going to the network for another callback. This meant that the producers wanted me but the network had to approve of me. she seemed astonished that I was going to the network, it was a big deal to her, to me I already had a morale victory coming this far and to me this was just another audition. The day came for the network audition. I had to go over to the network for the audition. When I got there, in the waiting room there were several other actors reading for different parts in the pilot and probably reading for my part as the producers had to send over more a few choices for each part. When it was my turn to go in I was taken to a theater with more people in the audience than a lot of off-off that I have done. I read and got some good laughs. The nx day the assistant cd called me in pure amazement. “You got the part, you got the part”. She said it over and over again like she had seen a ghost.