I’ve left long periods of acting study feeling that I was worse than when I started. I’ve wrapped up performances feeling bad habits cling to me like barnacles on an old ship.
And then there’s my buddy James, who, with no prior acting experience, delivered the most real, believable, convincing performance of all my classmates after just one week at RADA. Here are my takeaways:
Some classes are better than others
After one week in Brigid Panet’s RADA course, James was an amazing actor. I took the course to shake off some bad habits I’ve accumulated recently. I got rid of some of them, but still feel others clinging on.
Overthinking and trying really hard usually result in lousy acting
I’ve now spent about 3 years learning how to think about acting. But when I think about acting while I’m doing it, everything goes south. And when I think, “Wow. That was some good acting you just did,” It usually stinks really bad.
Becoming like an ‘actor’ may be bad for acting
When you (I) start acting like an actor, saying things like an actor, and ‘performing,’ it sucks. Ideally, I just say the lines and do the action. And so long as I’m still a real person that hasn’t devolved into some weird ‘performer,’ I might be as believable as James.