I Don't Need an Acting Class

There are many different aspects of acting technique. One of them is building a character’s past. A helpful way to approach this is to know what the major events are in this person’s life. We ‘build’ these events by talking them out in improvised monologues so the character’s past is in us. If an event is referred to in the text, then you know you have to build it. But there are other events that are not mentioned in the text that we choose to build imaginatively, because it helps us get specific and fully own the character’s past, thus giving us confidence.

In this episode, Milton talks about the difference between acting as an art form and acting to “get a job,” and how one is much more fulfilling than the other. The Art of Acting is about the pursuit of uncovering the essence, or human spirit, of the role. But that cannot be found overnight— it’s a journey through the complexity of the human condition. Part of our job, as actors is to actively make an effort to connect to other human beings and our own human emotion, especially during a time when we’re isolated from others and cut off from ourselves. “You become a better person when you become an actor,” says Milton. “It broadens you.”

We begin our second season with a reminder that acting is not a math equation. “The method,” said Stanislavsky, “is not a guide, it’s a culture.” This means that a creative process, like a culture, is meant to change and grow. There is no hard and fast, static rule book for acting; we require different things for different roles. But if we keep digging, exploring, trying new things, seeing what works and what doesn’t, we will find choices we love, choices that feed us and give us confidence. When we can trust that everything we’ve built is *in* us and let go, that is when the most unexpected and exciting work happens.

Don't panic. We'll be back with Season 2 of I Don't Need an Acting Class in September!

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As we continue making discoveries about all the dimensions that make up a character, we always want to look for what is actable or doable. For example, if your character is compulsive, the challenge is to translate that into something doable. One way to get there is by asking ourselves: what is the nature of being compulsive? And eventually we might come up with the need “to create order around me.” If our character is in a circumstance that is shocking, it’s important to go deeper and ask: what is the nature of shock? Maybe we pull away or lash out. Whatever action we come up with, we want it to feed us emotionally. If we fail to go deeper and instead play “compulsive” or “shocking,” we will end up playing a cliche. To oversimplify it: we must figure out what we’re doing, and then we must do it.

This week, Milton talks about how building different moments in your characters past reveals new information about them, and the importance of knowing exactly what that information is. We must ask the question: What does this moment I’m building tell me about my character? Your answer will clarify a new dimension of this human being. Then, we must integrate every character-discovery, so that you have a process where each piece builds on the next, or in the words of Stephen Sondheim: “the art of making art is putting it together, bit by bit.”

As we approach a play and begin letting the facts simmer in our imagination, we can begin to ask questions, as though we are interviewing our character. There are no right or wrong questions and no two actors will ask the same ones. Your own personal exploration becomes part of your signature on the role. But here’s the rub: we cannot answer these questions based on our own limited personal experience, or from the cliches we have absorbed from film and television. We need to do research. What does that look like? Watching interviews and documentaries, or even better: talking to real people who share your character’s attributes and circumstances. The joy of research is that it opens us up to worlds beyond our own where we can shop for choices that feed us and help us build a 3-dimensional human.

We often run into trouble when we try to recreate a performance. This is because the action “to do what I did yesterday” is different from the action that made you DO what you did yesterday. But there are ways to avoid falling into this trap. In this episode, Milton gives examples of adjustments you can make so that the circumstances keep feeding you and the performance stays alive.

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It can often be overwhelming if you think about the massive responsibility we have as actors and all the many pieces we must fully own before it all comes together to create an illusion that looks and sounds like the truth. We can’t master everything at once and if we try to, we’ll become paralyzed like the centipede who forgot how to walk when he realized each leg was doing something different. Therefore, we must focus on one thing at a time, layering each element onto the one before it, like the bricks that make up a house. “And then all of sudden, one day,” Milton says, “this fantasy happens where you don’t know where you end and the character begins. And you begin to see the world in that particular way. But slow and steady wins the race.”

This week, Milton talks about resisting the urge to play an effect, or a result. Often if we receive an “effect direction” such as: “it’s too big” or “it’s too small,” we will then overcompensate in the opposite direction. By doing so, we’re playing an effect, focused on our behavior as opposed to what creates that behavior. Part of being an intelligent actor is having the ability to translate an “effect direction” into something actable or doable. For instance: can I get more specific so that this feeds me more? Why am I saying this? What’s happening in the scene? What is the big idea?