Category: An actor is

An actor… improvises

Posted on by Karl Brown

The most important lesson I’ve learnt is how to improvise. I know a lot of directors hear “improvise” and “improv” and they immediately start to panic, but improvisation is a skill that every actor needs to have, and to be able to do well.

First, to the fear some directors have about improv. I don’t mean people moving off script. A great actor can deliver the lines, and will work with you to make sure the performance is the best. If they feel the script needs altering, they should talk to you and get your opinion after doing it how it’s written first. What I mean by improvisation is the ability to act totally naturally in the reality of the script, off the cuff, so that if a cup falls when it’s not meant to, or a real taxi almost runs them over, it doesn’t become a distraction but part of the scene.

Some actors say that improv is difficult, and others say it’s easy. I’m somewhere in between. There was a moment when I was part of MissImp when it clicked, thanks to the wonderful people I learnt from and played with. Before that point I’d had moments where things were natural, and others where I felt I was forcing it. The difficulty isn’t in thinking quickly and coming up with a funny line or smart quip, the difficulty is stopping yourself from thinking quickly and just reacting.

For me, improvisation is reacting. I had some scenes which weren’t funny, which is odd for an improv comedy troupe, but the scenes worked because my scene partner and I came up with strong characters and created a scene. When either of us (usually me) tried to force a joke or a point, the scene dipped. Once you lose that mindset of having to improvise, once you get out of your head, you start to live in the imagined circumstances of the scene. It may be a scene that you’ve only had a one word suggestion to use as the starting point, rather than a whole script, but you could say the same thing about life. Life doesn’t come with a script, and neither should your performance on stage or on a set.

When we’re working, we create our own worlds. The writer has given us the words to say and characters with real lives, and the reality of the world of the script might not be rooted in what we as people experience day to day. What doesn’t change is that our characters are living those lives in that reality, and they’re experiencing everything for the first time. I credit my love of improv to watching the extras on an anime DVD (whose name I forget), when Monica Rial said to go out and learn improv. I urge you to do the same. It’ll help you loosen up, be more natural when you’re acting, and will get you out of your head.

Improv will smack you out of your head, and it might lead to you having a coffee mug with your moment of improv brilliance immortalised.

An actor… has fun

Posted on by Karl Brown

The Muppets doing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody

The Muppets are absolutely classic. It’s difficult not to feel your mood lifted watching them, and grown men have been known to go weak at the knees just sharing a stage with them.

Although it’s 5 years old, their version of Bohemian Rhapsody contains a very strong lesson for everyone. Life, and acting, are about having fun.

Think about what actors do. We don’t do a role. We play a role. And what is play if it isn’t fun?

Stanislavski spoke about being in the moment. Who is more in the moment, an actor rehearsing for a show, or a child at home playing with their toys or their friends? If you watch the two, you’ll see the actor is working hard to try and get into the moment, while the child will grab a kitchen roll tube and make-believe that it’s the mighty Excalibur, or they’re a Power Ranger fighting a monster. A child is just having fun, but they are so in the moment that it’s hard not to see them as what they are playing; whereas with the actor, especially during rehearsals, shows us that they’re working. They’re trying various psycho-techniques and games to do what the child has no trouble doing.

By having fun, the child is in the moment, and is believable.

The Muppets, by having fun, are in the moment and are believable.

As actors we need to capture that fun, that joy, even when the scene demands deep sadness or anger. We need to capture that four letter word, play. We need to play, and in playing, believe as easily as a child that we aren’t on a stage, but are in the world of the scene.

It’s not a coincidence that when children are on stage in a Nativity scene, many struggle. Because it’s not natural for them to play like that. On stage we see them playing as adults expect them to play the Nativity, not how children would. When they start to play as children should, we see much better performances, and I always find myself enjoying the show a lot more. That’s why children can be so great on set, despite the old advice never to work with them or animals. They see it as fun and they go on playing.

If you want your performances to go to the next level, play. If something jumps out at you to try, don’t ask, do it. Believe in the world you’re inhabiting totally, be there, don’t force anything, and you’ll loosen up and become much more believable.

And who knows? Maybe one day you’ll have the Swedish Chef giving you his spoon.

In the moment

Posted on by Karl Brown

In both instances, you who were playing, and we who were watching, gave ourselves up completely to what was happening on the stage. Such successful moments, by themselves, we can recognize as belonging to the art of living a part.
Konstantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares

Acting is about living in the imagined circumstances of the script. We’ve all seen bad acting; where it’s clear that the actor is just saying lines, going through the motions, not connecting with the audience and really just not inspiring you to keep watching. We’ve also all seen good acting, where we completely forget that we’re watching a film or a play and we really believe we’re there, watching real life.

As actors we want to have every performance we give be that good. The question is, how do we do it?

Stanislavski talks about inhabiting the character so we are living truthfully in the imagined circumstances, which sounds fantastic. It’s called “the method” and is a really useful starting point, although some actors do take it too far. But say you’re working on a script or a character that you’ve only just seen; you’ve had the script for a few minutes and need to give a full performance for the camera or in a voice over session. How can you fulfil the detailed analysis called for by Stanislavski or Uta Hagen?

We need to remember that acting is about being in the moment. In the test at the beginning of An Actor Prepares we are told of 2 individual moments when Maria and Kostya managed to utterly convince themselves and the audience of the moment. Kostya, when asked, says he can’t remember how he felt when he said “Blood, Iago! Blood!” because he was subconciously in the moment. The trick is to bring that subconcious brilliance to being part of the concious process. If you’ve only had a script for a few moments then it’s almost impossible to do a full analysis, like so many actors try to do. It might even be impossible to answer all of Uta Hagen’s questions to get into character. This is why actors need a varied selection of tools, and there are 2 which I think are the best for creating strong choices which keep you in the moment. Both take some practice and preparation, but this should be done ahead of time and tucked away for when you need them.

The first is to study improvisation, especially improvised theatre or improvised comedy. As well as playing games like “Yes, and” and the word at a time story (which are just plain fun!), it gives you practice in running with an idea and having a scene coming from it. if you’re in front of a live audience, you’ll get seconds between hearing the suggestion and having to start the scene. You’ll need to give yourself fully to the choices that you and your scene partners make. The more practice you get, the more you’ll be able to trust your instincts, and the more you’ll find it easier to follow the scene through.

The second tool I think every actor should work on is having a cast of characters or archetypes you can fulfil. If you go into a voice over session, you’re likely to be seeing the script for the first time and will need to work quickly. I have a few character types that I keep on hand, so if I go through a script I can choose which of them best fits the needs of the script. Because I already know those characters well I can start to mould them to the specific scenarios, knowing full well that they will react in character.

There is a reason, I feel, why the first of Stanislavski’s texts is An Actor Prepares; preparation is key to any scene, to any character, and to any performance, but it’s not always necessary to prepare the script. Sometimes it isn’t timely to prepare the script. It’s important to have the training and knowledge of your characters ahead of time, to prepare your tool kit so that you can reach for the right one, knowing it’s in the best condition and ready for action.

An actor is… ready!

Posted on by admin

Being an actor sounds easy. Being paid to play and pretend to be someone you’re not, what could be more fun!

It is fun, immensely so. But it’s also not easy. The ease with which someone like Brando, Depp, Burton, Brett, Jacobi, or a whole host of other famous names seem to slip into and inhabit a role is proof of that. Because if it was easy, everyone would do it, and we wouldn’t think “Oh, Richard Burton, what a great actor!”, we’d just think he was an actor.

There are lots of things that can help you become someone else in a role, but prime among them, and something which all my favourite actors have, is that they’re ready. They’ve learnt their lines. They’ve practiced their craft. If they need an accent, they learn it, practice it, so that when the time comes, when the director shouts “Action!” – they’re ready.

One of the biggest eye-openers for me was when I took improv classes. I watched the man teaching the group, Lloydie, and was mesmorised by how ready he was for anything. Although improv comedy and rehearsed lines are very different skills, they both require you to be ready to react. When I saw Lloydie play scenes with the others in MissImp, I was hugely impressed by how they all seemed able to bounce things off each other and were ready to react. Some of the players, it seemed, had character models ready to slip into for a scene, so that when the suggestion was given or their partner gave them a line, they could go with it. They were ready, and the result was hilarious, and fantastic.

I’ve watched a lot of actors, on set and on the screen, and those that really live are ready when they turn up on set. That might mean having some characters ready to go. That might be having the accent down. Or being in shape. Time is money, and the actor’s time spent getting ready and being able to hit the ground running means stronger performances, and, as seen by the greats such as Marlon Brando or Robert Downey Jr., that means more work, and more money for the actor.