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April 2022

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Let self tapes be hard

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There’s a big misconception about acting you’ll hear non-actors throw around – you’ve probably heard this one — that actors must be good liars.  I mean, isn’t it all about faking something that’s not really happening?

We know this couldn’t be further from the truth.  Acting is about truth-telling — It’s being honest in imaginary circumstances.  It’s us, but in a temporary situational self.

So, when actors struggle with self tapes because they’re so stressed the whole time while trying to push that stress away…I gently encourage them to lean into whatever they are experiencing.

If you’re ignoring how you’re truly feeling in the moment you’re actually telling a lie.  This is when I see actors get heady, tight, and shut down.

What if you were feeling stressed so you screamed out exactly what you felt in that moment, like– “I AM STRESSED OUT AND AFRAID and in my head and feel like I’m never going to book this anyway!!”  

Then you go back into the circumstances while feeling the physical stuff in your body and go after a want.

So the next obvious question here is:  “What if it doesn’t make sense to be stressed, anxious, or however I’m feeling for this particular scene?”   This stuff simply gives your performance nuance.  You know how they say nervousness causes the same physiological response in our bodies as excitement?  It gives you some extra buzz to work with.

If you get into the life of the story and connect to your hook before you begin, you’ll be great.

Check out this conversation from class about this very topic below.

And for more on how to balance your in-the-moment emotions with your work, check out this previous post.

CLASS CLIP TRANSCRIPTION

Sarah: You know, I was just working with somebody who really had a very intense self-tape experience with this audition that had a ton of sides. One of the scenes was literally five minutes long, and then the other one was three minutes long, and it was a rock star…it was so so so intense. What she realized was, I’m just not…my nervous system reacted so intensely to the pressure, and I procrastinated to the last minute because I was thinking I wasn’t even going to do it because it was too much, and then had all this stuff and was up til two in the morning.

And really the takeaway was, if you do this enough you can get comfortable with leaning in to whatever the discomfort is. I think for her she was really trying not to feel what she was feeling. There was like this panic coming up. Oh my god, I’m not gonna get this tape in, and what does that mean about me, and oh my god, I shouldn’t be doing this anyway, and what the fuck am I doing with my life, and all this stuff that comes up! And wanting to shove that away and be like, I’m never gonna get the tape, I’m never gonna get the tape if I do it from this place.

But ultimately what ended up helping her get one of the scenes and really nailing it, which she did, was by allowing herself to be in the place that she was, rather than trying to somewhere else, and really just, now it takes, let’s just do it and do it and do it and do it, and not be so precious about everything needing to be perfect.

card reads "what to do if you’re losing motivation in acting"

How do you reignite your motivation in acting?

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If you decide to run a marathon and you’re not in shape, you definitely wouldn’t go out and run twenty miles the first day of training. That would be crazy, right? You’d likely start out with shorter distances so you could build endurance and momentum. The trickiest part, for many, is staying motivated long enough to keep training so you can go the full distance.

Acting is the same. I know I’m a bit of a broken record when it comes to thinking of your career as a marathon and not a sprint, but it’s true. And like any long journey, there will be moments when it’s hard to keep going — when you lose motivation in acting and suddenly a few weeks have gone by without working on anything, it can feel so hard to get back to work. So many actors relate to this.

So how do you get yourself going again after an acting slump? How do you reignite your motivation in acting?

I find that the key to getting fired up again is reconnecting to why you do this work.  Check out this conversation from class for an exercise you can do to help jump start your motivation in acting, and to take back control. You’ve got this!

CLASS CLIP TRANSCRIPTION

Sarah: There is one thing I want to throw—this bee I want to put in everyone’s bonnet for the week – around when you’re having a hard time motivating — I know we’ve talked about this theme, which is understandable, right — When you’re having a hard time motivating, try to sit down and write out why it’s important. Because again we know now, we have research that shows when we stay connected to why we do something, and then we give ourselves control, the area of motivation in our brain starts to light up and fire. And that’s what kicks in motivation.

So sitting down, when you’re dreading something, if you’re putting off rehearsing, if you’re putting off whatever the shit is that you need to do, it’s important because…I show up to do my acting work because…and you can write out all the things! Because I want to get this tape done, because I want to get better agents and managers, because I want to open more doors, because I want to do great work, whatever all that stuff is, all the whys, because I want to make some fuckin’ money, because I wanna…whatever, blah blah blah.

All that stuff’s valid, but just reconnect to it and then give yourself one thing that you can make yourself in control of. It feels like I have a choice. I have a choice in this. And that’s the part that fires the motivation part of your brain. And then maybe give yourself one thing that can help you be in control of, okay I’m going to…what’s gonna put me back in the driver’s seat? I’m in control of how long I wanna rehearse for. I’m gonna rehearse for 20 minutes. I’m gonna rehearse for 5 minutes right now! I’m gonna just read the scene again out loud.

Sometimes just getting that one thing I’m in control of, kicks us back, puts us back into the driver’s seat. So just see, just play around with that thought this week, of how I can reconnect to…and you can use this in any area of your life where you feel like you’re having a hard time. There’s things you need to be doing but you’re not motivated to do them because you know they’re important but you’re not…just keep connecting to the why again.

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Rehearsal vs instinct: does rehearsal kill instincts in acting?

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It’s one of the great battles in acting, and especially in acting classes: acting technique vs. instinct.

I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of name actors who never rehearse – they walk on set having never uttered the words out loud until they roll.  I’d be lying if I denied there are certain actors that can do this successfully in very specific scenes for very specific roles.  Those roles are usually very close to the actor and can be played very close to home.  It’s usually very naturalistic and, dare I use the phrase that gives me hives, “thrown away”. 

I can even remember an audition I taped when I was acting that was pretty dang good where I pretty much relied on my instinct only and it was good work.  (But I also have technique deeply ingrained in me and I break scripts down as I go without even being aware of it.)

This method has severe limitations.

On the other hand, if you’re working scenes with just rigid technique only, you might find yourself feeling stilted, or worrying too much about if you’re “getting it right.”

This debate reminds me so much of the parenting debate: should I read books about parenting or should I rely on my instincts?  My approach for parenting and acting are the same – do the homework, read the books and THEN trust your instincts.  It’s not just rehearsal vs instinct, one or the other. Instincts are freed by good technique, technique and rehearsal do not kill instinct.Check out this conversation in class to hear more about why I think having a strong foundation of acting technique is essential to creating authentic work.

CLASS CLIP TRANSCRIPTION

Sarah: I do think technique is so important because…I feel like there are these different schools of acting coaches out there right now. There’s like the hardcore dogma technique stuff, where it’s like, you have to follow these rules. And then there’s this other kind of new wave, new age of acting technique, where it’s like there is no acting technique! You just free yourself and then your instinct is all you need.

That makes me actually angry because there’s no way! If you’re truly just playing everything from your instinct, you’re going to be playing a version of yourself always and forever, you know. So I really feel like there’s a middle ground. We have to do all that work so that we can get freed up, so that we can have all those wonderful impulses and there’s some stuff where we really do need to know the rules of the world and all that stuff.