Learn to work the red carpet

Sooner or later, if you achieve the least degree of success in the business, you will find yourself invited to a gala opening before which you will walk up the red carpet. This may happen even if the film is an insignificant short in which you have a minuscule part, so it's essential to learn the correct technique to employ in this situation.

You will have three sets of people to work with: photographers, fans and press. The photographers will probably be confined to a roped off area to one side and when you arrive at the red carpet they will start calling out your name to get you to look at them so that they get a good shot of you. This can be quite confusing but what you do is very simple. Starting at the near end of the line, you eyeball each lens in turn, giving it a friendly gaze for a few seconds. When you get to the end of the line be prepared to repeat the exercise if they're still calling your name out. Take your time, make sure they all get a good picture and be prepared for requests to pose with someone else, as well, someone you know or a complete stranger.

You then turn to the fans. They may be family and friends, or inquisitive people who happened to be passing by, but their presence, gathered together behind a rope, turns them into fans, while your presence in the lights and on the red carpet, turns you into a star. They will ask for your autograph and it's a good idea to have with you a brightly coloured marker pen, one that writes reliably, so that you can sign your name easily. Make your signature very large. But the important thing is to talk to them. Ask them what kind of films they like, whether they've come from far, thank them for coming. They will be thrilled.

Finally come the press interviews, some for print media and some for internet. Again it's your job to be as helpful as possible, even if it means giving the same answers over and over again. Have a few soundbites and anecdotes ready for use. Be patient and make sure they spell your name correctly. Remember who they are: you may meet them again, perhaps in a more important job than the one they have now. This is not a good time to remember things that went wrong or people you did not get on with, so be diplomatic and forgive and forget.

All this attention can be quite head turning, so it's important to keep your feet on the ground. In ancient Rome, when they held a triumph for a returning general, amid all he adulation a little man would be employed to whisper in the general's ear and remind him the he was mortal. In the same way always remember that you will walk down the street the next morning and no-one will know who you are. (If you're lucky.)

Surprise, Surprise

Surprise is a difficult emotion to depict (if it counts as an emotion, psychologists are divded on this.) You can't surprise yourself: it's the result of an unexpected change acting on the unconscius mind. So how can actors show this?

Surprise is in the mind but it has its effect on the body, in sudden and compulsive moment. The movement may be large or small. If the whole body moves it might suggest terror, or maybe slapstick comedy. Working in close-up you might be much more subtle: a slight change in the eyes may be enough, particularly if you are playing an emotionally guarded character.

Then there is the double take, when one person's grasp on reality has suddenly changed, the delayed surprise, anticipated by the audience and the other characters but not by the one who is to be surprised, the cumulative surprise, for good or ill, one thing after another. For all of them, work from the movement. Maybe you'll surprise yourself, after all.

Audiences and Words

You read the lines, you learn the lines, you deliver the lines you've learned and it's very important to get the words right. A rough approximation simply will not do. The writer will have gone to a lot of trouble to compose each line so that it reveals character and advances the plot and it is disrespectful to cast his or her intentions aside and deliver your own version. Of course, in rehearsal, you may well find instances where a line does not roll off the tongue easily. If you want to suggest a change ask the director, who may well refer it to the writer.

Sometimes a problem with a line can be resolved by a change of emphasis and actors need to be adept at this. A good exercise is to take a sentence and run it repeatedly with all the possible emphasis in turn. For example:

"SHE said she was happy ... she SAID she was happy ... she said SHE was happy ... she said she WAS happy ... she said she was HAPPY." Feel the different implication of each version. Start by hammering out the words in capitals, then gradually make it more subtle and therefore more realistic.

And another important thing to remember: the audience is not stupid. They are intelligent people. You don't need to lead them to conclusions by the nose. If it's there they will 'get it.' No need to exaggerate. Subtleties are better than stereotypes.

Words, words, words

The break for Christmas and New Year has given me the opportunity to compile no fewer than five new sets of Words of Wisdom.

First Words. Television drama seems to be in retreat in the face of reality TV, so what does that tell us about the medium of TV? All drama depends upon illusion, but what kind of illusion? On stage (and radio) the illusion is that what is produced in our imagination, prompted by what we are being shown, or, told, is real, wherever it may be in space and time. We want to believe in it and, provided that it is done well enough, we do believe in it. On film, the illusion is that we are experiencing a wonderful dream. On television the illusion is that we are looking through a window at a real world neighbouring our own. It is on the same scale as our world and, however unlikely the events portrayed may be, we believe that they could be happening to us, or people like us. Hence the success of reality TV and, whether we like it or not, that is the reason why successful television drama approximates more and more to reality TV. It may not be real 'reality' but, if you are working for television, try not to get too far away from it.

Second Words. Which side of stage or screen is dominant? Answer: the left side, seen from the audience's point of view - 'audience left' is known, confusingly, as 'stage right.' There are a number of possible reasons why winners progress from left to right, or turn to their left, as we see in comics and cartoons. Most languages are read from left to right; in the northern hemisphere the sun, moon and stars appear to move across the sky from left to right; running tracks are left-handed; so are most racecourses, except where the lie of the land tells against it. But perhaps the reason is that most of us are right-handed. Our right leg is stronger than our left, therefore when heading forwards we tend to veer to the left, so the observation that positive movement goes from left to right may become embedded early in our lives. Watch children running round a playground and see if it's true. Bear it in mind when blocking a scene or composing a shot: left is dominant over right.

Third Words. It's only necessary to do things once. If you use a gesture, a turn of speech or a way of handling a prop, what is sometimes called a piece of business, do it once and, because the audience's attention is focussed on you, you will have established it in their minds. In drama, one can represent many. If you use the same business more than once there is a danger that it will be distracting, or that it will appear self-indulgent or attention seeking. Of course, there are exceptions to most rules and sometimes a repeated item can become a motif that gives a particular signal, or repetition may produce an increasingly comic effect but, nevertheless, unless there's a very good reason for repetition, it's only necessary to do things once.

Fourth Words. If you make a mistake, keep calm and continue. Just go on. Half the audience won't even know. Most of the rest won't mind. Don't in any way draw attention to the fault. If you 'dry' or get in a tangle, the other actors, if they are professional, will help get you out of trouble. Improvise the next bit till you get back on track. And this applies in rehearsal as well as performance, so you practice the correct way of dealing with mistakes. Some actors, in rehearsal, will turn a mistake into a gag: not a good idea. Just go on till the director stops you.

Fifth Words. Be still. The strongest and most watchable thing you can do on stage is to be in a central position, not moving a muscle. If you are supporting in a scene the least obtrusive thing you can do is to be tucked away at the side, not moving a muscle. No fidgets. Be still.

Models, Singers, Writers: all of us are Actors

Some actors look down on models, particularly models that get acting parts. The assumption is that they just have the luck to be born beautiful and are simply a pretty face attached to a fit body. But models have to project emotion, a style and a persona. That's acting.

Some people assert that a singer is just a voice, someone blest with the ability to make beautiful sounds. But what do songs tell us? Some - ballads - tell us a story. Others are more direct and the singer presents as someone we might know, or be, in real life. But larger than in real life and communicating profound feeling and deep emotion. That's acting.

The writer Andrea Newman once said that writing is acting for shy people. Writers create character and story which they don't present themselves, though other people may, but their characters perform in our minds. That's acting.

All of us are actors: look how differently we behave in different circumstances: at a business meeting, falling in love, attending a funeral, or on a night out. Same person playing different parts. That's acting.

As Shakespeare puts it 'All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.' And the Words of Wisdom are 'Models, Singers, Writers: all of us are Actors.'

Aim at a star

'Aim at a star and you'll hit a tree.' That was advice given to me as a boy, jokimgly, by a countryman friend of my late father when I told him that I was interested in astronomy. That memory has stayed with me ever since and, as with many country sayings, you can take it two different ways. And that makes it a kind of test.

You could take it to mean that ambition always ends in failure, or you could take it to mean that you should try to do as well as you can, because then you'll at least get somewhere.

I prefer the second interpretation. Aim high; try to be the best you possibly can be; work hard; practice. Don't be content with being just about good enough. Aim at a star and you'll hit a tree.

Acting is easier than you might think

The Words of Wisdom this week are Acting is easier than you might think - but you can go on learning about it all your life.

How so? Well, acting is the most accessible of the arts. It's a development of play, which is how we learn from a very early age, imitating the behaviour of others. It comes into our lives automatically, before we even know it. It's for that reason that improvisation, drama based on life rather than literature, is the best grounding for a would be actor's training..

Other arts, painting or playing a musical instrument, require more development and do not come so easily. Writing, in particular, demands plenty of life experience.

So what is acting? It means going into character, pretending to be someone you're not, feeling and speaking like someone else. And that's it.

Well, it's not quite as simple as that. Acting may be easy but that doesn't mean that everyone does it well. When people act badly it's generally for one of two reasons. Either there's a lack of confidence, so that they stiffen up and become wooden, or else they may be trying to impose a theory on what should be a natural process. They're acting in their head but not in their heart.

And you can go on learning about it all your life. You can develop your technique and knowledge of how human beings express themselves in speech and body language. You can explore and experiment and this can go on for ever.

But if you're an actor you still have to learn the script and turn up on time.