The Bold Acting Podcast

The Bold Acting Podcast

By Reflections from Jason Bryden's More-than-just-an-Acting-Class class in Toronto.EducationArtsSelf-ImprovementPerforming Arts
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The Bold Acting Podcast episodes

  • The Bold Interview: From NBC's "Transplant" - Actor Gord Rand

    There are two streams that make up the Bold Acting Podcast: How to be a Person — The Newsletter which I read aloud and publish, and the Bold Interview.

    Today I speak to Gord Rand.

    Gord Rand is an actor and creator. He has performed on stages such as The Shaw Festival, The Stratford Festival and the Worldstage. He won a Dora Award for his portrayal of a naked Ukranian plutonium dealer.

    Gord Rand writes and directs both films and plays. recently completing his first feature documentary Goodness in Rwanda. He’s penned plays such as Orgy in the Lighthouse, Pond Life, and the recently published The Trouble with Mr. Adams.

    Screen appearances include: Stephen King’s Chapelwaite for EPIX where he played alongside Emily Hampshire and Adrien Brody, a lead role in the indie film Impasse, and most recently his recurring role in NBC’s Transplant.

    His bio on CBC.ca says: He lives in downtown Toronto, grows his own hot peppers, has a lovely wife, two beautiful boys, a very large dog and that he is lucky.

    Gord Rand starts off speaking about his best creative decision that came at the age of 13 when he auditioned for a school production of A Christmas Carol.

    When you’re next at your weekly podcast listening party consider talking this way up. Word-of-Mouth is the best mouth around.

    The Bold Interview and How To Be A Person Newsletter are reader-supported publications. To receive new posts consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    If you look hard at your podcast app you’ll eventually discover you can rate this podcast. I only accept 5-stars. Thank you in advance.

    Go to boldacting.com/classes for more information

    Reach out on instagram: @jasonbrydenofcanada



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    45 min
  • 8. How To Be A Person : In Translation

    I am not a great teacher yet. I haven’t been doing it long enough. I’m a great student but that’s because of mentors like Ben Immanuel and fellow actors like Michael Teigen and it’s also because I’ve started teaching. The teaching makes me a better actor. The teaching gives me so much. The students do too. If they only knew just how much. (But the click-through rate of 66% on this newsletter means that some will still remain in the dark about this.)

    “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources,”  Albert Einstein

    I still talk too much. I don’t ask enough questions. The teacher I will become I imagine is more of an interrogative sniper: from a chair off to the sides in the shadows I launch a well-placed query that spurs on shortcuts to learning.

    So let me ask you this, Are you excited about the future?

    When I bang on about copying the greats to see how you can do a version of what they are doing I don’t mean you reverse engineer a performance in order to replicate their results, I mean by copying the best you are better able to find your own voice, your own way to the questions I might not always be so good at asking.

    What the greats do in performance, when they are at their most formidable, looks like magic to the uninformed but we know better. It’s technique honed by many hours of practice. There are no shortcuts to the hard work you have to put in. Luckily, a creative life only stops when you’re dead. So you have all the time in the world. The pressure is off to make it.

    “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” - Picasso

    The writer and critic Jacqueline Rose speaks of translation as not about equivalence but about a re-rendering. The actor translates those words on the page into the thing that is most them. You re-render ideas that came from another world (the writer’s) into your world, the physical. Translation is not mimicry. It’s an opinion, an interpretation.

    The way we do this is by choosing a path. There are innumerable ones in front of you. There is no need to deliberate on which path to take first. Just take one. The learning is in the doing.

    Above is a theory on learning retention. As you can see the teacher has the advantage. But second to that with a 75% retention rate is Practice by Doing. The only shortcut to becoming a good actor is by acting. In class, in auditions, by yourself, with friends. You take the class to get better at auditions and then you meet your people in that class and then outside of class you get together and scheme. In a darkened bar, at a cheap restaurant, drinking in a park (In other words, my youthful charges, this won’t happen via the phone). You plan your next short film, your next digital series, your demo reel. You do this not because it is easy or because it will get you somewhere. It isn’t and it won’t most likely. You do it because making stuff is the very reason why we got into this business in the first place. You’ve just forgotten it in yourself.

    Proximity is Everything with Humans

    Whatever concerns us it is almost always the thing we don’t have to go looking for. We’re lazy. So if it’s happening in our backyard or if it is splashed across the internet headlines we refuse to pay for we will react. We thrive on anecdotal information: better to generalize grossly with. We don’t want the whole story. Better to paint with broad strokes; he’s evil, she’s good. Russians are bad, Ukrainians are good. We need this to make sense of the world. We need self-righteousness when we lack confidence.

    Have you noticed the person that accomplishes big things doesn’t get bogged down by how people drive? I want to be like that. To have the confidence to not react to the small things that are right under my nose because I see the big things coming on the horizon. There’s gold in them hills.

    How To Be A Person is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    To re-orient, to respond instead of reacting, to re-render. That’s what actors do. That’s what the calm, the sage and wise do. They stand back and when something happens to them they don’t ascribe meaning, instead they say “Good thing, bad thing, who knows?” Because we don’t. Maybe that person that comes to my class and copies the things I say and then regurgitates them online is the very person I need to make my education wholly unique and proprietary. Maybe the person that wouldn’t let you into that lane on the expressway is the one that gets clipped by the speeding truck and you don’t. Maybe that great performance you copied was also copied. Picasso didn’t enter the world out of a void. Glenn Close doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Nor did Glen Gould. The electric vehicle is more than 100 years old. Before there was Elon there was Tesla. Before Streep there was Sara Bernhardt. Before there was Putin there was Stalin. The world is unoriginal. These bad times are not unique. Our suffering is constant because we chose it to be that way. Because it’s easier.

    You have more agency than you think, I say to myself.

    Re-render your point of view and watch a whole new world open up to you.

    And don’t think for a moment that I’ve figured this out. Only on paper am I a master of anything. I am a student at this. The more I teach, the better the teachings. The more I study the better the student. The more I beg/borrow/copy/steal the more lead I have to amalgamate into something possibly worthwhile in them hills.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    9 min
  • 7. How To Be A Person: Ten Ways to Use Annoying People to Win at Life

    They are all around us. They drive without signalling. They talk loudly on their phones in the library. They holdup the line at the bank with all their dumb complaints. They write newsletters. But instead of letting a perfect stranger highjack your happiness perhaps they can fuel your creativity? If annoying people are inevitable then we should learn to use them to our advantage. Like Soilent Green. It’s people. Finally, someone found a use for people.

    How To Be A Person is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    10 Ways to Use Annoying People to Win at Life

    1. Remember that you are annoying too. When you talk politics (which you’re not even an expert on). When you drink, you often lose perspective. When you’re angry you’re just an unreasonable asshole. This will cutdown the amount of annoying people in your life by half when you see that you have something in common with them.

    2. Annoying people are grist for the mill. Don’t let them get your goat. They’re not even looking for a goat but quite often you’re foisting yours upon them. Pay attention to the annoying. Take notes. Jerry Seinfeld has become the richest comic in history by making that which annoys him entertainment.

    3. Believe the annoying. Don’t be surprised at the weird shit they say. You know they’ll do that. Look for it, hope for it. Then you’ll be proven right. Your expectations will be met.

    4. Laugh at them. They’re telling you a story about their shortcomings and what emotional midgets they are. This is great. You’re better than someone today.

    5. You’ll never change them. You know this so stop wishing they were different. They are fools there for your entertainment. So you can go home and talk about the idiocy you witnessed at the No Frilly’s.

    Ed Sheeran. Not annoying at all.

    6. When you complain over and over about them you’re staying angry. We’ve already established they’re annoying and you’re right. We don’t have to expend any more resources in this department. Don’t let them hijack your happiness. They don’t even know who you are.

    7. When you point out how ludicrous they are to their face you’re asking them to change. Humans don’t like change and they certainly don’t like being told what to do. You’re setting yourself up to fail. Don’t let the annoying turn you into a failure.

    8. Annoying people will be annoying people just like you will be you. Just like dogs will be dogs. Your cat is your cat. She can’t be anything else. Fuck’em. Fuck’em all as Robert Evans said. Just go with it. Be free! Freedom is in the not caring. Besides, not caring is way easier. First of all, it’s less work. Secondly, it leaves you wide open for good things to happen if you’re paying attention.

    9. Practice responding to adversity. Annoying people are adversity dressed in a man-bun and Crocs. They are there as your opportunities for personal growth. When you see one, breathe deeply, stay calm. Be present. Watch as they spin out of control.

    10. Annoying people need your compassion but they’re not ready for your help. Once I was doing standup at Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto and it was an awful night of comedy. An open mic night where the cynical host would play a video of plane crashes in the middle of a comic’s set if they were dying. It was punishing and petty. The kind of abuse that gives standup a bad name. The very reason Alt Comedy came into being. A young man that looked a lot like he just split from a Ren Faire went up and bombed horribly. The plane crashes began on the Television sets above the stage. He was appalled and dejected. I followed him outside. I wanted him to know that the host was at fault, that this was a horrible show and Yuk Yuk’s is an awful organization. He lost it on me. He was angry and I was a readily available target by virtue of proximity. He wasn’t ready for my help, nor did he ask me for it. Annoying people will remain annoying even if you want to help. Stop helping. Start offering quiet compassion. I should have just bought him a drink. I wonder if Yuk’s stocked flagons of mead.   

    11. Practice being easy going today so that you can embody it tomorrow. This won’t come easy. But once you get better at dealing with annoying people you’ll have more friends, more peace and more space in your brain for things that matter.

    Seinfeld has made nearly 1 billion dollars on turning annoying people into laughter. What can you do with them?

    Thank you for reading How To Be A Person. This post is public so feel free to share it.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    7 min
  • 6. HOW TO BE A PERSON: Day One

    On a podcast I heard a founder of a startup say “Day one, your product is never worse.” He was talking about encouraging early adopters to sign up for their product even though it wasn’t complete. When you admit that today the thing you have to offer is only going to get stronger and better you enter into a covenant with yourself (I’m talking to me right now): I must improve and grow Bold Acting Studios or no one is going to come. So …

    Welcome to HOW TO BE A PERSON. I'm re-branding the Bold Acting newsletter as such because although it’s a little to prescriptive and a lot presumptuous, when any of my content tends towards the self-helpy I get the most likes, views, follows. And I like to talk in this manner – and people respond to it. So, I’m going to stop hiding my light under a bushel as Madiba was fond of saying. RIP.

    It's still Bold Acting Studio, but it's also how to be. Not according to me necessarily but in a corroborated effort, as I have to learn to be a person too. Still. Over and over.

    I have only been a teacher for a year, but I’ve been a student of acting for 30 years. This is my strength. Everyone is bragging how long they’ve been doing it. I’m betting people want someone that has been too busy acting and producing his own stuff to teach until now.

    I've always been in a class of some sort or another. A through-line in all these classes is if you want to become a better actor, one must become better attuned to the human condition.

    Many of my students come and ask me for advice: on confidence, on work ethic, presence, on how to start, on what's important. It’s weird to think that these days in this influencer era we’re in real mentorship is in short supply. I see plenty of people with nothing to hustle, busy telling people how to live their lives.

    My aim is not to make return customers but to launch independent creatives. What is taught is crystallized into a cohesive nugget that hopefully spurs on more learning and an antidote to being in a state of want.

    So welcome to day one of the HOW TO BE A PERSON newsletter. Even though I've been doing this for almost a year, it feels like a new beginning and not just because it's a new year. Never skip over an opportunity to reinvent. No matter how many times you've already done so. Tell people you’re something and then prove it to them every day, every day, every day.

    The Bold Acting Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    You’ll still find the weekly newsletter in your inbox and on the podcast feed. It will just have a different name. Separately, the Bold Acting Podcast will continue, but will be interview-based as I speak to experienced contemporaries on how they've survived in showbiz. I've got a new website coming at the same address: boldacting.com. On it you'll be able to avail yourself of classes, coaching, and a weekly AMA happening Wednesdays at 9:30 AM (Starting January 17th, 2024). Click here or the calendar link below to sign up. Ask me how to get an agent or if I think you need new head shots, or how to save money even if you don’t have any. This will be a weekly state of the industry chat that is free and open to anyone.

    You can also book a free 15-minute Discovery Call: https://calendly.com/mail-wey/15-minute-free-discovery-call. Let’s talk about your acting goals for 2024. I’d love to connect with you.

    Lastly, there are two new in-person classes starting January 21 at Groundglass Casting here in Toronto. From 1 to 4 PM is the Commercial Audition Class. Here I put my experience acting in over 300 commercials to work. I will teach you everything I know. And from 5 to 8 is the On-Camera Scene Study Class. A new scene and a new scene partner each week using scripts from recent film and television. Email me directly for more information at [email protected] or go to boldacting.com.

    I’m excited for 2024. Welcome to How to Be a Person: Day One. Let’s reinvent.

    PS — Here’s your unsolicited advice for today: “It’s not fair, and don’t be late.”

    Here’s the Calendly link again. I’m new to this app. Thank you for your patience.

    https://calendly.com/mail-wey/wednesday-morning-ama

    The Bold Acting Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    12 min
  • 5. How To Be A Person: Daniel Day-Lewis Was A Highly Ineffective Actor

    The ROI on DDL

    Daniel Day-Lewis is a highly ineffective actor when you consider his Return On Investment. It’s a good thing he’s retired so we don’t have to put up with further reports of his methodology. If only Jeremy Strong’s wholehearted admiration for Mr. Day-Lewis would also have him knock-off to Ireland to renovate a castle or Kirk.

    You cannot argue with Day-Lewis’s results. I am an acting teacher not a critic. I make stuff, I do not solely disparage. But I regularly extoll to my students the virtues of doing the right amount of work in an attempt to meet your lofty goals. You have to dream outrageously big in this business. Chances are you won’t become a star. Chances are you don’t really want that anyway. Look what it can do to your life Tom Cruise. You have to set massive goals in order to just make it out of the middle. But then the trick is to not kill yourself trying.

    If you want to die at work there are plenty of finance jobs out there. Perfectly legal — if not ethical — ways of making a lot of money. When you’re in your twenties you have the energy to work all day and all night. Go ahead and spend these years making money. Become an actor in your forties. Then act for forty years. But you won’t. We don’t often have that kind of forethought or aptitude.

    DDL does DDL. You can’t be the next him. You can only be the next you. So when you decide to make that short film to showcase your ability to play that Oscar-winning heroine hooked on heroin who still somehow has the heart to run a cat shelter there is no need to actually do heroin or be in the possession of a cat. DDL will become Lincoln, live in a cabin, vote Republican and insist everyone call him Abe for the entire six month shoot. Where does it end, Dan/Abe? Are you getting a ride back to your hotel room in a horse and buggy? Are you bathing monthly by candlelight? Are you sharing a bed with a certain doe-eyed Joshua in that log cabin?

    Does any of it help?

    How are you working? What’s your investment? Can you adjust it to increase your return? If something isn’t working then try something new. You can always go back to the way you were doing things after. It takes more energy to climb out of the wagon wheel ruts we carve for ourselves than it does to maintain a comfortable stagnancy. Get yourself out of the same-old, same-old by radically changing your state, be it physical or mental or whatever. In your performance do things hugely different. Do this by seeking out the embarrassing, the awkward, the ugly, the loud, the inappropriate, the provocative. You’ve got to burst out of those groves you find yourself in. And you must do it over and over again.

    Once you’re up and out of the rut feel how easy it is to maintain cruising altitude. Enjoy that. Then, sooner rather than later, become suspicious of it. For, inevitably we are now creating new groves that will eventually become a new rut.

    When he was younger Jeremy Strong was DDL’s assistant and clearly this tenure left an impression. Now he adheres to the Method wholeheartedly. In my class I tell beginners we’re here only to get out of our own way. To get out of the way of the parts of our performative selves that do not serve. Perhaps the Method can come later, that’s up to you. But for now, run from all that is precious. Avoid anything that makes it about you. Instead make it all about the scene partner and the audience. When we serve others we truly find communion and connection.

    Perhaps it’s different when you’re playing a self-serving scion of a billionaire asshole like Jeremy was in Succession. Perhaps it’s different when you’re carrying a big budget biopic directed by Stephen Spielberg. Perhaps I’m talking out of my ass. Check-in with yourself. See if this rings true. Don’t take my word for it. Get a second opinion.

    When next you have a self-tape try on some efficacy for a change. Do you over-prepare? It’s not all about memorizing the lines. You can be holding your script. Are you stressing over not fulfilling the wardrobe notes to a tee? Ignore them. Your job is not the wardrobe department. Nor is it lighting or sound. Focus on performance. Focus on behaviour and connection. Film yourself a few times and then send it off. Then, most importantly, forget you ever did it in the first place. Move on to the next one. And if you don’t have another audition make something yourself. Get sides from the Bold Acting Dropbox and prepare them. Film an audition you gave to yourself and that no one has asked for. Practice. Every day, every day, every day. Your return on investment may not be monetary. It will, however, be nothing short of creative fulfillment.

    And that’s an investment that can really pay off.

    The Bold Acting Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    8 min
  • 4. How To Be A Person: The Mildly Interested Stranger

    Gerry and I went for Korean on Wednesday. We ordered a beef dinner for four instead for some reason. The appetizer was thin slices of beef cooked on our table. All the smoke blew into Gerry’s eyes. Then there were mushrooms — the only vegetable I saw all night except for the kimchi. Which was delicious.

    Gerry’s dog had just died. Or Ger had just put her down. We cheers Poppy. I’m not really a dog person. Not a cat person either although I have one on the premises now. I can finally understand we have an infinite amount of love to give and we must get it out. And that why we succumb to such lapses in judgement.

    Toxoplasmosis is a real thing. I love my cat in spite of her personality, her girth, her loudness, how entitled she is and the shedding not to mention the hunting of rabbits and red cardinals and mice and rats and baby squirrels. On paper a pet feels like such a good idea. But paper has little to do with reality.

    “Your whole house smells of dog, says someone who comes to visit. I say I'll take care of it. Which I do by never inviting that person to visit again.”― Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

    After eleven courses of cow of various formats they bring us a ribeye for dessert. We then rolled ourselves down Bloor to the Comedy Bar where we saw eight hapless young people stand up on stage and tell nary a joke. Some would yell at the audience, some would belittle, one begged us to love her. All were dressed as if they just fell off a couch in a dorm room.

    Comedy is hard. Half the time I couldn’t look. Why do we do it to ourselves? My mother asked me that once in 1998 when I was having a panic attack over a one-man show I was performing. Why do you do it, Jacey? And I said, I don’t know. But I can’t stop.

    Performers are compelled. We do it because it’s in us in the beginning and for some it never leaves. We do it because connecting in the real world is much harder. At a party where you don’t know anyone there is no separation like there is on a stage. You’ve got a mic that makes you louder and a light that makes you brighter. The audience knows they are supposed to sit in the dark unnoticed. The performer stands up high, in the light, safe from those below.

    The last time I did stand-up comedy was November of 2013. I had two children under the age of three. I just couldn’t stay up late anymore. And I didn’t love heading downtown to do five to seven, fair-to-middling minutes in front of 12-15 mildly interested strangers.

    The last time I did stand-up the man that went up after me was named Andre. He was about three feet tall. He approached the green room of the Rivoli on Queen in a mobility scooter, parked it at the stairs leading up to the back of the stage, threw his tiny crutches up on the landing and then heaved himself up. Grabbing his crutches he places them under each arm and walks out towards the crowd when introduced. Then he would lean his crutches against the chair, heave himself up and take the mic.

    I watched him that night in November of 2013. Normally I would rush home in an attempt to get as much sleep before the onslaught of whelping young children began again at five or six o’clock in the morning. Comedy is hard for me. But Andre was an expert at suffering. Comedy wasn’t hard for him. Slinging jokes was the least of his concerns.

    Since that night at the Comedy Bar with Gerry I’ve been writing jokes. And they are terrible. I know deep down I am a fan of stand-up more than I am a practitioner. But whatever I do or don’t do “easy” is not a deciding factor. It used to be when I was younger.

    My children are still at that age of thinking Well, if it’s hard I don’t want to do it. I tell them ease or difficulty is not necessarily a part of the equation. Being an adult means you have to do a lot of things that turn your stomach.

    The beef and the booze hit at about 3AM. I look out the window at a large moon above the high-rise in the backyard. Someone else’s light is on. Then nothing happens. How am I supposed to go back to sleep? I re-listen to a podcast on the birth of Costco. It’s surprisingly interesting.

    Andre died in 2017 of a lifelong struggle with Morquio Syndrome but before that he died a 1000 times on stage in front of a bunch of mildly interested strangers. If only we treated each other with the compassion we do our pets.

    Long live Poppy. Long live Andre.

    The cat … we’ll see if she gets such a send off. Or maybe she’ll end up at a Korean restaurant.

    She’s as big as a cow.

    The Bold Acting Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    7 min
  • 29. Dinosaurism, Cognitive Autopilot, Design Thinking, the ACTRA Lockout and Phone Zombies

    I got strong opinions. And I say the same thing over again. Sometimes these things bear repeating.

    On this week’s episode I repeat myself mostly because I know what the click rate is of my newsletter. 63% of you open the Bold Acting Newsletter so I can record audio versions of four of these and there’s a good chance you’ll be hearing this content for the first time.

    I hope you get something from them. I wouldn’t do it without you.

    Jason Bryden in Toronto



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    33 min
  • 28. The Guide Beside You, Not the Guru in Front of You -- Incest, Embarrassment, Great Writing and David Milchard, Former Internet Sensation

    “The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate.” — Douglas Englebart - Father of the computer mouse and digital pioneer

    Complaining is a human need: the transfer of information, much like gossip, between village members is a survival tool we’ve come to abhor incorrectly due to there are too many of us doing it. This is a product of us losing our village perspective (we live in giant cities and are exposed to too many humans) not it’s efficacy. To complain is to warn others - Fuck that guy. I don’t shop there after I pointed out to the proprietor he roles his eyes at me every time I ask a question about cheese. Or - I’m not driving to Old Town to get my haircut at 130pm when that puts me squarely in rush hour traffic on the expressway and it’ll take me three days to get home. So as I lead with complaints know that I’m doing this fully aware of how petty it sounds and how I don’t think that discounts it one bit.

    Besides, positivity is annoyingly popular. And I am allergic to that which everyone is talking about (shoutout to intermittent fasting, drinking gallons of water and misusing the word caveat).

    Joachim Nin, Anais’s father, with whom she had an affair … when she was 30 years-old.

    If you like the Bold Acting Podcast talk it up at your next dinner or book club. Word-of-Mouth is the best form of advertising. If you don’t like it maybe just keep that to yourself.

    Rating and reviewing the thing is also greatly appreciated. It goes a long way to spreading the word.

    To get in touch email me at:  [email protected] on Instagram  @jasonbrydenofcanada

    The song used in this podcast is called Sure and it was made by Braak which is electronic and cinematic music made by Øyvind Strand Endal from Norway.Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/braak/sureLicense code: AVTXANAUYZXHSHB0

    And I’ve also used “Chinatown” by the world’s greatest rock band Do Make Say Think. I do apologize for not asking permission. I don’t know how. And I don’t have any money. But I love them.

    Thanks for listening. I wouldn’t do it without you.

    Jason Bryden in Toronto



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    41 min
  • The Bold Acting Podcast Ep. 27

    Catchup on newsletters you haven’t read yet. Let me read to you instead.

    Thank you for reading The Bold Acting Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.

    If you like the Bold Acting Podcast talk it up at your next dinner or book club. Word-of-Mouth is the best form of advertising. If you don’t like it maybe just keep that to yourself.

    Rating and reviewing the thing is also greatly appreciated. It goes a long way to spreading the word.

    To get in touch email me at:  [email protected] on Instagram  @jasonbrydenofcanada

    The song used in this podcast is called Sure and it was made by Braak which is electronic and cinematic music made by Øyvind Strand Endal from Norway.Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/braak/sureLicense code: AVTXANAUYZXHSHB0

    And I’ve also used “Chinatown” by the world’s greatest rock band Do Make Say Think. I do apologize for not asking permission. I don’t know how. And I don’t have any money. But I love them.

    Thanks for listening. I wouldn’t do it without you.

    Jason Bryden in Toronto



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    34 min
  • 26. Goblins, Macbeth, Questions and Answers

    I don’t like Shakespeare. Mostly it’s our outsized reverence for Shakespeare that I don’t like. Reverence for anything makes me roll my eyes. A preciousness for the old where it leaves less room for the new makes me suspicious. The bard takes up a lot of space, still. Would he be so popular if we had to pay his estate for the rights to produce his plays? Not likely. We don’t like paying artists these days.

    I went to Stratford to see Goblin Macbeth. It’s a truncated version of the Scottish play where three goblins play all the roles and do the music and the sound effects and it was very good. From the word go they had the audience in the palm of their hands.

    It was created by old friends Rebecca Northan and Bruce Horak. We met at university a 1000 years ago. They’ve been making theatre ever since.

    That night Rebecca and I stayed up late and spoke about the good old days in Calgary, Keith Johnstone, the Loose Moose and about teaching and the little wisdom we’ve gained. She spoke of old lady necks and I didn’t have to speak of erectile dysfunction because something inside me reminds me that I talk about it all the time on podcasts and blogs and I could just sit and listen once in while.

    To come all this way only to realize that it’s all about sitting there and listening.

    I hope you enjoy this listen.

    Thank you for listening The Bold Acting Podcast. This post is public so feel free to share it.

    If you like the Bold Acting Podcast talk it up at your next dinner or book club. Word-of-Mouth is the best form of advertising. If you don’t like it maybe just keep that to yourself.

    Rating and reviewing the thing is also greatly appreciated. It goes a long way to spreading the word.

    To get in touch email me at:  [email protected] on Instagram  @jasonbrydenofcanada

    The song used in this podcast is called Sure and it was made by Braak which is electronic and cinematic music made by Øyvind Strand Endal from Norway.Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/braak/sureLicense code: AVTXANAUYZXHSHB0

    And I’ve also used “Chinatown” by the world’s greatest rock band Do Make Say Think. I do apologize for not asking permission. I don’t know how. And I don’t have any money. But I love them.

    Thanks for listening. I wouldn’t do it without you.

    Jason Bryden in Toronto



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com
    35 min

About The Bold Acting Podcast

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I'm an actor and a teacher in Toronto. But I don't just teach acting. I teach performance technique that everyone can use. Each week I'll publish an episode that covers the newsletter, everything…