Charles Verrall

Learn to work the red carpet

2012-02-08T18:11:00.003Z

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

2012-01-26T23:14:00.002Z

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

2012-01-12T11:18:00.002Z

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

2012-01-02T16:18:00.003Z

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

2011-11-24T16:43:00.002Z

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

2011-11-01T15:35:00.003Z

'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

2011-10-27T13:39:00.004Z

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.

Why is the trial so fascinating?

2011-09-29T16:35:00.004Z

Once again the cameras have been allowed into the courtroom to observe a murder trial involving figures from the world of show business. The Words of Wisdom this week answer the question 'Why is the trial so fascinating?'

Many of us still feel sadness and a sense of loss over the death of Michael Jackson, a supremely talented but deeply troubled figure. But there are additional reasons why so many of us are rivetted by the trial footage.

We are inquisitive creatures and the televised courtroom licenses us to observe and stare and watch people under pressure. They are not pretending: it's real. The are not particularly aware of the cameras, being entirely focussed on the questions they are asking or answering. In acting terms they are underplaying and often trying to hide their feelings: that draws us in. The slow tempo of the court procedure doesn't bore us: it enhances the suspense, even when the line of questioning appears trivial.

For actors this is a rare opportunity to study people's communication under pressure, both conscious and unconscious. Study tone of voice as an indicator of personality and mood. Watch gesture, restricted in the circumstances but always indicative. Observe eye movement and gaze; direction and duration. Note how blink rate goes up when a person is under emotional pressure. Particularly interesting is head movement, because it is not possible to talk or listen without moving your head and head movement is very revealing (though it does vary in different cultures.) Notice in the trial the way a witness will nearly always start nodding before they utter the word 'yes.'

A particularly interesting example of revealing body language was in the trial of O J Simpson in 1995. One of the lawyers was describing most graphically the way that it was alleged that O J had killed his wife. The camera cut to O J and we saw that he was slowly nodding as the events were described. Now body language is not evidence or testimony but, if it were, O JSimpson could have been found guilty on the spot. In fact he was acquitted but a civil suit a couple of years later found against him for some millions of dollars and he is currently serving a life sentence for unrelated serious charges,

All fascinating stuff.

Your first day on a film set

2011-07-27T15:43:00.005Z

Are there any more annoying words than 'Please may I borrow your pen?' There you are, writing down something important and someone, who can't be bothered to carry a pen or pencil, wants you to interrupt your chain of thought and wait while they use your property. They'll probably need reminding to hand it back to you, as well. This is just one example of things you should always have with you when rehearsing or shooting a film. The Words of Wisdom are Always run a checklist before you leave home. That way you make sure that you don't forget anything, The items on your checklist will include your script, the schedule if one has been issued, some water, something to read while you're waiting, some cash (you might want to buy someone a drink at the end of the day.) You will of course have checked the journey so that you get there is good time. And you'll be bringing a pen or pencil - and maybe a spare, in case you find yourself sitting next to an idiot.

The next Words are Maintain Continuity. Once you have been cast in a part don't change your hairstyle or any other feature of your appearance without permission. If you are using any of your own clothes and accessories don't make any changes. It's not a good idea to drink alcohol at a lunch break. Even just one drink changes the way you speak. Similarly, the location catering may be delicious, but eat sparingly.

Get to Know Who Does What. If it's a big production the number of people involved is quite staggering and may be baffling to a beginner. It's worth studying the Wikipedia article on Film Crew, which gives you a rundown of who does what. On arrival you will probably report to the '2nd AD' (second assistant director) or possibly a 'PA' (production assistant.) whose job it is to shepherd you through costume (sometimes known as 'wardrobe'), hair and make-up and deliver you on set when required. Remember that everyone is there to help you and if you keep your eyes and ears open you will learn a lot. You may find you are working with a big star. If so, don't stare, don't behave like a fan and, above all, don't ask for an autograph. That would not be appreciated. It is more likely, of course, that your first job will be on a much smaller scale production. In which case there may be a lot of overlapping between cast and crew and you may be asked to muck in and help out in all kinds of ways. You will, of course, show willing - within reason.

The next Words of Wisdom: Trust the Director. The story is told of Marilyn Monroe shooting the film Bus Stop, with her acting coach, Paula Strasberg, standing next to the camera. Before and after each take the two of them would ignore the director and go into a huddle and have a whispered conversation. What this did to the cast and crew can only be imagined, but sometimes as many as thirty takes would be required for each shot. Coupled with Marilyn's notorious unpunctuality the result was that filming fell more and more behind. That's an example of not trusting the director. You must trust the director. Even experienced actors find it hard to visualise the composition of a shot while they're performing. You don't get to see through the lens. You don't know how the scene is going to be edited. You don't know how music is going to be used in it, let alone CGI (Computer-generated imagery.) The director is carrying all these in his or her mind so Trust the Director.

If you're a stand-in you're there to help. You may be asked to be a stand-in for an actor who is temporarily unavailable. You are of similar stature and you are there to give another actor an eyeline and someone to play off. So don't just stand there like a plank! Match your facials and body language to the person you are substituting for. That will help your fellow actor.

And finally: Learn to Hit Your Mark Without Looking at it. Sometimes you have to move into shot and, because it's a close-up or an intricately composed shot, you have to stop at a precise position, usually marked on the floor by a piece of 'gaffer tape.' (The 'gaffer' in a film crew is the chief electrician, incidentally.) But you mustn't look down while you're doing it. The audience don't want to see an actor looking for where his feet should be. So how do you do this? Practise! At home, put a piece of tape on the floor and go and stand over it, so that you became aware of where your surroundings are when you're on your mark. Then go to your starting position. Look at your mark and visualise, as footprints, the steps you are going to make to hit your mark. Then, without looking down, walk those steps. See how close you can get. Then keep on practicing, trying different distances and angles. After a while you'll hit your mark every time and you won't be the one who gets it wrong.

The Eyes Have It

2011-06-23T15:17:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are The Eyes Have It. It's about body language, which means communication without words, or sounds, through posture, movement, particularly head movement, and gaze, where we look and for how long and the character of our looking, revealed by tiny changes in our eyes and the tissues around them. This non-verbal communication is very powerful and originates much further back in our evolution than spoken language. The language of our eyes is close to that of the gorilla or the orangutan. Even if you make a pet of a much more distant cousin, a cat or a dog, you will find that when you greet it you look at its eyes and it will look at yours.

Most of the time we are unconscious of what we are signalling with our eyes, but we can become aware of it and of the way it arises from our inner feelings. Hence, when acting, we can raise the emotional temperature by intensifying what we are doing with our eyes.

Just studying how long people look at each other tells us a lot about their emotional state. People who find it difficult to meet other people's gaze will appear shifty, while two people gazing long at each other presages either aggression or sexual attraction - the mouth will tell you which.

Here's an interesting exercise to try when you're walking along a busy street. Clock the eyes of everyone walking towards you, for just one second. Then tell yourself what their eyes tell you about their personality and emotional state. You will find that you can always find something, sometimes difficult to put into words, but always something about the way they are feeling and the kind of person they are.

The Eyes Have It.

Stregths and Weaknesses

2011-05-26T17:50:00.004Z

This week's Words of Wisdom are 'People have the strengths of their weaknesses and the weaknesses of their strengths.' This is a general truth and something for an actor to remember when developong a character. People are rarely all good or all bad or all strong or all weak and therefore, if a character shows something of both extremes, that is believable, because it's true to life, and interesting, because it's complicated.

Here are some examples of what I mean. A person who's determined may be stubborn and is very likely a mix of the two. Someone who's kind may also be weak; someone who's honest may also be blunt; someone who's analytical may also be nit-picking; someone who's attractive may also be vain. See if you can think of some more examples.

People have the strengths of their weaknesses and the weaknesses of their strengths. On related subjects, here is some more wisdom. From 18th century poet William Cowper: 'Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour' and from the ancient Greek Oracle at Delphi: 'Nothing to excess' and 'Know thyself.'

Good wisdom for acting and for life.

It's what the audience believes that counts

2011-05-18T20:39:00.002Z

Words of Wisdom: It's what the audience believes that counts. Here's an example of how an audience's belief can be broken. At one time I was co-director of Anna Scher Theatre, a theatre for young people in London. The members used to put on short plays and there were various stage properties that they could use in their performances. Among these was a large, thick, silver coloured plastic dagger, not an object that anyone could be hurt by, but, as teenagers' plays often feature a good deal of violence, one that was used quite a lot.

Then one day a group was down in the coffee bar, preparing for a play. Someone went behind the bar, where they shouldn't have been, opened a drawer and found a large, pointed knife that was used for cutting up food. They decided to use it in the play.

Well. the moment came in the play when the knife was produced and immediately a murmur ran through the audience. Some were thinking "Wow! That really is a big knife." Others were thinking "They shouldn't be using that" or "If someone gets stabbed they'll be hurt." The point is that if they had used the old dagger, the audience would happily have believed it was the real thing, but when they used the real thing, reality intruded and the audience became focused on the knife and stopped believing in the play.

The stage is a medium that works by using words and actions to make the audience feel as if they are watching something real. If the actors do something that reminds the audience that it isn't really real, then the performance fails. This is particularly true of things that are spectacular or 'scene-stealing' which may create a big effect but may also damage the production as a whole. It's what the audience believes that counts.

The audience is not stupid

2011-05-04T17:13:00.003Z

It's hard to define what good acting is but we sll know what overacting is and recognise it when we see it. It's excessive emoting that isn't true to life. It doesn't allow for the audience's intelligence and this week's Words of Wisdom are The audience is not stupid.

In particular there is one aspect of intelligence in which an audience is more sensitive than an individual person and that is emotional intelligence, based on the ability to share and understand other people's emotions. As we are social creatures we are naturally equipped to feel the pain and joy of others. Someone feels a particular feeling, smeone else receives that feeling, shares it and transmits it again. It is obvious that in a large group of people the feeling will be that much more magnified. That is why a crowd will often behave much worse than any of its individual members would. That's why the larger a demonstration is the more likely it is to turn into a riot. If we are sitting at home watching a football match we can see the game perfectly, it's as if we are sitting in the best seat in the ground, but it's much more exciting to be at the match and experiencing the atmosphere, the shared emotion.

So the audience at a play also feel the shared emotion and are particularly sensitive to falsity. Often their unconscious mind will be telling them that something is not quite right. If the actors are overactiing and not believable the performance will not communicate true emotion. It may be superficially impressive but will lack honesty.

The audience is not stupid.

The fox and the hedgehpg

2011-03-30T19:57:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Consider whether you're a fox or a hedgehog. Foxes? Hedgehogs? What am I on about? Well, it started with an ancient Greek poet, Archilochus, who wrote 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.' This mysterious aphorism seems to belong to the age of myth, when we better appreciated the wisdom of the animals. So what does it tell us? Well, for one thing, it tells us about the animals concerned. Threaten a hedgehog and it always has the same response: roll in a ball and stick its prickles out. Threaten a fox and it will do any one of a thousand things, run in any direction, fight, jump, show its teeth, hide ... But what the Greek was really writing about was people and the way some of us focus on one thing in our lives, while others pursue variety; how some people base all their thoughts and actions on a single belief or principle, while others like to see all sides of every question. Hedgehogs need decisiveness and finality, whilst foxes may change their minds if the circumstances change. Politicians tend to be hedgehogs, sticking to principles even when their application has demonstrably failed, and the media love hedgehogs - they know what they're going to get. Foxes will always be in line for the latest gadgetry, they appreciate newness for its own sake, but it's difficult to get a definite opinion out of them. For actors, consideration of fox or hedgehog traits is a useful extra dimension in character study. But there is another way in which it applies. Some actors can take a great variety of roles, often bearing no resemblance to themselves. They are character actors: foxes. Others play parts very similar to their real life persona. Thay are hedgehogs. In our lives we can think about what type we are and hope to avoid the associated weaknesses. Hedgehogs may lack enterprise: foxes may lack solidity. We can try and absorb some of the strengths of the opposing animal and, hopefully, become a more rounded person as a result. And, by the way, if you have a garden, a hedgehog will keep down the insect pests. To encourage them, put down a saucer of pet food in the evening. When it is dark they will come out and eat it up - unless the foxes get there first.

Emotional Memory Is Useful, But Only Up To A Point

2011-02-03T16:55:00.004Z

If you have studied those two great theorists of modern theatre, Konstantin Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg, you will know that both of them set great store in actors using their own emotional memories to help them express their emotions in parts they are playing. Many actors find this helpful, but some drama training treats it as if it were holy writ and my contention is that it is only useful up to a point.

In fact, appreciating the extent to which it is useful requires little insight. It's blindingly obvious that, if you think about something sad, you will feel sad and you will probably look sad too. The same with happiness, fear, anger and all the rest of the emotions. And that's as far as it goes.

You see, when you're playing a part in a play, you want to concentrate and focus on the part itself and you don't want to be distracted by the memory of something that's not in the play, particularly if it's something you find personally distressing. Also, the play is not about you, the actor, it's about an imaginary character (and others) that may resemble you to a greater or lesser extent. Everyone is different: thank about the mix of emotions you have when you are frustrated in reaching some goal: you are angry, depressed, resolute, we laugh it off, we blame someone else. Everyone is different, so why should the actor be the same as the character?

You can learn a lot by looking inside yourself, but a great deal more by looking at the world around you and also by using your imagination and drawing from the text you are working with. To be fair to Stanislavski and Strasberg they both favour an all round approach like this, involving the actor's imagination. It is some of their followers who have promoted a lopsided view.

Some drama teachers have treated acting training as if it were some intrusive form of psychoanalysis and subjected their unfortunate students to a process of 'breaking down' before building them up again in a form the teacher prefers. (That is if the student, having paid their fees has stayed around to be so mistreated.) Why such institutionalised sadism could be considered either ethical or useful is a mystery to me.

So: emotional memory is useful, but only up to a point.

Being 'funny'; isn't funny

2010-12-31T19:13:00.002Z

The shortest Words of Wisdom: being 'funny' isn't funny: play comedy straight.

At this season there's a lot of comedy on the box: some of it's funny, some of it isn't. This is one reason why.

Make your showreel work for you

2010-12-01T19:13:00.004Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Make your showreel work for you.

There are probably few areas in the acting business where you can more easily waste your money than in getting a showreel made. A brief search of the internet will reveal an enormous number of companies that offer showreels and, I hate to tell you, many of them will charge you a lot of money for a sub standard product which will do nothing to advance your career.

So, if you approach, or are approached by, one of these companies, the first thing you will want to see are the links to several examples of their work. Not just one, which might be cooked up for promotional reasons. Click on these and have a look.

What will you be looking for? You will be looking for something of a high technical standard, beautifully cut. It's no good having a mate do an edit as a favour - unless that mate is a professional film editor. If it's not up to standard it will reflect on you. It should be clips from actual professional work, or indistinguishable from it. Four or five, demonstrating your range, is enough. They should be recent ... and short. Just a few seconds. The decision whether or not to see you for a part will probably be made on the first thirty seconds of material, so that's what really counts. You want them to want to see more of you. The sole purpose of a showreel is to make a casting directot or director say "Let's get that one in to read for the part." That's all, so show them the best of you and nothing else.

Make your showreel work for you.

The gun and the whistle

2010-11-11T11:45:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are 'Action' is not the starting gun, but 'Cut' is the referee's whistle. That's a couple of sporting analogies so let's explain them.

When a film is being shot there's a little routine that is run before every take. It's a dialogue between the director, or first assistant director, and the camera operator. It goes like this: "Quiet please! Turn over." "Running" "Action." The magic word for the actors is 'Action.' And at the end of the take there is another magic word: 'Cut."

How should actors handle these two magic words? 'Action' is not the starting gun. At the start of a sprint race, the instant the runners hear the bang, they hurl themselves out of the starting blocks and hurtle down the track. When you, as an actor, hear the exciting word 'action' resist the temptation to do something similar. If you have the first word, or the first movement, of the take, never initiate it until you are sure you are in character and in mood. Run in your head what has happened to your character in the few seconds before where the take begins, something said or something that's been done, and then, when you're ready, start. It's not a race.

And 'cut?' What's that got to do with the referee's whistle? Well, when you learn to play football you're taught 'Play to the whistle.' You may believe that the ball has gone into touch, or that a foul has been committed, but you might be wrong, so you keep on playing until you hear the whistle blow. So, similarly, when you get to the end of your lines in the scene, don't stop, remain in character and in mood until you hear the word 'cut.'

Why is this important? Because you're giving the editor material to work with. Next time you're watching a movie, notice how it's cut and how the editor has used the beginning and end of shots, often to effect by transmitting a mood that the audience will absorb unconsciously. If you don't provide editor with the material with which to do this, it can't happen.

'Action' is not the starting gun, but 'cut' is the referee's whistle.

Don't Aim for Fame

2010-10-14T16:57:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Don't Aim for Fame. This may seem strange in a business in which people may become extremely famous, in a world that worships celebrity as never before. But fame - don't aim for it.

For one thing dreaming of success doesn't help you to attain it. You may be sure that the medal winners at the 2012 Olympics are not daydreaming of standing on the podium. Thry are too busy visualising their next hard session on the track. We have all heard angry X Factor parents complain to Simon Cowell "You've destroyed her dream," but that's all it was - a dream - and dreams disappear when you wake up to reality. Focus on the work, not the reward.

Of course, if you do well and are successful, particularly in the performing arts or sport, this tends towards your being known to a lot of people, but I can assure you that this is not a blessing but a curse. It's the penalty you have to pay for being successful.

Think what it's like: you can't go anywhere you want without people recognising you and bothering you. Any new person you meet may just want to be part of the glitter of your fame and that's why they're smarming up to you. If anything happens in your life the paparazzi will be on your doorstep and you won't be able to step out of your house without being mobbed. If you're in a soap, people will confuse you with the character you play and give you unwanted advice about what should happen next in the plot. You will have to put up with the same jokes and catchphrases repeated again and again and again.

Some members of the public believe they are licensed to be as rude to you as they like: "It's us that put them there" they reason. Wherever you are in the world, someone will come up to you and ask you for an autograph, a donation, an opinion or a favour. And if your fame depends on public taste, it can disappear like turning off a tap. Some people will hate you.

Worse still is to use your family for publicity. Talk about your marriage, or your home, or your child's illness and you will have made it public property and created public interest. When your marriage goes wrong there will be no hiding from the attention of the red-top tabloids.

Many people who seek for fame have a narcissistic tendency and confuse the love of an audience with the love of a person. If they are successful this tendency is reinforced. See the rage of a TV personality when his or her show is axed. It's not just the loss of money or opportunities for achievement: they feel it as a cruel withdrawal of love. Hell hath no fury like a celebrity scorned. Do you want to be at the mercy of the uncaring audience?

The lives of celebrities are governed by fear: the fear of loss of celebrity. Don't Aim for Fame.

Storytelling is important

2010-09-21T14:34:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Storytelling is Important. Storytelling includes the production of tales, myths, books and, importantly for us, plays and films. Anything with a narrative.

The human mind has a very strong tendency to perceive pattern, even where none really exists: we see the stars forming constellations, we see a face in the froth on a cup of coffee, we make a choice of lottery numbers although the machinery is designed to make every number equally likely to appear. It's the way we organise our thoughts and also our actions. Pattern.

Events in a real or imaginary life are thus turned into a narrative that makes them have meaning for us. That is story. And the remarkable fact is that every single culture on Earth has story as part of its inheritance, story told or acted out, often at great cost. It must, therefore. be of great value to a society to have this, because otherwise cultures not spending so much on story would take over from those burdened by its cost and the energy involved in producing it.

So what is the advantage of having story? It is surely because story enables us to transmit values, morals and customs and to handle change. Without it and its continual renewal, our society would fall apart and decay. That's why plays and films (and music incidentally) are important and a life devoted to them is not a waste of time.

Finally, there are two other phenomena which appear in every culture on Earth, despite their great cost, and which therefore must be of great adaptive value to us. They are religion and sport. Every culture has religion, of one sort or another, and every culture has sport. We'll try and explain this in a future post. Meanwhile, Storytelling is Important.

Turn off your mobile phone

2010-08-24T12:07:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are very simple: Turn off your mobile phone. There are a few things which are important in an actor's life: one is auditioning. An actor is being auditioned by an important director for a major part; they are getting on rather well - then his phone rings. The spell is broken. What the ringing phone tells the director is that the actor has left his phone on because he considers that there are other more important things in his life than this audition. The director feels offended and the actor doesn't get the part.

Worse still would be for the actor to actually answer the call. Believe me, it has happened!

As well as in an audition, the same rule applies when rehearsing or taking a class. It's simple good manners to give your full attention to the task in hand and, in the age where we all have 24 hour connectivity, it's a good principle to make your phone your servant, not your master. Use it when you want to use it, not when it wants to use you. Turn off your mobile phone.

Don't smoke!

2010-07-13T20:56:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are very simple.

Don't smoke!

As an actor one of your main assets is your voice. The easiest way to damage it is by smoking. Don't smoke!

You'll know about the health factors: lung cancer and other cancers, heart disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis - all nasty diseases that you would want to avoid. Don't smoke!

Ever seen a smoker trying to run? Breathing more deeply they dislodge the tar buried in their lungs. It rises into their throat and they suffer a coughing fit as they try to clear it and have to stop. Don't smoke!

And then there are the wicked tobacco companies, making money out of a drug more addictive than heroin. Why put money in their pockets? Don't smoke!

Smokers have years taken off their lives. A recent study of 180 people aged 100 and over found that one, yes just one of them, smoked. About 20 had smoked in the past but had given it up. The remainder had never smoed in their whole life. So if you want to live long and healthily: don't smoke!

And, if you are afflicted by this addiction Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking is recommended.

But, best of all: don't smoke!

Accents: exaggerate when learning, underplay when performing.

2010-07-06T13:54:00.004Z

An actor should never stop exercising his or her voice. Apart from working on the tone of the voice, developing projection and maintaining clear diction, there is the whole area of dialects and accents to consider. (The meanings of these two words overlap, but generally a dialect is a different version of a mother tongue, depending on the country or area someone comes from, while an accent either refers to someone using a foreign language or the voice of a particular person.) Although actors are usually cast for parts which use their own accent, this is not always the case and, in any case, the more you learn about voice and speech the better.

The main way in which accents vary is in the actual sounds made in pronouncing the vowels and consonants: for example, whether the 'r' is rolled in a word like 'worse', whether the 'a' is long or short in 'path' whether the 't' is pronounced in 'brighten.' But there are many other important differences: how much stress or emphasis there is on individual syllables (French speakers, for example, speak with very little stress), what is the characteristic pitch, how much of a musical intonation is present, what is the typical tone (often throaty in city dwellers) what is the pace (often slow in country people) how precisely do people speak.

The throatiness factor is an interesting one. The cockney accent, from London, and the Bronx accent from New York, share this and, presumably, people in those places have for generations closed their throats when speaking, to protect themselves from the polluted air of the big city. However, there is a new kind of throatiness heard from fashionable Californians - sample 'The Hills' to hear it - and I have no idea why this should have happened, but then there is no accounting for fashion, is there.

There is endless fascination in how people speak and many subtleties. For example, doctors and lawyers speak slightly differently from each other, no doubt because of their different roles in life. Neither do builders speak like sales staff. There is also a lot of fun to be had in 'doing' voices and developing characters who speak in different ways. I was lucky enough to have been brought up in the golden age of radio comedy, listening to classic shows such as 'Take it from Here', 'The Goon Show' and 'Hancock's Half Hour.' I found that when I got into school the next day I could imitate what I'd heard the night before and add to it as well. I found I could make people laugh and this was one of the first things that turned me on to theatre.

The best way to learn an accent is from someone who speaks with that accent or by going to the area where that accent is spoken. Failing that, listen to recordings and talk back to them (the talking back is very important.) You are using the power of imitation, which is an important part of the learning process. When a whole cast have to speak with an accent they can improvise together using it and catch it from each otherlike a disease.

One final Word of Wisdom: when learning an accent, exaggerate it: this accelerates the learning process because you are stretchiing yourself. When using an accent in performance, underplay it because accents are more subtle than you think and you don't want to fall into a 'stage' caricature version. Accents: exaggerate when learning, underplay when performing.

99% isn't good enough

2010-06-08T19:42:00.003Z

I first became aware of a special significance of the number 99% when I was working as an agent. Sometimes an actor would go for an audition and the next day we'd get an exciting call from the casting director. "We really like xyz" she would say "can't make an offer yet, but it's 99%." This happened a number of times, including one case I particularly remember of a lead role in a big movie playing opposite Bob Hoskins. After a while I noticed that this '99%' never turned into 100%. No-one whose chances were described as 99% ever actually got the part. 99% wasn't even 50:50. It was either that they were very good but not exactly right for the part or that they were very good but the 'money,' the film's backers, wouldn't like them. Lesson: nothing's certain till it's certain and don't count your chickens till they're hatched.

About this time I put up a notice in my office reading '99% isn't good enough.' This was a reminder for myself as well as for anyone else. Some people thought that it was a plea for perfectionism, but it didn't say 'Only 100% is good enough.' That would be foolish. Nobody's perfect. No-one in the real world is 100%. Finally it was the songwriter Alan Blaikley who got it right. The 99% was for effort. If you're going to achieve anything worthwhile in life, aim for the maximum you can. Commit yourself to whatever you are trying to do. There is no guarantee of success, but at least if you fail you will know you didn't fail for want of trying.

So the Words of Wisdom this week are 99% isn't good enough.

Learn to speak RP

2010-05-31T20:06:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Learn to speak RP. RP (Received Pronunciation), sometimes known as Standard English, is the version of the English language taught as correct by language teachers. It is, by and large, the speech of educated people in the South East of England. There can be no doubt that, whatever dialect or accent you have grown up speaking, your casting opportunities as an actor will be greatly increased if you can also speak RP.

Now your dialect or accent is an important part of your identity and I am not in favour of people changing the way they speak with their family and friends. Old fashioned elocution teachers would say things like 'He has a dreadful Birmingham accent, we must knock that out of him.' Well, I think that's pretty rude. What's wrong with speaking with the tones of the place you come from? But in the workplace something closer to RP may be required, to prevent the speaker from being disadvantaged, so, as a public speaking coach I try to teach 'Professional English,' close enough to RP for any accent not to be a distraction.

So how did RP become dominant over every other version of British English, so highly favoured and such an important class indicator? This makes for quite an interesting story. It starts with the growth of two things in the nineteenth century, the railway system and the great public schools. The public schools, Eton, Harrow, Winchester and so on, had mostly been founded in earlier centuries, educating boys on a local scale. When the railways came, the schools started to attract pupils from further afield and grew rapidly in size and number. They became the places where the sons of the aristocracy, the gentry and the professions sent their sons to board and be educated. Now people from different parts of the country had mixed before in the armed forces and at the universities, but they were older and their accents more fixed. At the schools boys started at about the age of thirteen and, being from different parts of the country, started speaking amongst themselves in a style which was not that of any one area, but a sort of average of all of them, with the South East predominant because that was where the capital was. RP was born. Now of course, when these boys grew up, they tended to become important people, in the highest ranks of society, with all the top jobs, and the way they spoke was the indication of how they'd been educated, so everyone else who wanted to get on in life had a strong incentive to learn to sound the same. RP became regarded as the best sort of English.

Coming up to date, it's interesting that, generation by generation, accents have become less marked. This is surely because of the mass media: we all grow up hearing the same voices on television, so a further averaging is taking place and we tend to speak more and more alike. In some ways that's a good thing but it also means that we have lost a lot of local colour. The exceptions to the general rule are interesting too: when people want to emphasise their cultural identity they invariably choose to speak very differently from the general run.

Learn to speak RP.

Working in a call centre is not the end of the road

2010-05-26T16:51:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are working in a call centre is not the end of the road. A lot of resting actors get work in call centres. The connection is obvious. Actors have, or are supposed to have, good attractive voices and they should be fluent and able to handle a script. The work is quite easy to get, because most call centres have a rapid turnover of staff, the hours may be flexible and it's often possible to get time off for auditions or acting work.

Nevertheless, call centre work is often referred to as the actor's graveyard, as if anyone taking it up has surrendered any hope of making it in the business or ever acting again. Admittedly, the work is repetitive and not particularly well paid and it can be stressful, particularly if there are call targets to be met. But you shouldn't look down on it or hate it. Every useful task has to be done by someone and it's not good to look down on other people because of what job they do or to resent what you do because you believe you have a higher calling. Judge people by their personal qualities rather than their occupation. It's a privilege to work in the arts, which so many people want to do and no-one has a right to it.

Sometimes call centre work is receiving enquiries, as on a helpdesk. Here your person to person skills are at a premium and this is an opportunity to hone them. Sometimes you have to make the calls: cold calling people in their own homes is particularly tough, and requires great resilience. Business to business calling demands that you master some new knowledge and that provides opportunities to learn about a new industry or occupation - something actors should always be receptive to. You never know when it might come in useful.

Think positively: if you have an onerous task make sure you succeed at it: remember that success is a habit that is a good idea to get into. Take every opportunity for some character study: how do people react to you and what pushes the right button with which person? Learn how to keep a repetitive performance fresh (an important skill for actors) and, whilst remaining within the remit you have been set, experiment with your voice and accent. Sometimes you might create a whole new persona for one particular campaign.

In short, use the situation to your own advantage. Working in a call centre is not the end of the road.

Think about eating and drinking

2010-05-18T20:07:00.002Z

Some decades ago a lot of people used to smoke in films and plays. Smoking was glamorous and it was essential for an actor to inhale and blow out smoke in an appropriate way. Now fewer people smoke and it's definitely not glamorous so if smoking appears at all it's to tell us that the smoker is a nervous, shifty or addicted character.

Smoking seems, to some extent, to have been replaced by eating and drinking. These are vital daily activities so it is perhaps surprising that we do not see more of them, but sooner or later most actors will have to eat or drink on stage. I have written a couple of such scenes myself and they do present the actor with some problems. So the Words of Wisdom are Think about eating and drinking.

When you are acting your mouth tends to go dry, so take very small mouthfuls so that you won't find yourself with a lump of food which you can't swallow going round and round in your mouth. Similarly with drink: if you gulp too much it may make you cough.. Incidentally, don't ever drink alcohol before a performance: it will throw you right off. There was a time when such figures as Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed were heroic drinkers, but it didn't do them much good in the end. But how people eat and drink is fascinating and very indicative of their personality and relationship with others. So this is something to make a study of. When you go out to eat, do some people-watching.

Never try miming drinking from an empty cup. It's just about impossible to get it right because the distribution of weight is wrong. If it's a hot drink don't substitute a cold one. Hot water poured from a kettle or teapot sounds different from cold. Apple juice looks like wine, and so on. Think about eating and drinking.

Study Status

2010-04-27T11:52:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Study Status. We all know what status is, it comes from power, attractiveness, being admired or having social standing. And it also comes as a personal quality, an inner feeling of being important or unimportant. People of high personal status appear to be effortlessly superior; those with low status put themselves down and defer to others. Certain areas of work - selling, teaching - demand skill in adjusting status; it must be high enough to be respected but not so high as to be overbearing. Also it's important to be able to raise the status of others which is a function of praise (or flattery.) In drama, status is always an important factor and shifts in the status of characters are particularly important.

Here are some characteristics of high status behaviour. Being upright and still. Spreading the body. Not fidgeting or touching the face. Employing strong gaze. Blanking people, or not checking their reaction to something you've said. Speaking slowly, confidently and in complete sentences. In each case, low status behaviour is the opposite. Shouting is generally low status behaviour. It implies struggling to be in charge of a situation and not controlling oneself, but a sudden, fierce shout, commanding attention, might be high status. There are certain behaviours that might be described as 'status gambles', for example dressing or behaving inappropriately in a situation. This is as if to say "I'm so important that I don't have to keep the rules." If one's personal status is high enough to carry this off, then that status is confirmed, but if it fails then one's status is diminished.

This is a rich field of study and a knowedge of it can be very valuable in many areas of life, so Study Status.

Study your emotions

2010-04-05T12:08:00.005Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Study Your Emotions. Be aware of the inner feelings which you experience at different times in your life and which lead you to action. When acting or preparing for a part revive emotional memories of things that have happened to you. How did they feel, physically? What happened to your face? What happened, in particular, to your eyes? Observe how the interaction between the emotional and the physical runs both ways: if you are happy you smile, if you smile it makes you feel happy.

What are the emotions?
Fear. Surely the most basic of the emotions, because it is the survival emotion, protecting us from danger, and must go far back in our evolution. It has many relatives from worry, nervousness and anxiety to terror and panic.
Happiness. Something we all pursue and are fortunate if we find.
Disgust. Hatred if it applies to a person.
Anger. The whole gamut from irritation to fury and rage.
Sadness From regret to inconsolable grief.

Those are the five primary emotions. One on its own is surprise. Something which, by definition, cannot be planned for. A difficult one for actors to portray, though a sudden movement often helps.

Here are some less obvious emotions.
Confusion, or doubt,
Pride. Proper pride, as in believing that your team is the best, and arrogant pride, believing that others are inferior.
Gratitude. Being thankful.
Curiosity. This is a valuable one for actors to explore. We are curious creatures and are interested in any new thing. In any scene, ask yourself what is your character focussing on and where is their attention directed, particularly if it changes.
Inspiration. Feeling uplifted or transformed.

A word of warning. There are some drama teachers who seem to regard acting training as a form of psychotherapy. They have no compunction in breaking their students down and invading their private feelings. This is an abuse of authority and should be avoided at all costs.

Meanwhile: Study Your Emotions.

Find a switch

2010-03-02T19:03:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Find a Switch. A switch is a way by which you can go into character easily. If you play a part in rehearsal you will develop a feeling for the part you are playing, in which you simulate the mental and emotional state of the person, the way they speak and their physicality. This makes a whole imaginary persona which may be like or unlike your real self. Basically, acting is pretending to be a different person from yourself, a different person and a whole person.

You shouldn't be too precious about this, incidentally. I've heard of actors saying of a line in the script "But my character wouldn't say that." Well, if the writer wrote it, then, sorry, your character does say it and your task as an actor is to make what you have to say credible, however difficult that may be.

So what is the switch? The switch is a strong element of that characterisation which you can turn on at will and which will take you into the character. It may be a certain phrase or a way of speaking or a physical movement or a moment in the drama, anything that's striking and different that you can associate with the part. It's like the way that scents and smells can remind you of places and memories. One famous English actress always worked from the way she held her feet. Once she knew how she stood and walked she was there. That's not necessarily recommended but I think you'll get the idea. Think of the switch, feel it, and you'll get the character.

Try it and I think you'll find it works. But how does it work? Well, look up the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov. It was he who rang a bell whenever he fed his dog, with the effect that eventually the dog would salivate whenever he heard the bell ring, even if no food was offered. That is known as a conditioned reflex. By operating a switch you are developing a conditioned reflex that takes you from a strong feature of your part into the whole persona of the character. The more you do it the stronger it gets and the Words of Wisdom are Find a Switch.

Accept your awards graciously

2010-02-23T20:44:00.002Z

It's never too early in your career to learn how to accept an award. One day it may happen to you and you want to be prepared. It's a simple enough process but there are a lot of ways in which you can get it wrong, so here's some advice on how to accept your awards graciously.

We live in the age of celebrity and award presentations are the quasi religious ceremonies of the age. They need to be handled with respect, but without excessive awe for the occasion. We have all seen music business awards where the winners slouch onto the stage and grunt like inarticulate teenagers, as if to show they're not suits, man, but rebel hearts, although they are in fact multi millionaires in their forties. Not good.

Generally speaking the best acceptance speeches are given by makeup and costume designers, special effects people, producers and, usually, directors. They will be short, sincere and to the point. Unfortunately the actors, who are the most used to appearing before an audience, often deliver the worst speeches of all, so here are some points to remember.

Don't start crying, it's embarrassing and unnecessary. Don't fail to have a speech prepared, it's disrespectful. Don't pretend not to have a speech prepared, you were nominated weren't you? It looks dumb. Don't attempt to make political or social comments, you will appear empty headed. For example it's not a good idea to raise the issue of global warming in front of an audience many of whom will have just crossed the Atlantic by private jet. Don't embark on a dissertation on the philosophy of the stage, or a memoir starting with the lives of your grandparents: people will think you are losing your marbles and won't ever employ you again.

It's a bad mistake to thank too many people for helping you: the more people you thank the more people will be aggrieved because you've left them out. A maximum of three is advisable, after which you give a general and heartfelt thank you to all the many other people without whom you would never have been honoured. Everyone will be satisfied by that. Don't thank God under any circumstances: implying that you are more favoured by the almighty than the other nominees is hubristic and may come back to bite you in later life. Keep it short, otherwise it looks as if you are trying to hog the screen time (which you will be.) Don't tell jokes, they usually fall flat. If members of the royal family are present make no reference to that fact, you will either look obsequious or cheeky if you do.

On these occasions there are only two possible outcomes. You have either won or you have lost. Prepare for both eventualities. The evening always goes on much too long, so be prepared for that too. Don't eat too much and consume a maximum of one drink and no other intoxicating substances. If there's a red carpet work the crowd and autograph anything that's put in front of you (bring your own pen.) If interviewed it's perfectly acceptable, indeed obligatory, to state that you think you have no chance of winning, whatever the true situation may be. Enjoy yourself.

Voice; body; mind.

2010-02-01T21:03:00.003Z

Words of Wisdom

Work on your voice - every day
Work on your body - every day
Work on your mind - every day

If you are serious about being an actor, that is what you have to do, so you have to make these things part of your regular, daily timetable.

Working on your voice includes deep breathing exercises, exercises to open your throat, so that your voice isn't trapped there, exercises exploring your full range of pitch, practising projection and sharpening your articulation and diction. It's important to do this regularly, not just occasionally.

Working on your body includes stretching, core body exercises, cardiovascular work, such as running, aerobics or swimming - that is absolutely central to your fitness - strength training using weights and something involving agility, such as dance or martial arts. Make progress by gradual increments: that way you improve but are less likely to suffer injury.

Working on your mind includes plenty of reading, fact, fiction, biography, history, doing a mindstretching puzzle, meditating, writing a diary or setting down some other thoughts. planning for the future. Focus on one thing at a time, analyse it and then integrate it into the whole.

I am a great believer that education should not end at the end of school or college: make self improvement a lifelong aim. Develop your capabilities and maintain them.

Work on your voice - every day
Work on your body - every day
Work on your mind - every day

It's not only what you say; it's the way that you say it

2010-01-26T14:44:00.002Z

Words of Wisdom: It's not only what you say; it's the way that you say it. This is something that all actors should study. They have to deliver lines, words written by a playwright, but how they deliver them is very much a matter of the actor's choice and it is vitally important.

It is difficult for writers to indicate exactly how they want their words to be spoken. They will use punctuation, of course, question marks and exclamation marks, capitals and italics, possibly, but that only gets them so far. A direction such as 'sarcastically' or 'pause' may go a little further, but there is a lot of work to be done by the actor, him or herself.

That can only be based on a lot of listening. For a start, listen to the huge differences between the vocal tones of men, women, boys and girls. Listen to the difference between a question and a statement. Listen to the effect of non verbal sounds: 'um', 'er', the many different kinds of 'ah!' Study the many different variations of pitch, volume and intonation and try them out for yourself. Try a slower or faster pace and different variations of pace - a hard thing to master and one of the most important things, too.

This whole field is called 'paralanguage' and it includes what you may have heard me describe as 'emphasisers.'

See how voices indicate emotions and attitudes. Study people you know and characters you see and hear on screen. And don't forget our cousins, the animals. If you have a cat, how does it express 'I'm hungry', or 'open the door', or 'you trod on my tail', or 'I am happy'. And note that these expressions are always integrated with the animal's body language. Our spoken language is only a (very important) extension of the language of our entire body, not least our eye contact and gaze, our head movement and gesture. They're all different parts of the whole.

And we haven't even started on accents and dialects! Do some homework in front of the television. In politics, contrast the vocal styles of David Cameron and Gordon Brown; in music, Madonna and Lily Allen; in acting Jack Nicholson and Hugh Grant; in sport, Jamie Redknapp and Andrew Strauss; in newscasting, go to Sky News and check the subtle differences between Anna Botting and Kay Burley.

In short: It's not only what they say; it's the way that they say it.

It's not the singer but the song; not the actor but the play

2010-01-20T15:54:00.003Z

Many of you will know what an enthusiast I am for TV talent shows, such as American Idol and the X Factor. My business, of course, is helping talent to develop, so I am fascinated by watching the contestants, who may or may not have talent, which may or may not be going to develop, and seeing what happens to them. Now a lot of the competitors, at their first audition, will be desperate to show what amazing singers they are, with spectacular vocal gymnastics, loud, soft, high, low, with unexpected runs and melodic changes, often in an attempt at the style of Mariah Carey or the late Michael Jackson. One thing will be forgotten in all this sound and fury: the song itself. And that is the most important thing. The task of the singer is to deliver the song, with all the meaning and feeling of the lyrics and the music. Anything that they do that is original or showy has to be in the service of the song. All they have to do is deliver the song extremely well and the audience and the judges will recognise what a good singer they are.

It's the same for actors. Acting in a play is not an opportunity to show off your vocal brilliance, your beautiful voice, how you can pose and posture. The important thing is the play (or, of course, the screenplay) and what you and your fellow actors (drama being a team activity) can make the audience think and feel. The play's the thing. It shouldn't be a competitive event or an exhibition. If the audience can believe that you actually are the character you are portraying, then you will have succeeded.

So the Words of Wisdom this week are: It's not the singer but the song; not the actor but the play.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go

2010-01-01T19:33:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom for the new year are 'Words without thoughts never to heaven go.' Yes, it's Shakespeare, from Hamlet, and the first Words of 2010 are about phrasing - something technical but also commonsensical. It's about words without thoughts not meaning anything to an audience.

When we speak, we express a sequence of thoughts. Each element of thought becomes a phrase of the speech. When analysing a text always observe the punctuation, the full stops, commas and so on. But also work out the phrasing, which is determined by the meaning of what's being said.

Here's an example, which also comes from Hamlet. He talks about death, 'The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.' There are two thoughts here, that death is like an unknown land and that no-one can return from it. So, putting in a little dash to indicate the phrasing, a just perceptible break of a fraction of a second, it has to be spoken as 'The undiscovered country - from whose bourn no traveller returns.' The break does not have to be produced artificially, it is just the result of thinking the two thoughts, one after the other. But in a recent production of the play the actor playing Hamlet gave us 'The undiscovered country from whose bourn - no traveller returns.' This was, presumably, for vocal effect, but it's impossible to think 'The undiscovered country from whose bourn' therefore it doesn't make sense to say it.

Here's another example, from the same performance. The lines are well known: 'The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.' What must Hamlet be thinking here? Paraphrasing, there are three thoughts: 'I'll use the play - I'll catch him out - in his conscience.' So it should be phrased 'The play's the thing - wherein I'll catch - the conscience of the King.' (Remember these dashes represent a tiny break of a fraction of a second, simply achieved by thinking the three thoughts.) The actor used the phrasing 'The play's the thing - wherein I'll catch the conscience - of the King.' How can you think 'wherein I'll catch the conscience'? Who's conscience? It's a showy way of saying it, but meaningless.

Now this is not to be critical of a particular actor, who, overall, gave a fine performance in a demanding part, but it does show how easily, particularly when the words are very familiar, one can deliver the words but forget the thought processes that would have shaped them.

It's not always as clear cut as the examples I've given, either. Often there might be several possibilities for how something might be phrased. It's not always a problem with one unique solution, but it is something to be aware of and think about. And of course, if you're improvising, making the words up as you go along, it's no problem at all. But words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Don't believe your own publicity

2009-12-15T19:50:00.002Z

The latest piece of online advice, the Words of Wisdom are Don't believe your own publicity.

In this difficult business, after many years of effort and training, you may find yourself becoming successful. This can happen quite suddenly and it can bring problems with it. For a while you will be the centre of attention, people aroud you won't be able to do enough for you. Your picture will be in the press, you may be on TV, people will recognise you in the street, they may ask you for your autograph. All this can be quite destabilising: you are living the dream and you may easily fall into the trap of believing you're superior to ordinary people. You are in danger of becoming conceited and treating people badly. A little power can go a long way - to your head.

It's very important to keep your feet on the ground. You are still the same person you were before. Stick with your family and friends outside the business. Don't splash your money around. Don't trust people who may be more interested in your fame than in you yourself.

Two thousand years ago, when a Roman general returned to Rome having conquered a foreign land he would be granted a triumph, a parade of all his troops and the booty of war that they had won. But a slave would be employed to ride in his chariot with him, to continually whisper in his ear and remind him that he had not become a god but that he was still mortal.

The other end of the publicity stick is if you get criticism or rejection, which may seem exaggerated and unfair. You may have made the mistake of believing that the love of an audience applied to you personally. Now you feel unloved. Let it wash over you. It will soon be forgotten. Take bad publicity with a pinch of salt just as you do good.

We all have a need for excitement and glamour, that's one of the things we join up for. But we also all have a need for the safety and stability of ordinariness. Don't believe your own publicity.

A costume fitting is a character fitting

2009-12-08T22:18:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are: a costume fitting is a character fitting. Think of how different it feels to wear a bathing costume from wearing a business suit; now imagine the difference between being dressed in rags, compared with full dress military uniform. In social terms it's very much a case of 'you are what you wear.' Clothing gives off important signals, not least to the wearer.

Now an important event in preparing for a play or a film is the costume fitting. Incidentally, the department that deals with costumes is usually called 'wardrobe.' The word 'costume' is used for the individual items of clothing. You will have already given your measurements to the production office and may probably have been measured - actors' versions of their measurements not always being 100% scientifically accurate. Then you will be called for a fitting. This is to check that the costume does indeed actually fit you, but it's also an opportunity for a lot more than that.

You may be dressed for a wedding, or a sports fixture, or in a uniform, or in period dress from hundreds of years ago. This is your chance to find out how the clothing feels and how it affects your movement, so it's important at this stage to take that on board. If you're going to sing in restrictive garments or in high heeled shoes this is a time to experiment and find out about any problems you may have to deal with.

Once you've done this once, your sense memory will remember it and you'll be able to move in rehearsal as if you're in costume, even if you're back in your street clothes. So remember: a costume fitting is a character fitting.

Never make excuses

2009-12-01T21:03:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Never Make Excuses.

A few years ago I sat in on auditions for a film on which I was script consultant. After a few hours of auditioning I came to the conclusion that a ggod half of the auditionees would open their interview by announcing that they were sufferong from a cold. This seemed very odd as few of them showed overt cold symptoms, though many were ill-prepared on the script excerpt they'd been sent a couple of days before, and there was certainly no epidemic in progress in the city at large. I eventually decided that what they were suffering from was not a normal cold but rather an Actor's Cold, that is simply an excuse for a poor performance and possibly a (vain) hope that they would get bravery points for struggling against illness.

Further study showed that an excuse was frequently that they had been too busy to prepare in the time available (not a recommendation to a director who wants you to drop everything for a chance to appear in his pet project). Another one, combined with a late arrival, was the Actor's Horrific Journey. This was produced as if it were justification for being too upset to audition properly. Careful analysis showed that factors involved in the journey were an inability to read a map (the map's fault) and the Actor's Bus Wait, in which a wait of four minutes is inflated to fifteen and a wait of nine minutes becomes half an hour.

None of these excuses makes a recommendation: at best they make an actor look weak, at worst dishonest. More than that, makinig up excuses is preparing to fail - hunting around for a reason so that a failure will not be your own fault. And frequently it's not your own fault, it's the name of the game so deal with it: there's no need for excuses. And the way to deal with it is to be well prepared so you can be confident that you won't need any excuses to prop you up.

Of course I'm not aiming a broadside at all actors. Many do not fall into the excuse trap and they stand out as beacons of professionalism. You can be like that, too. Let the director be the one who notices your (real) cold so you can tell them, bravely, "It's OK, I'm fine."

So, unless you're appearing in The X Factor, in which case the recent death of an elderly relative or saving a puppy from drowning will enhance your chances no end ... never, never, never; never, ever, never; Never make excuses!

Be different

2009-11-10T16:10:00.003Z

My mother, who was a teacher, had a saying 'I can be right or I can be wrong or I can be different.' Now, as she grew up with only one parent in an impoverished childhood and was widowed while still in her thirties, yet went on to lecture at Oxford University and travel round the world, her words are well worth taking heed of. What she taught me was to work hard, have a good head for figures and never give in. And, above all, not to be afraid of being different. You see, the subtext of 'I can be right or I can be wrong or I can be different' is that the best thing is to be different, to step outside orthodoxy and be distinguished by your qualities as an individual.

It's therefore not surprising, perhaps, that so many of my pupils both now and in the past have been people who some would consider to have the wrong accent, be the wrong colour, be the wrong age, be too eccentric, have the wrong orientation. I believe in inclusiveness and integration but not the politicians' idea of setting minorities up as competing 'victim groups.' Very destructive, that is, and ultimately guilty of the very prejudices it purports to seek to eradicate.

So how does this apply to the life of an actor? Firat, consider what there is in yourself and your experience that makes you stand out from other people. Enhance those things. Always be looking to add to your experience and knowledge, particularly in unusual ways. Don't limit your friendships to people in similar lines of work. In a highly competitive field littered with disappointments beware of adopting negative attitudes: such attitudse are infectious and dangerous. Don't wear the uniform: avoid being instantly recognisable as an actor or actress. After all, there aren't that many parts as actors, are there?

And remember the Words of Wisdom: 'I can be right or I can be wrong or I can be different' so be different.

Respect the Writer

2009-11-03T22:12:00.003Z

This week's Words of Wisdom are Respect the Writer. Every play, film, book or musical has its writer and the writer or writers are its prime creators. Every word of dialogue, every twist of the plot and every note of the music has been created by them and they should be respected. So, for example, take care to deliver every line exactly as written: an approximate paraphrase is simply not good enough.

Despite their pre-eminence in the creative process, writers are curiously unappreciated. In the New Year honours list far more actors are decorated than authors. Hit songs are routinely ascribed to the singers that first performed them rather than the songwriters that wrote them. In books of quotations classic comedy lines are listed under the actors that delivered them rather than the writers that thought them up. (So, just for the record, Morecambe and Wise's material was written by Eddie Braben; Tony Hancock's by Galton and Simpson.)

In the land of the world's greatest playwright, Shakespeare, and the world's greatest novelist, Dickens, we should appreciate writers more. Actors should learn about the writer's craft: the use of words, the structure of stories, the insight into human nature. Try writing yourself and find out how difficult it is to create something original and interesting.

Respect the Writer.

Never ignore the assistant

2009-10-27T18:21:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom for today are never ignore the assistant. Casting and production for stage and screen depend on the services of a whole army of often lowly paid helpers. They should never be ignored or treated in an arrogant way. I have seen performers with nothing more behind them than three years in an accredited drama school treat the people who are there to help them with total disregard, as if they were a lower form of life.

First of all it is simply bad manners. It's easy for actors to get an inflated idea of their own importance and to forget how much they depend on a whole team of people. Treat people on their quality as people, not by the importance of the position they appear to hold. A little bit of success can easily go to your head and it's important to keep your feet on the ground. The studio cleaner deserves a 'Good morning.'

Secondly, assistants may have little power but they can wield a great deal of influence. In the discussion at the end of a casting session, the assistant's opinion that you are too far up yourself to remain visible might be fatal to your chance of getting the part. A pity you weren't more friendly towards them on the way in.

Thirdly, assistants' careers progress. Every powerful agent, director or casting director had to start somewhere, as a student, or a fourth assistant or a casting assistant. Sometimes this can happen remarkably quickly: you will open a Sunday paper and see that someone you met when they were a film school student is touted as the new directing talent of the year. I myself have taught and cast people, as teenagers, in plays, who within a few years were award winning actors or directors. You may have got a part in a fringe production or showcase and invited agents and casting directors and been disappointed that you got no response. They are busy people with many calls on their time, but did you think of inviting an assistant? They would be much more likely to be able to come and they will certainly appreciate the invitation.

So, never ignore the assistant.

When auditioning, be ready for anything

2009-10-20T10:13:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are 'When auditioning, be ready for anything.' An audition should not be seen as a contest between the auditioner and the auditionee. Rather, it should be seen as a chance to meet someone who may be interested or interesting. The caster has the problem of finding someone most suitable for a part, the actor has the problem of finding a part that is most suitable: the audition is an opportunity for the two to meet and solve these problems together.

As an actor you will find that directors and casting directors are usually professional and considerate, but nevertheless there are a thousand ways that things can go wrong for you in an audition, so: expect the unexpected. Here are examples of some of the things that might throw you, if you allow them to do so.

You might be seen by just one person or a whole team of people. You may have a lengthy interview or just be asked to perform a piece and receive no comment. You may just have a chat with the director over a cup of coffee. You may be in a tiny office or in a large theatre or rehearsal room. It might be boiling hot or it might be freezing cold. It might be a camera test (in which case you'll probably have to sit on a chair in a fixed position.) You may be required to sing (your agent forgot to tell you you were supposed to prepare a song.) You are very likely to be kept waiting, so be prepared for this, relax and read your newspaper quietly. You may find yourself face to face with a Very Famous Director or being seen by an assistant who appears to have been given the task of screening out the no-hopers. In either case they are humans just like you are so behave normally.

Usually, if you are going to do some pages from a script, it will have been faxed or e-mailed to you, but it might be thrust into your hand when you arrive, ten minutes before your audition is due to begin. In the audition you may be stopped early on and sent away: admittedly this is not a great sign but if you show good humour about it they just might remember you favourably - you can console yourself that maybe you were too tall for the part. If you are stopped and redirected you might think this is a bad sign and that you have done something wrong but, on the contrary, it is a clear sign that they are interested in you. Sometimes, they will be friendly, at other times they may seem cold - neither has very much bearing on whether you are going to get the part.

You may make a mistake. Don't let it faze you, nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. One particular mistake is very easy to make. You are asked the innocent question 'What have you been doing lately' and your mind goes blank: well what have I been doing lately? Always have your answer to this one prepared, complete with names and titles.

There are two possible successful outcomes to an audition. The first, obviously, is that you get the part. The second, less obviously, is that you are remembered, and remembered favourably. Surprisingly often, you or your agent may receive a call months later, enquiring as to your availability. They remembered you.

One final word of advice, Never, repeat never, make excuses. So many auditioning actors claim that their performance in the audition will be hampered by a cold or a cough that I think there should be a syndrome called 'Actor's Throat.' Others will want to describe how dramatically terrible their journey from home to audition venue has been. Consider: few directors will want to employ people with serious health issues who cannot get from A to B on the transport system without fuss. So, no excuses, ever, and, when auditioning, be ready for anything.

Engage your emotions

2009-10-12T15:14:00.002Z

Now here's an exercise that is not only useful for actors but also useful for anybody in living their life. The Words of Wisdom are Engage your emotions. You can do this exercise by yourself or with a partner or, ideally, with a group of people.

Take an imaginary tablet from your pocket. You do have an imaginary tablet in your pocket, don't you? It will be red. Visualise it very strongly. When you swallow it, it will produce instant anger. Think 'eyes.' Look at the tablet. Place it on your tongue. Feel it. Taste it. Take an imaginary glass of water. Sip it and swallow the tablet. Feel it go down your throat. Feel the instant anger. Talk to yourself or the nearest person to you. You will find you are angry. After half a minute or so snap your fingers and the anger will switch itself off.

You can repeat this ritual with other emotions. Try the orange pill that produces instant energy; the pale blue capsule that makes you sad; the little green one that instantly boosts your brainpower; the maroon and black striped one that makes you cheerful, so that everything's a laugh. Then there's the yellow tablet that produces anxiety, the glittering gold capsule that makes you incredibly attractive and the little white tablet that produces instant calm. The colours are, of course, your own choice, but once you have established them, stick to them.

The emotions will seem real if they come from the inside and are not over-expressed. It's an exercise that shows the power of visualisation and it works best if the ritual is followed very carefully and always in the same way. These imaginary drugs are very powerful, but they have no side-effects and they are free and legal.

I have often asked a class which of these drugs they would most like in reality. You might suppose that they would ask to be charismatically attractive, or supremely intelligent and quick witted, but nearly always a large majority vote for instant calm. We all need calm.

Engage your emotions.

Write Micro Plays

2009-09-30T21:29:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are unusual because they are about an exercise I recommend to you which is as much about writiing as it is about acting. It's an exercise some of you will know because I've used it in class and the Words of Wisdom are Write Micro Plays.

A Micro Play is a five point play scenario devised very quickly by any number of people from one to five. It is very important that it should be done very quickly, against the clock, so there is no time for doubts or second thoughts. You don't have to write it down and, of course, it could be a screenplay, rather than a stage play.

The five points are:
1 Where and when is the play happening? Example 'Sweatshop in New York garment district 1957.'
2 Who are the main characters? Example 'Bette, beautiful daughter of boss: Ricardo, cool leather jacketed ne'erdowell type.'
3 First happening: what is the first thing that turns everyday events into a story? Example 'Ricardo delivers parcel to clothing factory and Bette and he are iinstantly attracted, but she plays hard to get.'
4 Second happening: after possibly giving an idea of how the story has continued, what is the point of decision at which the story is going to fall one way or the other? Example Bette's father has forbidden them to see each other; Bette is being sent away to her aunt in Vermont. The factory catches fire, the old man is trapped in the flames, Ricardo has to decide whether to run through the flames to rescue him.
5 Ending (most important because, for good or ill, it will contain the moral of the story): the very last thing the audience sees. Example The old man is led away by the cops (it was an attempted insurance fraud); he has handed the keys to the half burned out basement to the lovers. They walk through the smoking wreckage in the dawn light and but up a sign reading 'Business as usual.'

And why is this exercise so valuable? Because it teaches you so much about story structure, which is very important because an actor always needs to know where their characters arc stands in relation to the shape of the whole story. It also teaches you not to censor yourself unnecessarily when acting, rehearsing or improvising.

Write Micro Plays

Always be ready to work with children or animals

2009-09-22T19:18:00.003Z

This week's Words of Wisdom refer to morose American comedian W C Fields who said 'Never work with children or animals. But the Words turn this on its head and say 'Always be ready to work with children or animals.' Why? Well, if we examine W C Fields's maxim there are two possible reasons for not wanting to work with children or animals. Maybe it's because children and animals are notorious scene stealers or maybe it's because their behaviour is unpredictable. Now, don't worry about having scenes stolen from you: theatre is a team activity and an actor's job is to contribute to the success of the team as a whole. If an actor just wants to be in the spotlight all the time they're going to be a liability to work with and a pain in the neck, so don't worry about the audience's eyes not being on you all the time. And if you're used to improvising you'll welcome the unexpected and cope with whatever happens. So always be ready to work with children or animals - even if the children or animals are adult human ones. Which brings us to Rod Hull and Emu and Michael Parkinson - but that's another story.

Your voice is a musical instrument

2009-09-15T08:39:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Your Voice is a Musical Instrument. Think of all the attributes of music: pitch, tone, tempo, rhythm, is it staccato or legato, do the words run counter to the tune? You produce all of this when you speak and, by using them skilfully, you enhance the emotional effect of what you say. If you try and add to these elements artificially, you will sound unnatural and false, but if you work at them, you will gradually recruit them to the army of effects you have at your disposal. Your Voice is a Musical Instrument.

Repetition is the Mother of Skill

2009-07-15T21:34:00.003Z

Time we had another Words of Wisdom. 'Repetition is the Mother of Skill.' No-one seems to know where this saying comes from, but it was made famous by American success guru Anthony Robbins. So what's behind it? If you train and practice, you gradually adapt to improve at whatever you are training and practising at. If you lift weights your muscles get stronger, if you run regularly you find that you can run further and faster. If you practice mental arithmetic you get much better at it. If you practice technique in sports or music you improve. This is one of the most important lessons in life. We are told 'practice makes perfect' when we are young, but somehow this message doesn't quite hit home, perhaps because a lot of hard work and effort are involved before you register real improvement and there is no such thing as instant success.

But there is plenty of good science to prove it is true. One of the most remarkable findings is about the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for spatial memory. Tests on taxi drivers prove that their hippocampuses grow larger than on people who don't have all their knowledge of places and how to get to them - and the longer they've been driving, the greater the effect.

The good news of all this is that the amount of practice you do far outweighs the aptitude you may have to start with. The bad news is the '10,000 hour' rule, that to achieve real expertise at anything you need to put in 10,000 hours of focused practice. That means that if you spend, say, 25 hours a week on your training, eight years of hard work. So, if you really want to succeed at, well, anything, that's what you've got to put in. How many hours do you put in? Repetition is the Mother of Skill.

You are what you wear

2009-05-27T18:25:00.000Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are You are what you wear. Often when you are going to appear in a production you will be called for a costume fitting, so that you may be kitted out with whatever you are going to wear in the performance. This call serves a dual purpose. Firstly, obviously, to make sure that the clothes fit you properly. But secondly, so that you have the experience of what it feels like to wear the costume. Our clothes give out strong signals about ourselves and what we are like and conversely, when we are acting, they tell us a lot about the character that is wearing them. The fitting gives us an opportunity to feel how the clothes hang and how we move in them. Once you consign that knowledge to your sense memory, you can draw in it again in rehearsal, even though you may not then be wearing the costume. Imagine the effect of wearing a variety of different clothing: a military uniform, a crinoline, surgeons' scrubs, white tie and tails, a peasant's smock, a wetsuit, a tight corset, high heeled shoes. I once had to wear the vestments of a Roman Catholic priest. I felt quite sanctified! You are what you wear.

Make it easy on yourself

2009-05-12T22:03:00.000Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are 'Make it easy on yourself.' This comes from when I was in my twenties. As some of you will know I am a mathematically minded person and in that time in my life I used to coach people for their Maths exams. I found that, with a piece of Mathematics, once people understand it, it seems easy to them, but, when they don't understand it, it seems impossible. There is no middle ground. My task as a teacher was to find a way they could make the jump from not understanding to understanding. And I found that the way to do this was to break the jump down to a series of steps, each of which was simple. It is possible to apply a similar method to anything that can be learned, even artistic subjects which are not as factual and logical as Mathematics. If you have a task or technique to learn, break it down into the smallest possible steps, so that each step is easy. This is how good teachers make difficult things seem simple. Make it easy on yourself.

The delight is in the detail

2009-05-05T21:51:00.000Z

Here are the Words of Wisdom for this week. When we are in the audience we want to engage with the characters being portrayed and to feel the emotional tides as they wash to and fro. That is the big picture. But we also need all the little pictures, the accuracy and definition that make us believe that what we are seeing is authentic. That is important too. The delight is in the detail.

So we, in the audience, need to see characters that are individual and not stereotypical, that have a way of speaking and a way of walking and a way of doing everything that they do that is distinct and differentiated. So actors need to make every word and every action particular to the character, so that every line of the script reveais more about the character or advances the plot - or both. Let your performances hold up a mirror to nature and show the physical and mental landscape of every profession and type of person.

How to achieve this? Through observation and imagination. Never cease from observing people in their lives and, not to be forgotten, draw on elements you observe in other actors' work. And remember: the delight is in the detail.

Better to be typecast than not cast

2009-04-21T17:56:00.000Z

These are the Words of Wisdom for this week: Better to be typecast than not cast. Typecasting is the phenomenon by which an actor becomes so identified with a role that it's difficult to be cast in different parts afterwards or, in weaker form, where they get stuck with playing similar characters over and over again. It operates more strongly on the screen than on the stage and goes right back to silent film days. Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula, once, and to this day that is all he is known for. He was never able to escape from that type of part in his subsequent career. Almost all actors are frustrated to some degree by typecasting. If they have any ambition at all they want to test themselves with a variety of parts, but the opportunities to do so are rare. Occasionally actors get cast against type, for artistic effect, (or maybe because someone has made a mistake.) Any chance like that needs to be seized upon but, it has to be said, the result can be embarrassing failure. Most actors most of the time will play parts determined by their appearance, persona and style of performance. Some people play comedy better than others, some grow up with the physical equipment to be a convincing thug, others are breathtakingly beautiful. As you seem to be, so you will have to play. Accept the inevitable. You will, at least to some extent, be typecast. Better to be typecast than not cast.

Push yourself but don't punish yourself

2009-04-14T14:43:00.001Z

As most of you will know, I'm never far from a sporting analogy and the Words of Wisdom this week are one of my sayings about running: Push yourself but don't punish yourself. This comes from the principles of athletics training. If you put your body under stress, by repeatedly asking it to run further or faster than it's comfortably capable of, then your body will gradually adapt to cope with that stress and your performance will improve. To make this work you have to push (stress) yourself but if you punish (overstress) yourself you will likely get injured or at least have an unpleasant enough experience to put you off the spert for good.

Athletics is a measurable, physically demanding activity, but the same principles apply to acting, whcih is an immeasurable art or craft. To get better at it you have to practice and train yourself continually and persistently; if you don't your skills will go backwards. You have to set yourself tasks you find difficult; that's the only way you can improve. But at the same time you mustn't be overly self critical. Encourage yourself and congratulate yourself when something goes well. Otherwise you're teaching yourself that your art is painful and difficult, which it shouldn't be.

Push yourself but don't punish yourself.

Recognise that there are two kinds of luck

2009-04-07T16:58:00.000Z

Now for some Words of Wisdom. Recognise that there are two kinds of luck. The acting profession is one where the statistical odds are stacked against you. Therefore, when auditioning or reading for a part, you are always likely to be disappointed. Sometimes the reasons will be quite arbitrary - too tall, too short, wrong age, wrong accent, the other one has ridden horses more, worked with a big name director, was in the play we did last year. The point is that none of these reasons are the actor's fault. Maybe they saw six people who might have been possible for the part, but the director just had a gut feeling, so the other five have to be disappointed. You will probably never find out the reason why you didn't get the part but it's no use getting angry with yourself or anyone else. You just have to put it down to bad luck. The fates just didn't smile on you that day. Go on doing your best.

But there is also another kind of luck - good luck. This is when an opportunity falls into your lap and you get exactly what you've been working towards. The important thing is to recognise good luck when it arrives. Sometimes it wears a disguise or comes from an unexpected direction. Now that you have a lucky break for goodness sake don't mess things up. Don't turn up late. Don't be too desperate or too nonchalant. Don't fail to learn the lines. Check out the route to wherever you're going. Just be professional in every way, recognise you've had a stroke of good luck and capitalise on it. Recognise that there are two kinds of luck.

And that doesn't just apply to acting. It applies to everything.

Let the camera and the music do their work

2009-03-10T12:49:00.001Z

Next time you’re watching a film, notice how many of the shots are reaction shots where all we see is a character’s face, showing very little overt emotion, and maybe we hear some music as well. What is required of an actor for a shot like this is to trust the direction, the camera, the editing and the music to do most of the work. The danger is to do more than is necessary and therefore to appear unnatural. Remember, less is more. Just produce the inner emotion but don’t over-express it: if it’s there the camera will find it. And trust the editing: in cinema context rules. For example: the character smiles, but is he looking at a beautiful girl or a plate loaded with pasta? The smile may be the same, but the first shows lust, the second gluttony.
All of this requires a lot of confidence, the confidence to do very little or nothing. All the movie greats have that confidence. So the Words of Wisdom are Let the camera and the music do their work.

Split the line

2009-03-03T18:36:00.002Z

Sometimes you will find that a line in a script is difficult to say and doesn’t seem to work naturally. Often that’s because it contains two or more thoughts in one sentence and you need to Split the Line. For example: ‘She had a funny look on her face and then I noticed that she wasn’t wearing any shoes.’ The character delivering this line has two thoughts here, which in this case are the memory of two different images, of first the other person’s face and then their feet. When speaking the line visualise each image in turn. This will produce a slight break between the two parts of the sentence. It will come out as ‘She had a funny look on her face .. and then I noticed that she wasn’t wearing any shoes.’ You will have split the line, it will be easier to say and will communicate better to the audience. Recently I came across a line that contained no fewer than four thoughts. It was ‘I know, you told me last time but he explained everything and I really thought he’d changed.’ In this sentence the point of view keeps changing – note the personal pronouns: ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’ and ‘I’ showing the focus moving from person to person. So to deliver the line effectively you need to split it into four, like this: ‘I know .. you told me last time .. but he explained everything .. and I really thought he’d changed.’ Split a Line!

Self criticism is the engine of improvement

2009-02-24T18:08:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are self criticism is the engine of improvement. To get better at your craft, indeed at anything, you need to work hard at every aspect of its performance. If you do so, by gradual increments you will improve. Great effort is required for small gains and if you are too easily satisfied with yourself you will not make it. No-one ever became a great artist without having a level of discontent with what they were. So you must examine yourself and use the results of this self criticism to drive yourself. Self criticism is the engine of improvement. But there is a rider to this. You do need to recognise when you’ve done something well, pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself. Even a donkey needs carrots as well as the stick. So, recognise when you’ve done well and say to yourself "Well done."

Be A Magpie

2009-02-18T00:01:00.001Z

Let’s start with the Words of Wisdom: Be a Magpie. Those dapper little birds, supposed to bring good luck or bad, depending on their numbers, are reputed to make their nests by stealing any bright object that catches their eye from anywhere. Notoriously they are supposed to steal the tops from bottles of milk. Actors have to be a bit like that. They never know what the next part might be, so the more general knowledge they have about all walks of life, the better. Try and learn about psychology, history, politics, war, buildings, medicine, the law, the wealthy, people living on benefits, finance, manufacturing, education, clothes and fashion, sport, aviation, fishing, cars … I could go on, but you get the idea: let the whole world be your subject. You can learn a lot from reading and television, but also take any opportunity of mixing with people with a different background from your own: observe their behaviour, their speech, their body language, their unspoken assumptions. Watch people in the streets and on the underground and at the airport: how much can you guess about their lives? Be a Magpie.

Don't dissect the skylark to see the source of its song

2009-01-20T21:33:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are a little strange, but bear with me. They are ‘Don’t dissect the skylark to see the source of its song.’ Where I am coming from, with this, is that we can never fully understand ourselves or each other. We can never predict anyone else’s actions with complete certainty, nor even our own. Many things in the world are amenable to analysis but nothing can be totally analysed. There is always a degree of uncertainty. That is, in fact, a scientific fact.

Remember that I am a scientist by training, and believe that knowledge comes from experience, but even so there are limits to how much we can cut things up and reduce them before we change their nature. A skylark is a living creature and it only sings while it is alive. Cut it up and it will die. It is, you see, more than the sum of the atoms of which it is composed.

This same principle applies to acting, particularly comedy. If you make people laugh, or cry, you may find it impossible to understand exactly why you are having such a strong effect on them. If you try too hard to work out why you are getting such results you may be in danger of destroying the thing that makes it work. Comedians and comics who get all serious and try to theorise about what they do suddenly cease to be funny. You may be able to think of a few names of them.

Sometimes it’s best to simply accept that you do things that give an audience pleasure and not to worry about how it is happening. Don’t dissect the skylark to see the source of its song.

Enhance your Watchability

2009-01-06T21:50:00.001Z

The secrets of making people like looking at you are encapsulated in our Words of Wisdom this week: Enhance your Watchability. What are the factors that give some people that elusive star quality? Dazzling good looks are certainly a help, if you are lucky enough to have them, but plenty of big stars are far from being beautiful or handsome, and some are what is most kindly described as ‘interesting.’ So why are they good to look at? Inner confidence is a big factor and this you can work on by congratulating yourself and remembering every little thing you achieve, however small, and marking up every little thing you learn today that you didn’t know yesterday. That will help and you will find that self confidence is cumulative. But, technically, what can you do to make people want to watch you? How can you acquire a little of that star quality stardust pzazz?
Here are five things that help. 1. Be still. Avoid fidgety movements, particularly moving your hands to your face. These little displacement activities are signs that you are submitting to stress and displaying them reduces your dominance, so be still. 2. Use strong gaze. Our eyes give out our most powerful non verbal signals. Hold gaze a little longer than you normally do and you will feel a mix of emotions. You will feel daring and powerful but exposed. The person you’re looking at and the third parties in the audience will read these emotions. You will become a little bit dangerous. Drop your gaze and you will turn them off. You will feel safe, but dull. 3. Raise your voice and add presence to it. Project your voice to indicate the importance of what you are saying. Don’t swallow your words as if they were insignificant. Remember that your voice is a musical instrument, not only when you are singing but also when you are speaking. Get accustomed to using a range of tone, rhythm, pitch and emphasis. It will become automatic to add expression to what you are saying. It won’t seem stagy or artificial. 4. Display physical energy. If your body is physically energised this transmits to an audience, even when you are stationary. Physical energy adds excitement, so make all your movements decisive and purposeful. Make your head movements definite and strong. 5. This is a rather mysterious one, but it works. Think of a wonderful secret you might have. Imagine you have it. Hold this wonderful inner secret and you will look amazing. Strange but true. Practice these five things and you may be sure you will … Enhance your Watchability.

Learn your lines by living them

2008-12-16T22:42:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Learn your lines by living them. All actors have to learn lines, the bigger the part the more lines there are to learn, and few things cause more anxiety than the fear of 'drying' - forgetting what you have to say next.

How do we learn and how do we remember? One thing we know is that we learn from repetition. If we repeat a skill again and again we get better at it, particularly if we make the repetition progressive, that is, if we start with easy things and step by step move on to harder ones. But how do we apply this to learning and remembering lines of dialogue? Well, there are different aspects of memory involved.

First of all there is factual memory. This is the system we have that remembers phone numbers or names. Recall is usually precise and quick, or else not there at all. It can be helped by associations of the kind used by memory experts, for example, if someone is called Donald, imagining them as Donald Duck will help you to remember their name. This kind of memory is of slight use when learning a script, but not much.

Then there is emotional memory. This is slightly more useful. When acting, if we have to show emotions of fear, say, or anger, it is helpful to produce these feelings inside ourselves. It can be helpful to remember a time we really felt that emotion. This gives us a stream of feeling to work on and experience the ebb and flow of a script. This is important but emotional memory cannot always be conjured up reliably and it is not as quick to access as factual memory.

Most important of all is procedural memory. This is the system by which we learn to walk, or cycle, or hit a tennis ball, by developing an automatic and unconscious routine so that we can do them without conscious thought. In order to use this type of memory, work through the words, associating them with your body language, your moves and what you are doing, how you look at the other characters and what they do, so you are remembering the play and your part in it as a whole. You will find that the words will just fit in with everything else and you will remember them far better. You don't have to have the rest of the cast there with you for this, because you can use visualisation, and even if the script is cut or altered you will find you can edit your memory of it and produce the new version.

Try this method, accessing procedural memory, the next time you have a script to learn. Learn your lines by living them.

Every setback is an opportunity

2008-12-09T15:57:00.001Z

If you are involved in the arts, and particularly if you are an actor, your life will be full of setbacks. You are in an overcrowded profession; there are a lot of people who are rather like you who want to do what you do; the statistics are against you.

Of course, you will study, train and prepare yourself just as thoroughly as you can, but, if you are called to read for a part, you will probably be one of several, or many, people competing for it and you may not be chosen.

This will not necessarily be your fault. A lot of casting depends on physical appearance, the way you speak, height, weight, hair colour, everything in your persona that contributes to your type. If you are inexpreienced you may find yourself at a disadvantage because casters tend to play safe with someone with more of a track record than you have. So the first thing to do is to recognise that your failing to get the part may not be your fault. Don't punish yourself unnecessarily.

Now comes the next stage. Every setback is an opportunity. Use your annoyance at not having got the part to energise yourself. Review the audition: was there anything you could have done differently, or better? Could you have prepared better? You have now made a new contact. They will remember you. How might you be able to revive that contact in the future? What can you study to develop your knowledge and capabilities? How can you get yourself noticed and make yourself heard?

You are running a one person business, so you must be businesslike. You must develop yourself and promote yourself. Life is full of setbacks, but every setback is an opportunity.

Be nice to people on the way up - you may need them on the way down

2008-11-18T16:56:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are an old theatre saying: Be nice to people on the way up – you may need them on the way down. That speaks for itself really. People in this business have some success – often a very small amount of success – and they can quickly become arrogant, conceited and all too full of themselves. Don’t let it happen to you, when you become successful. Be nice to people on the way up – you may need them on the way down.

Acting is a proper job

2008-11-11T22:29:00.001Z

It is said that professionals are those who can do it when they don’t feel like it, while amateurs are those who can’t do it even when they do feel like it. Without necessarily agreeing with this, I do believe that everything in my classes should be aimed towards achieving the highest professional standard. I am aware that not everyone who comes is an actor or aiming to be one, but there is no substitute for doing something as well as you possibly can. So today’s Words of Wisdom are Acting is a proper job. Like sport, the arts are something which a lot of people love doing and many people aspire to. I’ve been involved in one or both for practically all my life and it has all been immensely rewarding. Because so many people want to do things in the arts, or sport, they are very hard to succeed at. But are such enjoyable pursuits somehow childish? Are they, maybe, not a proper job, like those done by the serious faced people one sees on the tube trains, going to work in an office or factory? The answer is yes. Entertaining people brings joy and meaning into many people’s lives. It is a valuable endeavour and no-one should feel guilty for being paid for doing something they love.

On the other hand, no-one has a right to be employed as an actor, however hard they may have trained. One sometimes hears actors say that they have a right to follow their chosen profession. No such right exists. There are plenty of people who have trained as doctors, accountants, architects or lawyers who cannot find a job in those callings. It’s a competitive and unfair world and luck and contacts count for a lot. So actors have very little power over their destiny: they are in an overcrowded and insecure field, with no career structure, and they take a gamble with their lives. All they can do is work, study and train hard, gain experience and keep their professional friendships in good repair. And acting is a proper job.

Practice sight reading

2008-11-04T21:57:00.001Z

Today’s Words of Wisdom are Practice sight reading. Sight reading is a very difficult skill to master: it’s something many people are nervous about and failures at sight reading seem to be particularly humiliating. It’s a very important skill for actors, as at auditions you often have to read (even if rarely to sight read, because you normally have an opportunity for preparation.) It’s a normal human reaction to avoid things that are difficult, but you should always face danger (those are words of wisdom of their own) and because sight reading is important and difficult you should practice it continually.

It is remarkable that we can do it at all. Think what happens in your brain when you turn the image of some black squiggles on paper into spoken words with meaning and context, subtlety and humour, all in a fraction of a second. So practice.

Choose all different kinds of material: scripts, novels, newspapers, magazines, children’s stories if there are children you can read to. Find things that you are interested in and enjoy. Slow down: the most common mistake is to go too fast. Visualise anything that leads to or describes an image and place that image in your field of view: this will make your delivery more vivid. Engage your emotions, feel inside whatever the material leads you to feel: your emotional involvement will transmit to the audience, but it needs to come from the inside, if it’s just put on the outside like a cosmetic it will appear false. If you are reading a script or a novel or a story read all the parts with a different voice for each one and, probably, a more neutral delivery for the narrator or stage directions. Experiment and adjust stresses and inflexions.

Gradually your enjoyment will grow and your reading will improve. Practice sight reading.

Sometimes you need to split a line in two

2008-10-28T19:37:00.001Z

Today’s Words of Wisdom are slightly technical. They are Sometimes you need to split a line in two. Let’s start with speech. Underlying speech are feelings and thoughts we wish to communicate. Feelings, other than those of shock and surprise, grow and subside relatively slowly, which is why you need to give an audience time so that the emotions you are transmitting to them have room to grow and resonate. But our thoughts flicker along rapidly in our brains and we can think of several things each second. Each thought we communicate is reflected by a phrase in our speech: one thought, one phrase. To give an example: ‘Happy’ is a word, ‘Happy Birthday to you’ is a phrase – one thought, ‘Happy Birthday to you and your twin brother in America’ is a sentence but it’s actually two separate thoughts – ‘Happy Birthday to you … and your twin brother in America.’ Just think the two thoughts separately and you will find you put in a fraction of a beat between the two parts of the line. Try something else: try ‘Happy Birthday David and Jonathan’ as one thought – that is wishing the twins a happy birthday – and then as two thoughts – happy birthday to David and also to Jonathan. Did you feel the difference?

Sometimes in a script you’ll get a line that’s very difficult to get out. Often the reason is because the line contains more than one thought and needs to be split in order for the meaning to come across clearly. Sometimes you need to split a line in two.

Create an emotion - then hide it

2008-10-07T21:08:00.001Z

Today’s Words of Wisdom are: Create an emotion – then hide it. This paradoxical point is very much for screen acting. You see, most of us, most of the time, hide our emotions, particularly the negative ones. However we’re feeling inside, we try to retain our self control. How often do we hear people say ‘Yes, I’m fine’ when we know they are far from fine? So we hide our emotions, but we’re also very good at reading the emotions that people are hiding. So, the thing to do is to create a very strong inner feeling of the emotion that you want to convey – and then hide it. The all-seeing eye of the close-up camera will spot what is happening and it will appear realistic because you are hiding a negative emotion, just as people do in real life. You are avoiding the danger of over expressing the emotion in an unrealistic way. Going ‘over the top’ happens when insufficient motivation meets excessive performance: it is to be avoided at all costs. What counts in a performance is the degree of the emotion, not how intensely it’s expressed.

On the stage it’s rather different. There, except in the most intimate of theatres, you have to project and apply a magnifying glass to what you do.

Know the better side of your face

2008-09-30T22:28:00.001Z

The latest Words of Wisdom are: Know the better side of your face. If you look in a mirror and draw an imaginary line across your eyes and another one across your mouth, you will probably find that the two lines are not parallel. The side where the lines are further apart will normally be your better side. This side will usually be wider, as well, and more mobile and expressive. You will photograph better from this side and it’s the side to favour whenever you have the choice. If you find that your face is quite even and symmetrical (which probably means you are very beautiful or handsome, as we are instinctively attracted to such people) try clicking your tongue to make a sound like a horse galloping. It’s probable you can only do this on one side, your ‘good’ side.

More people are right faced than left faced. Left faced people are more likely to be male and it’s associated with being good at maths or music. It doesn’t seem to be linked to left- or right-handedness. Few people seem to know about this, though it’s important to know about for anyone who wants to make the best possible physical impression. So know the better side of your face.

Never give in

2008-09-23T22:08:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are about persistence. One of the main reasons for businesses and other enterprises failing is the lack of persistence – giving in too easily. This is true of sport and the arts as well. As you continue in something you learn and improve, but it does take time. If you start out in life with an aim you may change that aim, or alter your strategy for achieving it. You may develop your tactics, but the important thing (and the one that happens to be my personal motto) is Never give in.

Never give in.

Use your head

2008-09-16T18:40:00.000Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Use your head. It’s quite impossible to speak without moving your head but most head movement is completely unconscious. Study people in life and on television. Notice how they all use their head movements to amplify what they are saying and the way they respond to other people’s speech. Observe how head movement may express assent, affirmation, negativity, doubt, explanation, recollection and all sorts of complexities of them and much more. See how head movements associate with gaze, facial expression, gesture and words. By becoming aware of all this you can harness a tool which you can use to make your own performances stronger and showing greater complexity. Use your head.

Remember that the greatest talent you can have is the talent for hard work.

2008-09-09T22:03:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are Remember that the greatest talent you can have is the talent for hard work. Whatever abilities you are born or grow up with, they can be enormously enhanced by consistent, incremental, well directed, study and practice. And the converse is also true, talents not exercised and used will, in time decay. Use it or lose it. And you will find that hard work brings its own satisfaction.

Paddle in the Ocean of Truth

2008-08-31T22:03:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are ‘Paddle in the Ocean of Truth.’ This is inspired by the great scientist Isaac Newton who, towards the end of his long life, said: “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” There is no limitation on the subjects about which plays may be written, and actors need to know as much as they can about as many things as they can. Things such as literature, history, psychology, politics, styles, music, body language – I could go on, and on – read, study, observe and listen. Above all, work on that infinite subject, the variety of human nature. Theatre has the most enormous scope: it can amuse and entertain, but also reveal profound truths. Paddle in the Ocean of Truth.

Follow your bliss

2008-07-22T17:47:00.001Z

And now for the Words of Wisdom: Follow your bliss. This phrase comes from the American write on mythology, Joseph Campbell. His best known book is ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ and in it he expound his belief that all the myths of all the peoples of the world are aspects of one overarching myth – the Monomyth.
A search of Google and You Tube will reveal lots of interesting stuff about him and I recommend it. What he meant by ‘Follow Your Bliss’ is that when you find something that enables you to have peak experiences and enter the zone where you feel at one with all of nature then you have found something you should follow all your life. It doesn’t mean just indulging yourself, that soon ceases to be blissful: true bliss enables you to set aside your ego and its petty demands. So, whether it comes from acting, writing, making music, painting or athletics: follow your bliss!

Watch people

2008-06-30T22:07:00.002Z

Let’s start with the Words of Wisdom. We do a lot of things on autopilot. It’s the way our busy brains free up capacity for thinking and facing fresh challenges. Tasks we perform a lot become standardised routines: we don’t bother our conscious mind with them and we do them a similar way every time. This is known as habit.
The only thing wrong with this is that the way we do things becomes more and more stereotyped and that is one thing that, as an actor, we want to avoid. In our everyday lives the way we eat, drink, show agreement or disagreement, walk, smile, nod, kiss, hug, frown or hit a forehand drive is a matter of habit that has developed over many years: that’s the way we do things.
But the characters we play may need to have a different way of doing some of these things. We want to depict different people who may do things in a different way. In order to do this we need to expand our behavioural vocabulary, so we watch people and learn from them. Watch people in the street, in a pub, on a beach, on the bus, at Starbucks, in a shop, at a wedding, visiting in hospital, going to church, laughing, crying, working, playing. Watch people.

Heads you win

2008-06-24T21:36:00.001Z

And the Words of Wisdom this week are: Heads you win. Observe what people do with their heads. For a start there are their eyes, with which they express emotion, show attention and communicate by gaze alone. Then there are their eyebrows, with which they show recognition and surprise and make ‘big eyes’ to assert dominance. Then there are their mouths: the way people’s mouths are set is highly indicative of character and mood and the predominant emotion of people’s lives. Then there are their head movements, which have a whole vocabulary of their own. Observe how people nod or shake their heads, or make slight movements, the whole time they are talking or listening. Notice how they co-ordinate their head movements with their speech and in response to other people. Watch how people can convey quite complex messages, simply by moving their heads in particular ways. When you’re out and about, observe other people, absorb what they do, and you will gradually expand your vocabulary of head movement and enrich your non verbal communication. Heads you win.

Less is more: sometimes the words will do all the work

2008-05-27T22:01:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are: ‘Less is more: sometimes the words will do all the work.’ That comes in two parts and both depend on the interaction between the actor and the minds of the audience. Less is more because if inner emotion is expressed in a subtle way the audience will read the inner emotion that the actor is generating and find it convincing, but if the emotion is over-expressed the audience will find it exaggerated and unbelievable. Sometimes the words will do all the work because a large part of what an involved audience is doing is decoding the meaning of the words it is hearing. Lines with a highly emotional content don’t need to be decorated with artificial histrionics, just say the words and the audience will do the rest. Less is more: sometimes the words will do all the work.

99% (effort) isn't good enough

2008-05-13T21:51:00.001Z

And the Words of Wisdom this week are: ‘99% (effort) isn’t good enough.’ Most things worth doing in life are difficult and hard work. This particularly applies in the arts and sport, two areas where I’ve spent most of my life. It means training and practising harder, even when you don’t feel like it; it means challenging yourself by taking on the things you’re least good at; it means starting all over again when you have a setback. As the poet says ‘Say not the struggle naught availeth’: and as the Words of Wisdom say ‘99% (effort) isn’t good enough.’

And if anyone would like to read the entire poem, go to
http://www.bartleby.com/101/741.html

Acting is more like football than it is like chess

2008-05-06T23:12:00.001Z

First the Words of Wisdom: Acting is more like football than it is like chess. Much is made of the complexity of the game of chess: how there are millions of possibilities for the first few moves, so that no game is ever likely to be exactly repeated. Chess is regarded as an intellectual pursuit, whilst football is often said to be a diversion for the less intelligent.

But look at the facts. There are twenty ways that white can play the first move in a chess game: sixteen for the pawns and four for the knights. There are twenty ways that black can reply and the game continues in a similar way.

Compare this with football. Think of the myriad ways a ball can be played: kicked or headed, in what direction, how hard, with what elevation and spin. Which, of the other 21 players on the pitch will play it next, and where? And what about the complications of fouls, corner kicks, the offside rule and all the rest of it? It immediately becomes obvious that football is a far more complex game than chess.

Unlike chess, where a position can be exhaustively analysed, acting, like football, defies precise analysis. Both involve mind, body and spirit and excite passion in both players – same word, you see - and spectators. Computer programs have been written that can play chess at grandmaster level, but a robot version of Lionel Messi is still awaited. As is a computerised Scarlett Johansson.

So, we conclude: Acting is more like football than it is like chess. Acting is not a science and can never be reduced to a formula. So may your favourite team win, or at least play well.

If you can't be perfect be good

2008-04-29T17:36:00.001Z

And the Words of Wisdom? If you can’t be perfect be good. If you’re preparing for an audition, there are some types of piece you can polish and polish and polish – just like in Groundhog Day – until you have the ultimate performance. But you can’t always do that, particularly with comedy pieces. You can never do them the same way twice: there are simply too many variables involved. This sometimes leads to a feeling of disappointment, because after you’ve done it well, you want to be able to do it just as well again, but every time you do it, it comes out differently. Accept it: remember the best is the enemy of the good. Don’t punish yourself with perfectionism. If you can’t be perfect be good.

Don't waste time and energy on the trivial: focus on what's important

2008-04-15T18:45:00.001Z

One person who inspired me when I was a teenager was the Australian athletics coach Percy Cerutty. He used to take his runners to a training camp he had by the sea and have them run up and down the sand dunes, live naturally in the open air on a better diet and train incredibly hard. One story he tells in one of his books I have never forgotten.

Cerutty noticed that there was one bunk in the hut where the runners all stayed that always seemed to be occupied by the best athletes. This was the bunk of Herb Elliott, who was to become the best runner in the world, and many other champions. Now it wasn’t the best bunk in the hut, in fact it was the worst, being on the ground by the door, and Cerutty worked out why this was. He watched how a new bunch of boys would arrive on the bus, how they would race excitedly to the hut, making a lot of noise, and sling their bags to grab the best places, at the top and near the stove. Except the one who was going to be a champion didn’t do that. He knew they weren’t there merely to get the best bunk; he was there to aim for something bigger than that. And that’s why he got the worst bunk.

I remember that resonated with me when I read it at the age of 16 and I resolved in that moment to live like a future champion and not get tied up with trivia. And I commend that to all of you. If you’re an actor you can be waylaid by all sorts of things: the pay, the billing, how unnecessarily early the call was and how you’re now having to wait around for hours, all the backbiting that goes on whenever two or three (actors) are gathered together. It all gets in the way of your main aim. And so the Words of Wisdom are: Don’t waste time and energy on the trivial; focus on what’s important.

The audition is the first rehearsal

2008-02-04T23:39:00.002Z

The audition is the first rehearsal. An audition is not a combat, or a plea, or even an interview: it’s a piece of work. Go to it as you would to the first rehearsal if you already had the part. Don’t dress as if costumed for the part, that smacks of desperation and is inappropriate, but dress in the clothes you’d rehearse in. The first rehearsal is often, like the audition, a reading, so you will have familiarised yourself with the script and thought about it, but it’s unnecessary to have learned it word for word. It’s the first rehearsal so there will be plenty of questions to ask and a degree of experimentation may be involved. The point of all this is to establish a working relationship with the caster or director, rather than just being part of a selection process. You will put yourself and them in the right frame of mind to progress your involvement in the production. You might be right or wrong for the part, that much is in the lap of the gods, but you are putting yourself in a position in which there will be no unnecessary barriers to your getting it. The audition is the first rehearsal. If you get the part it will turn out to actually have been the first rehearsal. And if you don’t get the part at least you will have worked with a director or caster who may well remember you favourably for next time. Those are the Words of Wisdom.

Study - A lot

2007-12-11T16:48:00.000Z

The Words of Wisdom this week come from legendary Hollywood performer Jack Nicholson. Now, I think we’re inclined to think of Jack as a very laidback character to whom stardom came easily. This is not the case. It took him many years of hard graft to be noticed (in Easy Rider, at the age of 32.) He said recently “I went to classes for 12 years … there’s nobody successful who didn’t study a lot.” And that’s true not just about acting. So that makes our Words of Wisdom for this week: Study – A lot.

Emphasise

2007-11-27T23:43:00.000Z

The Word of Wisdom this week is: emphasise. There are many ways of making a word or phrase stand out. The most obvious one is to speak it more loudly, but you can also make something stand out by saying it more quietly. You can go up in pitch, or down. You can speed up or, more likely, slow down. You can change the rhythm of your speech, or add repetition, or change your tone of voice or accent. Very effectively, you can put a little … brief pause of a fraction of a second … before a word or phrase you want to have a particular impact.

Become aware of these factors in other people’s speech and, in a subtle way, gradually work them into your own. They will enrich what you have to say.

Breathe

2007-11-20T23:35:00.000Z

The Word of Wisdom this week is: breathe. (Deeply.) But to do this the right way, focus on breathing out, rather than breathing in. If you take too deep a breath in, you are restricted by your solid ribcage and your muscles tighten up, limiting your voice. But you can always breathe out more, and when you do you will find that you are more relaxed and, like magic, you will have more air to work with. So the simplest voice exercise is slow, deep breathing, emphasising the outward breath and using the diaphragm – feel your waistband loosen. You can do this while walking, standing or sitting, but best of all is lying down, hips and knees bent at 90 degrees and feet supported by a chair. Gradually you will get in the habit of breathing better and speaking more strongly without forcing your voice in your throat. What is more, you will find that this is a great way of clearing your head and relieving stress. The say that 10 minutes of deep breathing is as good as 20 minutes of sleep and I’m not going to argue with that. Breathe!

Think like a mathematician

2007-11-06T23:14:00.000Z

Words of Wisdom this week are: ‘Think like a mathematician, a scientist, a pilot, a soldier, an investment banker, a statesman.’ Reason: because there are plenty of occasions when you might play the part of one of these, but few actors have much first hand experience of any of these roles. So, mix as widely as possible, observe how such people speak and behave and try to work out how they think. Watch TV programmes you wouldn’t normally watch. Acting should broaden the mind: the whole world is your subject.

And a quote from Tom Stoppard: ‘We’re actors, we’re the opposite of people.’

Hang out with winners

2007-10-16T22:08:00.000Z

Words of Wisdom: I caught Ronnie Wood talking to Kay Burley this week and two things he said, with reference to Amy Winehouse and young musicians, were ‘Hang out with winners’ and ‘Keep on going.’ Winning depends on developing traits which can be adopted from successful people and it becomes a habit: so does always keeping on, keeping on becomes a habit: I agree with Ronnie 100%.

Take ownership of your dialogue

2007-10-02T21:35:00.001Z

And the Words of Wisdom this week are: Take ownership of your dialogue. The words you are given were written by a writer, but they are not the writer’s words, they belong to the character you are playing. You are not delivering lines written by a stranger. You are creating a character, derived in the first instance from the words the character has been given and any description or direction, and then delivering those words as your character’s own. Adopt the vocabulary, the words and the phrasing and above all the emotions revealed to you, and deliver them as if no-one thought of them or created them until they emanated from your mind and came out through your mouth. Take ownership of your dialogue.

Create character continuously

2007-09-24T22:20:00.003Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are about creativity. I am firmly of the belief that acting should be considered a creative art, rather than just interpretative. Of course, the writer is the prime creator, usually with a director acting as intermediary. But actors also create: and what they create is character. That is a convincing portrayal of a person that the audience is willing to believe in. While the audience believe in what they are seeing on the stage the play, which takes place in their minds, seems to have flesh and blood. If an actor goes out of character, or out of mood, the play collapses because no-one now believes in it. So the actors must create character continuously. It is quite impossible for a writer to give complete and detailed instructions about how a part is to be played. The words will be there is the script, but how are they to be delivered? There will be stage directions and some description, but how is the actor to stand, sit, walk, gesture, use their eyes? All this is the province of character and all these choices have to be made by the actor, not by him- or herself, because theatre is a collective activity, but working as part of a team. Create character continuously.

Take one step at a time, but go on taking steps

2007-09-18T22:02:00.002Z

The Words of Wisdom this week have application far beyond the bounds of acting. They are: Take one step at a time, but go on taking steps. This is the idea of incremental improvement and it applies as much to athletics or mathematics as it does to acting. It runs counter to two damaging beliefs: one, that if you are not very good at something you can never get better at it, and the other, that it is possible to be instantly successful at something and that it only requires some hidden talent to be ‘discovered’ and that hard work is not involved. Always focus on the next step and make it a measurable and achievable target. That way you can monitor your progress and you will not be put off by the difficulty of what you are ultimately aiming for. And you have to take that first step: get involved and take that first step. No-one ever got anywhere by thinking how nice it would be if they got to where they would like to be. Then take the next step. And persist. One of the main reasons people don’t succeed at things is because they give up too easily. Make a plan, but don’t stick rigidly to it. Vary it in the light of experience: there is a military maxim ‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy.’ And never consider yourself to be fully trained. You can go on educating yourself as an actor for your whole life. And remember that if you content yourself with standing still you will go backwards. Take one step at a time, but go on taking steps.

Project

2007-09-10T20:38:00.004Z

And that brief Word of Wisdom? It’s ‘Project.’ Meaning speak loudly and emphatically enough to reach your audience and also use gesture and facial expressions strongly enough to do the same thing. It’s mainly a requirement of stage acting, where you do not have a microphone and the back row of the audience may be a long way away. A loud enough voice is produced by breathing deeply, using the diaphragm, and not by forcing it in the throat. That’s why you should do all those breathing and voice exercises. Projection becomes difficult when you are playing an intimate scene, close to another actor. We automatically drop our voices when we are speaking to someone close to us and to overcome this tendency, you have to remember that although your character is speaking to the other character, as an actor you also need to be heard by the audience, so you have to keep that in mind too. Unnatural but necessary. Project.

Visualise - Part 2

2007-09-03T21:22:00.001Z

The Word of Wisdom this week is a continuation of last week’s: visualise. Mental rehearsal of tasks and processes is a powerful way of improving performance, particularly in sport, the arts and situations like interviews or public speaking. It has even been proven to increase muscular strength without exercise! The key is to relax and adopt a positive frame of mind, then to run through the processes you are going to have to perform and imagine them being carried out by you as excellently as you can. Do this over and over again and your mind and body will adapt in line with your thoughts. The important thing is to visualise the processes you are going to perform, not just the successful outcome (that’s just daydreaming and it doesn’t work.) A valuable exercise for an actor, which can be carried out anywhere, anytime, is to visualise and put yourself into states with a different mood. Practice changing the place or time your mind is in, or your emotional state. Try feeling warm on a cold day or wide awake when you’re sleepy: it’s remarkable what you can do. Visualise.

Visualise - Part 1

2007-08-25T20:40:00.001Z

Now for the Words of Wisdom:

Visualise. This is slightly mysterious and comes in two parts: this week the first part and next week the second. When you are acting or speaking in public and say anything which has an image, visualise that image in your own mind. In a subtle way this will enrich what you are saying and transmit itself to the listener. If you are filming and talking to space, or a stand-in, visualise the character you are talking to as strongly as you can. If you are on location or in a studio visualise your whole surroundings as you want the audience to imagine them, so, for example, without the crew or their equipment. Do the same if you are on stage: visualise your entire surroundings.

This is particularly valuable if you are presenting an audition piece. If there are supposed to be other characters present position them around you as they would be if they were really there and make sure you are visualising them as vividly as possible. Visualise people and places. Visualise.

Solve the list problem

2007-08-15T21:07:00.001Z

The Words of Wisdom this week are about how to solve the list problem. The list problem arises when there are three or more words or phrases in the dialogue in a play which make a series of related items. For example: ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen.’ The secret is to not make it sound like a list. Take each item separately and visualise it. Allocate it a space in your mind. Consider its emotional feeling or flavour. Then recreate these when you come to each item in the list in your dialogue. For example, as an exercise, take ‘Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades.’ For Clubs you might visualise a rough, wooden club, take it in your left hand and recreate a feeling of brutality; the Diamond might be glittering on your finger excitingly; the Heart might be on a Valentine held close to your heart, with a feeling of warmth, and the Spade you might be digging with – and it’s hard work. Try saying ‘Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades’ now and feel the difference. Try a few more lists: ‘England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’; ‘Ice, Water, Steam’ and so on. That’s how to solve the list problem.

Find words of wisdom

2007-08-06T22:16:00.001Z

The Words this week are ‘Find words of wisdom’: always be on the lookout for thoughts and ideas that will help you in your profession and on your way through life. And to illustrate this here are five extracts from my own notebook – you do of course keep a notebook, don’t you? The five quotations are about, respectively: stage fright; self-centredness; the difference between show business and sport; age and how to cope with it; and a great virtue.

Frank Sinatra said (as quoted by Tony Bennett) “If the crowd see you’re nervous, they also see that you care”

Shakespeare wrote, in The Taming of the Shrew, “He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.”

Marilyn Monroe broke off her honeymoon with legendary baseball player Joe DiMaggio to entertain adoring American troops in Korea. On her return she said to him “It was so wonderful, Joe. You never heard such cheering” “Yes I have” DiMaggio replied, quietly.

Bruce Tulloh, the champion athlete and running guru, wrote “It’s good to be an athlete when you’re 30, but when you’re 50 it’s essential”

And Jermaine Jackson, on leaving the Big Brother house, said “Kindness is a strength.”

Find words of wisdom.

Favour the audience with your face

2007-07-30T21:29:00.001Z

And this week’s Words of Wisdom are Favour the audience with your face. Whether you are performing in theatre, film or television, your body language and, most importantly, your facial language express at least as much as the words you are saying. In fact this is true in non-visual media as well – radio, voice-overs, recording a song – you should use body language in all of these, because after all, you can hear a smile on the telephone, can’t you – but that is by the way.

So if your facial expressions are very important and the audience want to read your face, because that’s the part of you they look at the most, then you must make sure they can see it as well as possible.

Cheat the angles so that your eyeline is closer to the camera or the audience than it would be purely geometrically. In close up you will normally be directed to hold a certain position but don’t always assume this is going to be done for you.

Know whether you are left- or right-faced. You can check this by looking in a mirror or at a photograph and drawing imaginary lines across your lips and through your eyes. If this opens out on the left side of your face then you are left-faced and you will tend to shoot better from the left.

NEVER put your hands to your face or to your hair unless there is a compelling reason in the script to do so.

Study your facial expressions in a mirror as you say a line to yourself with different inflections. Notice how subtle facial language can be and now false it looks if it is overplayed and doesn’t come from the inside.

Be prepared, both for the stage and the screen, to be directed into unnatural positions relative to other actors. Invariably, one of the reasons for this is so that your facial expressions will be more evident to the audience. For example, you might be at the other character’s shoulder and looking in a parallel direction to them. That may feel very strange but it will look good. Favour the audience with your face.

Be professional (know your lines and be on time)

2007-07-23T22:57:00.001Z

And so to this week’s Words of Wisdom. And they are a lot of words, but they all come under the same umbrella and that is Be professional. Meaning: know your lines, be on time, don’t knock over the furniture, don’t bitch (you only hurt yourself by adopting a negative frame of mind), remember people’s names (keep a notebook of people you meet or work with), don’t drink alcohol until you’ve finished for the day, don’t change any stage business without the director’s OK, don’t complain unnecessarily, say thank you, keep an appointments diary, always carry a pen and something to read, don’t believe your own publicity, listen to advice, always be learning. And the most important of these is ‘be on time’ – and that includes for your acting class. Be professional.

2007-07-10T10:11:00.001Z

And so the Words of Wisdom this week are simply: Share. Work with your fellow actors, not against them. If you make them look good then your performance will be all the more convincing. Competing with other actors for the audience’s attention is self-defeating. Treat everyone in the cast with respect, whether their part be large or small. You’re part of a team and everyone should pull together. If you’re working on a big movie the team can be enormous, and there should be no division between cast and crew. And finally, the most important entity to share with is the audience. Always have a corner of your mind working on how best to share what is happening with them. Without the audience there is no show.

Keep fit

2007-07-03T10:07:00.001Z

And the WOW factor – the Words of Wisdom? Very simple: Keep Fit. Acting can be very tiring. It can involve early starts, long days, late evenings, emotionally and physically exhausting performances. The fitter you are the more equipped you will be to cope with these demands. So, live an active life: run, swim, dance, play sport, go to the gym, do aerobics. Walk or cycle to get around; run up the stairs instead of waiting for the lift; don’t be one of the zeroes who stands still on the escalator (of life.) You will feel happier, depression will lift. Why? Because vigorous activity, like laughter, sex and exposure to the sun, releases beta-endorphin, a neurotransmitter which is a powerful painkiller and which also promotes feelings of relaxation and well-being. It’s also released by acupuncture, incidentally.

And while you’re about it, eat a good diet including the famous five portions a day of fruit and vegetables, but keeping down the proportions of fatty foods and refined sugar. And if you’re one of the few remaining smokers, now is the time to kick the habit. Your voice is so important to you: why ruin it by smoking, as well as wrecking your lungs, arteries and quite a lot more? By taking one step at a time you can gradually adapt your body to a better lifestyle. It does take time: running guru Bruce Tulloh reckons it takes two years to turn a non-runner’s body into a runner’s body. But think how many people maintain their car more carefully than they maintain their body – the difference being you can trade in your car for a new one, but you can’t trade in your body, it has to last all your life.

If you do all this, you will likely live longer and better, and you’ll be a better actor. Keep fit.

Keep it fresh

2007-06-26T13:52:00.001Z

So what are the Words (of Wisdom) this week? They are Keep it Fresh. One of the things that actors often have to do is to repeat what they have just done, sometimes over and over again. If you are playing a part in a long running play in the theatre you are having to deliver the same lines over and over again, maybe six or eight times a week. If you are shooting a film you may have to play a scene for take after take, and then maybe deliver the same line again for a different shot of the same scene.

You have two opposing problems here. The first is to keep your performance consistent, so that your intentions and those of the writer and director are carried out, and so that your fellow actors can rely on what you are going to do, so no-one can say “But that’s not how we rehearsed it!”

At the same time you need to make it seem to the audience as if the events being depicted are happening for the first time. The people in the audience want to be able to believe, with at least part of their minds, that nothing has been pre-planned and that the outcome of the story is uncertain.

So Keep it Fresh. Be ready but don’t over-prepare. Vary your performance fractionally so that it doesn’t dig too deep a groove. Adopt a frame of mind at the beginning of the scene that this is the ‘now’ moment and don’t rehearse the rest of the scene in your head before it has happened.

Every time you play a scene it will, unavoidably, be slightly different. You will say the words and perform the actions slightly differently; so will the other actors; if there is an audience their reaction will be different each time. There are so many variables that you can never play a scene the same way twice. Welcome this randomness and use it. It’s all part of the way you can Keep it Fresh.

Don't 'act' when you're acting

2007-06-19T13:47:00.001Z

And so to the Words of Wisdom. They are ‘Don’t ‘act’ when you’re acting.’ It’s about the difference between artificiality and directness. The people in the audience haven’t come to see actors acting; they’ve come to see a play. They don’t want to hear people saying lines; the want to listen to the words. They don’t want to hear you reciting Shakespeare; they want to bridge the gap of 400 years and hear the play as if it was being performed for the first time. As an actor, don’t intrude between the writer and the audience. Paradoxically, the more you make yourself disappear inside the character and the situation, the more you will be admired after the event.

Treat the audience as equals; shun the mindset of cultural superiority so evident in, for example, TV costume dramas; we, the audience, don’t want to see two actors playing the parts of two tramps; we want to see two tramps. Don’t ‘act’ when you’re acting.

Practice!

2007-06-12T22:13:00.001Z

There’s an old story that leads to our Word of Wisdom for this week. An out-of-town lady is visiting New York City. Lost, she goes up to a cop on Sixth Avenue and asks him “Can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?” The representative of New York’s finest gives her a long look. “Practice, lady: practice” he replies.

There are different versions of this story: sometimes the cop is replaced by the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, but, whoever said it, they were speaking nothing but the truth, and that’s why our Word of Wisdom this week is … Practice.

Now the principle of how practice leads to improvement is a very simple one. If you put your body under stress, of any kind, it adapts to better cope with that stress. Provided you don’t over-stress yourself, which will lead to injury, you will get better at whatever you are trying to do.

In physical activities, like sport, if you run further and faster, you will improve. After a few weeks, the stopwatch, which never lies, will tell you that you are running faster than you could before. In a technical sport, like Golf, if you practice your swing, after a while you will be able to drive the ball further.

The same applies in mental activities. We have all had the experience of doing simple sums and gradually getting better and being able to do harder sums. Or we’ve learned to play Chess, or do Sudoku. We weren’t born knowing how to do these things: it was all down to practice.

And the same is true in the arts. We practice scales and arpeggios and go over and over a piece till we can get our fingers round the notes. There is a theory that the main reason Mozart became such a great composer was that he had practiced for hours every day from the age of two.

So why do so many actors, at least in the UK, fail to keep themselves in training like athletes, or puzzlers, or musicians? Maybe it’s because acting technique is more diffuse and less easy to define than in the other examples and the results are less easy to measure. But it’s true that a lot of actors in this country do not practice their craft as they should. They’re the competition and you can do better than them.

And that’s one of the reasons why we have our class. So that you can keep in practice, find it easy to slip into a character, learn a scene, take direction and build your confidence. Practice to overcome weaknesses and master the things you find most difficult.

So if you want to get to your own Carnegie Hall – in fact if you want to get anywhere in life – Practice!