Acting is more about being than doing

Some of you haven’t been yet; some of you have just begun; some of you are occasionals; some of you are regulars; some of you will be returners; I hope none of you are never come again-ers. Whichever you are it would be good to see you soon.

And do remember that I am always glad to promote any productions in which people are involved, so that you can have the chance of supporting them. This week Szilvia Kopeczi, our resident soprano, will be appearing in an opera showcase at the Cochrane Theatre on Thursday and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoon, so I hope some of you will be inspired to go along, The box office no is 020 7269 1606.

And the Words of Wisdom this week apply particularly to screen acting, The Words are: Acting is more about being than doing. If you produce a thought or a feeling inside you, the camera will see it and the audience will see it through the medium of the camera. If you consciously do something externally to illustrate the thought or the feeling, you will almost certainly do too much and the effect will be unrealistic. As James Dean is reputed to have said ‘If the script tells me to smoke a cigarette, I smoke a cigarette, I don’t act smoking a cigarette.’ Or as Jean-Luc Godard put it: ‘Cinema is the truth twenty-four times a second.’

It takes confidence to do little enough, to just ‘be’ and not hide behind a smokescreen of ‘do.’ You have to bet the house on the camera liking what it sees, but no-one ever said life isn’t a gamble, did they? Acting is more about being than doing.