The big emotion trap in acting
It’s so dang tempting to lean into emotions in your scene and make it all about that. It can even feel juicy and therapeutic, but in this clip you’ll hear me talk about the big trap of playing emotion and what to do instead.
CLASS CLIP TRANSCRIPTION
Sarah: You can see, right, when we zoom in on this, why it’s so tempting to play the mood. The pain, the pain that he’s in, that’s where most actors are gonna go here. They’re gonna play the pain that Kannell is in with his dilemma.
Student: Right, right.
Sarah: And the pain that he’s in with the missing of this friend and the trauma of the accident. Which you don’t want to skip! You’re not gonna skip that. You’re still gonna build that so that it’s alive and real and visceral and horrible and specific, and really go there in your imagination. You still have to do that work. You want to smell the smell and see what it looked like, who did you—did you see someone die? Did you see his dead body? What do you build? And then you play the action, and the rest will be underneath it. But most actors will go to pain pain pain, dilemma dilemma dilemma, and forget about the other person.
