Hi!
I’m writing screenplays but I’m also interested in acting but have no experience in it. I asked myself what is acting actually about? When a non-pro is performing a role on stage the result is mostly terrible. Only a few can act like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Michelle Pfeiffer,... But why? Why is it so hard to perform like a professional? An actor on stage is just doing things humans do in everyday life situation: taking, driving, eating, smoking, dancing,... Why then is it so difficult to do precisely these things on stage without looking like an idiot?
After watching a lot of videos about acting on YouTube I came to the conclusion that the secret of good acting is to show and experience genuine, authentic emotions on the stage. It is about acting out an authentic part of yourself within to role. It is about BEING the character you play, instead of PLAYING it. What differentiates a good actor from a bad one is primarily that the former is himself, while the latter plays and pretends. For some obscure reason the audience feels entertained only if it can watch true humans in real scenes.
Two questions:
(1) Would you confirm my view: mastering authenticity = nothing left to learn? Or what do you think are the secrets of good acting?
(2) If acting indeed is about being authentic, why is it so hard on stage and what are the best ways to improve it?
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Hi! Meisner technique is one of my faves and it teaches “live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.”
I would say mastering authenticity does not equal having nothing left to learn. As actors, everything we learn in life contributes to how we can perform. And as artists in general, we are constantly learning, growing, evolving. So in my opinion, there is ALWAYS more to learn. I would say to improve, keep studying, practicing, and try to get out there and do some! See if there are classes in your area! Hope this helps! :)
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Yes, my friend, you got it. I am a 26 year professional actor. Acting is about being real. It's about finding some affinity with whatever emotions your character is going through and making them your own, connecting them either to when you felt the same emotion (as one of my acting teachers used to say "If you've killed a fly, you can play Othello", meaning all human emotions are universal. I was trained classically: I went to the Acting Conservatory at Boston University. I started acting professionally while in school. I later developed skills that would adjust my work for the appropriate mediums , whether television or film or radio, as I have been blessed to work in all areas of the field. I know how to sustain a performance for two hours, inhabiting a character as if he were myself. I owe this to my stage training. If an actor is not believable on stage, he or she may not be able to due to lack of skill or he or she may not believe it themselves and thus, the audience will then never believe it.
Yes, but there certainly are some universal principle you could follow. I think you just shouldn’t stick with specific realizations or interpretations of them. Beside authenticity a second core competence would be to enhance your expressive power.
Erik Jacobsen With expressive power I mean expressiveness, expressivity. I mean how able an actor is to express his emotions. How able he is to show his emotions.
...i.e. a good actor might be able to experience the relevant emotion in an intense way and then, somehow, display or project it onto his body so that the audience can see it. As if his body were a screen on which he can project his emotions. Expressiveness may also manifest itself through the voice. His voice vibrates in - let's say - the frequency of his emotions. If an actor is high in expressiveness he is able to act out gestures, facial expressions, and vocal expressions in high contrast. High contrast expression means: the expressed emotions are detected easily by the audience. Emotions can be transferred to the viewer, i.e. emotional contagion will happen. But how do you get the ability of "high contrast expressions"? Or what do you have to do to make you expressions high in contrast?
I like to think.
So, being authentic instead of playing + having expressive power are two core elements of acting. What further abilities does a good actor have to have?