If you can't be perfect be good

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.’