For anyone aspiring to be a professional actor, knowing your craft is only half the battle. You also need to know how to go out into the real world and find paid acting work. Understanding the business side of the acting industry is absolutely crucial if you want to make a living as an actor. If you can get to grips with these less artistic elements of the acting life, you will be well on your way to making a career for yourself as a professional actor.

Getting your name out there

No matter how good an actor you are, if nobody knows about you then you aren’t going to get any work. Making sure the right people are aware of you and what you can do is absolutely fundamental. So how do you do that?

The first step is to put together a proper promotional package to send to casting directors and agents. This should include your actor’s CV, a set of professional-quality head shots and, ideally, a professional-quality acting showreel.

A package containing all three of these elements will effectively demonstrate to industry gatekeepers that you have the skills and experience they are looking for. It also allows them to judge the kind of roles you might be suitable for. That way they can start offering you appropriate auditions or recommend you to other industry professionals who may be able to offer you work.

In the modern digital age, it’s increasingly easy (and important) for actors to market themselves online. There are several ways you can this but the most popular and effective are creating a website with the same information found in your promotional package and making good use of social media.

Making useful connections

The old saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” isn’t entirely true, but it’s not completely false either. The truth is, success in the acting industry is about what you know AND who you know. Getting to know the right people means when opportunities arise, they can give you the chance to take advantage of them. You still need the skills to make the most of those opportunities, but to get your foot in the door, knowing a good selection of industry insiders definitely helps.

When it comes to networking, remember it’s about what you can offer, not just what you want to get out of it. If the instant you meet a casting director, more successful actor or agent, you immediately ask them for a favour you are likely to annoy them more than anything. Make sure you take the time to get to know people and see what you can offer them before asking for anything. Once they know who you are and what you can do, you shouldn’t have to beg for favours. They should be happy to help you because they will know that you have something genuinely valuable to offer to them and their contacts.

To make the most of your networking time, you need to know where to go and who to speak to. Do your research and find out which casting directors, agents and other industry figures are involved with the kind of projects you would like to work on. You can then identify the kind of industry events, bars and clubs where the people you want to connect with are likely to be.

One you get in a room with someone you want to connect with, be brave and go say hello. A large part of succeeding is simply having the courage and self-confidence to put yourself out there. Once you have introduced yourself, find common ground and make sure to ask plenty of questions about their work while also making sure you communicate your own career ambitions without directly asking them to help straight away.

Make sure to get an email address or details of their social media accounts so you can stay in touch. Then you just have to keep in contact with them and make sure to always say hello if you see them at other events in future. That way you can strengthen your connection and hopefully be introduced to their own connections, growing your own industry network.

Getting an agent

Pretty much every serious professional actor has an agent. It’s their job to get you meetings and auditions with casting directors, directors, producers and anyone else who can offer you work. They can also chase up people for you after an audition and talk you up to increase your chances of landing a role. They’ll negotiate on your behalf when you are offered a gig and a good agent will get you more money with better terms than you would be likely to achieve representing yourself. An experienced agent will know a lot more people in the business than you could ever hope to, so will hugely increase the opportunities available to you.

How do you get an agent? Again, you need to do your research. Find a list of acting agencies who cover the geographical area you are looking to work in. Make your own list of agents who have a track record of successfully representing actors like you for the kind of work you are interested in. Then get in touch with each of these agencies with your actor’s CV, head shots and showreel, explaining who you are and the kind of work you are looking for.

If your promotional materials are good enough, you should get multiple agents interested in representing you. You’ll then be in the lucky position of getting to choose which one you wish to go with. Ask them the right questions and you will be able to narrow the choice down to those best suited to your career aspirations. Then you simply have to make your choice and sign on the dotted line.

Handling auditions

Of course, getting auditions doesn’t mean you’ve made it. You need to actually win the audition in order to progress to the bit where you’ll start getting paid. Obviously a huge part of that comes down to how good you are as an actor, but there is also a whole load of audition etiquette that you need to know. Get this right and you’ll be judged purely on your acting. Get in wrong and you’ll be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

The number one mistake so many actors make is turning up late for the audition. This is pretty unforgivable and it gives the impression you can’t be relied upon – not a great impression to give people you are hoping will hire you. Make sure you plan ahead, find out where the audition is taking place, how you will get there and how long it will take. Leave yourself plenty of time to get there and plan to be at least 10 minutes early so you have some leeway.

The other key thing is to listen. Take in every instruction you are given and follow them. If you can’t take direction in an audition, it’s not a good advert for your ability to take it on stage or in front of a camera. You may be able to offer your own creative input, but judging when this is appropriate can be tricky.

One thing all professional actors need to do is to learn to deal with rejection. Most jobbing actors will lose far more auditions than they win, that’s just the nature of the game. This isn’t to say that you’re a bad actor, but there’s a lot of competition and not every actor is right for every role. Understand this and accept that you will probably have to go to dozens of auditions you don’t get for every one that you do and you’ll have a more realistic approach to the business and how hard you need to work to succeed.

Knowing how to behave

Being a professional means acting professionally. This doesn’t begin and end with the audition, it applies throughout every stage of the acting process. Be polite, punctual and pleasant to work with and people will offer you work again. Be rude, unreliable and make people’s lives difficult and you’ll soon find yourself struggling to get hired. Remember, people in the industry talk to each other, so if you annoy one director or casting director, word will get around.

Acting often involves long hours, lots of waiting around and high amounts of stress. Being able to remain calm, focused and professional will make you an asset not a liability. Always be willing to listen, offer an opinion where appropriate and, above all, work really hard. Earn a reputation for professionalism from day one and you can begin building your career on a solid foundation.

Managing your money

Being a professional actor means getting paid for you work. This is fantastic, of course, but getting your head around the financial side of the business can be off-putting. As an actor you will generally work on a self-employed basis, which means your first priority should be to register as self-employed. You will need to get to grips with invoicing, tax, national insurance and claiming expenses. You should also consider insurance and pension schemes as there is no sick pay or final-salary pension for an actor.

The other thing to remember is that you are unlikely to have a steady income each month, so it is absolutely crucial to get the hang of budgeting and saving. Live within your means and make sure you put money aside when you have a good month to keep you going through the lean times.

Continuing your professional development

Although we are talking about the business of acting rather than the craft of acting, the two are obviously interconnected. The more you learn as an actor, the better you will be and the more opportunities you are likely to get. This can mean taking acting classes, but may also involve developing additional skills such as stage fighting, stunt work or horse riding.

Plan out the kind of acting work you would like to pursue, then do some research and find out what skills might help you with that kind of work. Not only will this give you useful, industry-relevant knowledge, it will also look good to agents and casting directors as it demonstrates that you are a hard worker who takes their career seriously and is open to learning and developing.

Learn the business of acting

Learning how to negotiate the business side of the acting industry can take years, while many actors never get the hang of it at all. The sooner you get to grips with the business of acting, the sooner you can start supporting yourself as a professional actor.

Our One-Year Ultimate Acting Programme not only offers the UK’s leading method acting tuition, it also includes a comprehensive introduction to the business side of the industry. The Brian Timoney Actors’ Studio takes the uncertainty out of making a career as an actor by teaching you everything you need to know to go out and start getting professional acting work straightaway.

To find out more, please take a look around the rest of the website and, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 

When thinking about how your brain affects your acting ability, the first, and perhaps most important, thing to keep in mind is that it is impossible to play an emotion. You might think this sounds strange; after all, we’ve all seen great actors laugh, cry, be joyous or get angry on screen. But the truth is, you cannot just ‘put on an act’ when it comes to expressing emotions or, at least, if you want to put on a brilliant performance. Instead, you have to actually go through that emotion, feel it and express it for it to be believable and realistic.

If you’re wondering how you could possibly invoke the feeling of fear or of falling in love on a film set with co-stars and cameras around you, that is where your brain – and how you use it – becomes your most important instrument as an actor.

 

Brain Basics

It’s very likely that you’ve heard of the difference between the left side and the right side of the brain. The left half of the brain is often considered to be the logical, analytical side. Whenever you complete a task which has to do with reading, mathematics or science, this is the part of the brain you are engaging. The right side, however, is the part which controls creativity and comes into action whenever you undertake an emotional or artistic endeavour.

 

Which Side of the Brain do Actors Engage with Most?

As acting involves reading from a script, memorising lines and taking angles and positions into account, many people make the mistake of thinking that acting must therefore be a ‘left brain’ activity. This could not be further from the truth as your brain cannot respond to verbal or written commands in this way.

If you try to simply tell your mind to act angry, heartbroken, happy, or any other emotion – that is acting with the left side of your brain and you will be setting yourself up for a poor performance. Instead of telling yourself to trigger an emotion, you must learn how to utilise your senses to invoke a truly emotional reaction in the right side of your brain.

If you’ve ever heard a piece of music and suddenly been transported back to a special night with the love of your life, or smelt a certain type of flower that put you back in your grandmother’s house as a small child, then you have experienced just how strongly our five senses can trigger emotional reactions.

All of the best method actors use this technique to engage with the right side (the emotional side) of their brain and incite senses to help them feel what their character is feeling. This is a skill that you too can learn and apply to your acting when you study ‘The Method’.

 

Train and Control Your Mind

In order to truly use your brain when you act, you need to learn how to control your brain and train it to use all five senses effectively. Memory plays a big part in this. By drawing on your own personal experiences, you can recreate emotions that you have felt in your life and be better equipped to feel whatever it is that your character is feeling.

Even if you are playing an outlandishly evil part that you really can’t relate to, our basic emotions stay the same. You will be able to find some empathy to how the character is feeling and how they would respond to it. The best actors use memory for this in more ways than one.

The Method teaches you to train your brain to re-experience emotions, memories and situations that you have been through in your life – even through reliving memories of specific events or people you have known.

All of this isn’t just guesswork either. A 20 year study by psychologists and theatre directors; Anthony and Helga Noice found that the way actors are able to remember so many lines of dialogue is by engaging with the emotional intent and subtext of each and every line, rather than simply trying to memorise words like a computer. Thinking about the meaning behind words triggers the right side of the brain and allows performers to memorise entire long scripts with ease.

 

The Actor’s Brain in Action

Another excellent example of a study which shows how the brain affects acting was carried out by Professor Sophie Cott in 2009.

Irish actress Fiona Shaw who is best known for her roles in Harry Potter and True Blood, underwent an MRI scan. While her brain was being scanned, Fiona alternated between counting out loud and reading T S Elliot’s 1922 poem, The Wasteland.

The purpose of this scan was to see what was going on physically inside an actor’s head when they were playing a part. Professor Sophie Cott came up with some very interesting results which proved something those of us who study The Method have known for some time.

Only three parts of Fiona’s brain were activated when she was counting out loud; the nerve centre which controls facial movements for speaking, the hearing section of the brain and the part of the brain which controls planning speech – all of which are on the left side.

However, when she performed dialogue from the second verse of T S Elliott’s poem, parts of Fiona’s brain in charge of controlling all sorts of body movements were activated – proving that she was thinking about doing them without realising. As well as this, a part of the mind which conjures up complex visual imagery was highly stimulated.

You don’t need to be an expert in psychology or neurology to understand that this means Fiona Shaw really was taking on the identity of the character she was playing in the poem and that this goes so much further than speaking lines and faking emotions.

 

Turn it into a Habit

The Method is a crucial element in finding out how to incorporate the ability to invoke emotions in your brain and recreate senses To make this a part of your natural process, it’s a good idea to start by practicing affective memory for just a few minutes every day. This is where actors re-imagine the memory of a certain situation and attempt to recall the details and emotions of that memory as best they can.

As you get into this habit you will need to increase the amount of time you spend doing it, but make sure you work it into your daily routine. Choose a time when you have a gap between activities, so that working on your affective memory becomes a regular routine and doesn’t disrupt your daily tasks.

After a while, you will find this becomes a habit which you resort to naturally, rather than a chore. This is just one small thing you can do at home, but if you are serious about committing more time to this and other method acting techniques, then perhaps you need to consider one of our weekend boot camps or year long Ultimate Acting Programme.

 

Sense memory is a concept used by everyone even loosely involved with method acting: Stanislavski, Strasberg, Meisner, Adler – the list goes on. It’s a core exercise used in affective memory, or emotional recall, but no matter your terminology or whose acting methods you subscribe to, it’s sense memory that is the key to a truthful performance.

This is because good actors don’t just act; they do. Your job is to feel on demand – much more difficult than just crying on cue. Presenting strong emotions when asked is hard to recreate even after overcoming any problems with public performance. Being emotionally expressive in any way is a full-body issue, and actors who get criticised as weak are often picked on because they’re unable to seem authentic during emotional displays. Thankfully, sense memory is here to help you level up from basic crocodile tears.

 

Where to Use It

Sense memory is part of affective memory, which in itself is one the most important techniques in a method actor’s toolbox. Affective memory is the art of manipulating your own experiences to create a truthful emotional performance of a character. Sense memory is how you discover the particulars of that manipulation. It helps an actor to recall the details of their past experiences so that they feel “in the moment”.

Some people have trouble separating out which part of the affective memory exercise is sense memory, and how then to apply it to a performance. Here’s a break down of the process:

• You’ve been asked to recall the feeling of heartbreak, and remember that you were once dumped in a coffee shop. It’s fresh in your mind, and poignant – you know you will have a good emotional object trigger in there somewhere! This is your affective memory.
• Once you have your affective memory, you use sense memory by running through the memory’s setting, sounds, etc… When you come to the smell of roasting coffee beans, you feel a small stab in your heart; you’ve found your emotional release object.
• When you later rehearse or perform the scene and must display heartbreak, don’t fall back into the memory as a whole; just recall the smell of roasted coffee beans and let your subconscious guide your performance.

Although we’re unaware of it in our day-to-day lives, every memory we form is done so through our senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, and sound. Usually when we recall an event, it’s using one or two of these (predominantly sight and sound). However, if we’re properly engrossed in the memory then all five senses become a part of it.

An example of how sense memory makes a difference during performance is seen in the example of acting cold. A basic technique would be mimicking the typically ‘cold’ behaviours: blowing on your hands, chattering your teeth, and shivering. An actor using sense memory would recall a time they really were cold, and all the small reactions: pulling a hat down over your ears, thrusting your hands into your crotch or armpits; moving stiffly, because your muscles are constantly tensing to stay warm.

This is very much part of the method’s basis: psychological realism. Psychological realism demands that the actor truly feel what is scripted, and so recreating every single component of a memory is vital to having a detailed truth. Acting should be more than simply imagination could achieve.

 

Why it Works

The theory is that one can recreate an emotion based on past experiences, and thereby express it with truthfulness.

The use of all five sense in recalling the memory not only helps to paint a full picture; it is also the best way to find your emotional release object. It could be the ticking of a clock, or the smell of a retirement home, but for each memory there is a subconscious, sense-based ‘key’ that will flood into your mind everything to do with the emotion you’re trying to evoke.

Sense memory is a powerful tool, but one that must go hand-in-hand with mindfulness or relaxation exercises. You need to be able to control your emotional state at all times, otherwise sense memory could be mentally damaging. If you find that a particular memory engrosses you to the point of taking you out of the scene, you might have to revert to the less-powerful technique of imagination.

Once you have gone through the senses and found your emotional release object, you will be able to recall and enact that particular emotion with increasing ease.

 

How to Use It

Think of sense memory as an exercise: it trains your emotions to burst forth at will. By thinking of it this way you will be less surprised by any difficulty you have initially – and later, more understanding of those ‘highly-strung’ actors! The exercise goes something like this:

• Sit in an armless chair, and loosen every part of your body so you’re draped, almost corpse-like, on the furniture. If you’re sensing any tenseness, try moaning or yelling.
• Once at ease, recall your chosen memory. Walk through each sense at a time, recalling every single sight, every sound, and so on. Take as long as you need to find it – going through every sensation in the memory could take a while!
• Once you’ve found it, let the accompanying emotion take over you so you’re able to remember every reaction you had in the moment.

We suggest doing one sense memory exercise per day; this should help you train your emotional responses without overloading them.

If you master sense memory, you will be able to perform any emotion on command, and lose the awkwardness of evoking high drama during auditions – or in every day life! Actors with a strong sense of memory capability often become highly empathetic, which helps them to grow their range and their network; empaths are much more likeable, after all.

Do you have plenty of memories to draw on? A vivid imagination? You could benefit from refining it with our Ultimate Acting Programme. Applications for the October intake are nearly closed – apply now!

 

The Importance of Creativity

If an actor doesn’t believe their scene is real, there’s a good chance the audience won’t either. This means that to be a good actor, you need to be convinced of the truth of your scene – to have a truly creative mindset.

The good news is that your imagination doesn’t have to be as powerful as you’d think! Truly believing that you are in a castle or have turned into a donkey is ridiculous, but a good creative mind can find the “truth” of the scene – you’re not in some random castle, you’re in your bedroom; you’ve not just magicked into a donkey, you’ve been betrayed and humiliated.

A creative performance finds the symbolic truth of set. Marlon Brando confined himself to bed for a month to better perform as a paraplegic, and Daniel Day-Lewis has (among many other things) lived alone in the woods as a survivalist for his role in The Last of the Mohicans.

These actors didn’t literally become paraplegics or members of a dying Native American tribe – they did what they felt was reasonable and relied on their creativity to draw the rest of the truth into the role.

So, you can draw emotional memory from experiences; but where can you get creativity? While everyone is different, there are some basics we think any actor can master.

 

Emotion

Your emotional state will affect not just the quality of your performance, but also your ability to create. A terrible mood can make your mind blank and your actions lacklustre; and in a brilliant mood you might feel like the world is your proverbial oyster.

On the other hand, actors sometimes find that their bad moods actually help a performance. If your character is just as angry or miserable as you are, you can channel it for a very natural performance. A word of warning, though – extending a bad mood longer than necessary might not be worth it.

Using emotion to enter a creative mindset means finding out which “mood” is your creative fuel; though people don’t always like to say it, sometimes anger is a good source of creativity (and conversely, creativity is a good therapy for anger!).

However, it’s hard to force emotion. Emotional memory can be a good tool to get the details of a headspace, but to begin your journey to creative happiness some music might help.

To enter a creative mindset, you might need some ambient guitar, whale music, or even white noise. To get into your character’s headspace, it might be better to listen to a “break ups” playlist. Websites like 8tracks and apps like Spotify have playlists to match nearly any feeling you need to feel.

 

Exercise

Creativity relies on the physical as well as the emotional, in both conception and performance. Your body is usually guided by your mind, often subconsciously. It acts out things you didn’t even know you were thinking. Do you ever catch yourself copying the yawning motions of someone across from you on the Tube? Do you sometimes check your phone for phantom texts without thinking?

There is a way to reverse this process – you can encourage your brain to behave creatively through exercise. Moving your body improves blood flow to the brain, giving it a power boost. It can also induce a meditative state, perfect for finding inspiration. When you’re out for a long walk, sans mobile phone, your brain must occupy itself with only its own contents.

So – don’t put those music playlists away just yet! A long walk in the morning or a little yoga in the afternoon between rehearsals is brilliant, but if you hit a creative block mid-session don’t worry – just break out the speakers and lose yourself in your favourite song for three minutes.

 

Socialise

There’s a reason “creative duos” are so successful. The best minds in creative industries are ones that know when to ask for help. Talking to others about your goals, problems, or just a few ideas for a scene you’re performing can help in several ways.

Firstly, by verbalising that which is blocking your creativity, will make the problem/s easier to solve. Writer’s/actor’s block can strike at any time, and mulling over it on your own isn’t likely to help. By finding a sympathetic ear and explaining where you feel you’re going wrong, one of you could figure out a way around the problem.

Secondly, a second opinion never hurt – someone else’s opinions and ideas could begin a chain of creative thought that gives you the next big idea in the theatre. By listening to them in turn, you’re not only adding to your knowledge base; you’re also giving your brain a little light exercise in its memory and response times.

Find someone whose work you admire, or who you know is a good sounding board for ideas, and spend an afternoon just chatting. You could go for a walk at the same time, for a double-boost to your creativity!

 

An Exercise in Creativity

I want you to act out a small scene, no words. Using a combination of mood music, exercise, emotional memory, and imagination, conceive each moment of the scene and then perform it – to yourself, to a friend, anything. Here it is:

 

You’re walking into a hotel lobby, late at night. It’s empty, and the lights are harsh – you’ve been crying. You’ve just been dumped, and you’re going back to the room booked for the two of you – alone. Walk from the lobby entrance to the elevator.

 

Most actors will probably do this walk differently – and that’s good! Everyone walks and behaves sadly in a different way. Which music did you use to enter the right headspace? Was there a particular lobby or elevator that came to your mind?

Creativity is a vital part of acting. Only through our imaginations are we able to bring to life a character’s truth. That’s why our Ultimate Acting Programme has a holistic method acting approach; and why a creative audition is more likely to land you a spot on it. Applications for October’s intake are nearly over – so make sure you apply soon!

 

People often ask us who our favourite method actors are, but with so many of Hollywood’s top actors relying on the Method, naming our favourites is extremely challenging. Did you know, for example, that over 80% of Best Actor Oscar-winners this century have been method actors?

Ultimately, picking our favourites comes down to a mixture of who has achieved the most critical acclaim, who has gone the furthest in their dedication to method acting and a healthy dose of pure personal preference. With that in mind, here are 10 of our top famous method actors.

Al Pacino

A student of method acting pioneer Lee Strasberg, Al Pacino is one of the most famous and committed proponents of the Method. As well as having used method acting to secure 8 Academy Award nominations and 1 win (for Scent of a Woman), Pacino is particularly admired among method actors for his ability to play in a range of styles. He has embodied characters at the extreme ends of the spectrum, from the wild Tony Montana in 1983’s Scarface to his more subtle Oscar-winning performance as Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman.

Speaking to the Guardian, Pacino explained the essence of method acting:

 

“You have to look for the human in all the characters you play.”

 

Charlize Theron

Getting into the mind of a serial killer is particularly challenging for any actor. Charlize Theron did such a good job of it for her portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s Monster that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert called it: “one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema.”

Theron understands that being a great actor means:

 

“Your job is to go for the emotional truth”.

 

This is what has allowed Theron to successfully avoid type-casting with diverse roles in such critical hits as North Country, Young Adult and her recent film-stealing performance in Mad Max: Fury Road.

 

Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson is one of the most critically respected actors of all time with 12 Oscar nominations to his name and three wins, two for Best Actor and one for Best Supporting Actor. He is also a devoted method actor who once claimed:

 

“There’s probably no one who understands method acting better academically than I do, or actually uses it more in this work.”

 

Nicholson is highly committed to his craft. For his first Oscar-winning role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest he spent months living in an asylum. His other wins were for the comedy As Good as It Gets (Best Actor) and Terms of Endearment (Best Supporting Actor).

Those who work with Nicholson often comment on his ability to spontaneously come up with very different takes on the same scenes, offering directors a real choice. He is also frequently praised for his high levels of professionalism. Director Tony Richardson explains:

 

“He can come on the set and deliver, without any fuss.”

 

This is the essence of a great method actor.

 

Hilary Swank

Two-time Best Actress Oscar-winner Hilary Swank’s career is all the more impressive for the fact she bagged two Academy Awards by the time she turned 30. This demonstrates perfectly how it doesn’t take a lifetime to become an elite actor if you can just master the Method.

For her first Oscar-winning role as a transgender man in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry, Swank spent months going out disguised as a man. Swank cut her hair short, bound her breasts and stuffed socks into her underwear so she could experience what it was like to pass as the opposite gender. According to Swank:

“It really showed me how much we use our identity and our gender to communicate”.

For her second Academy Award-winning role in 2004’s Million Dollar Baby, Swank undertook extensive boxing training for two months. Often working out as much as 5 hours a day with a professional boxing trainer, she put on 19 pounds of muscle and learned to understand the boxer’s mentality of having to “get out of the way of [yourself]”.

 

Dustin Hoffman

Perhaps the best-known story about Dustin Hoffman as a method actor was his approach to his role in Marathon Man. Wanting to achieve a sense of his character’s mental and physical deterioration due to the stresses he was undergoing in the story, Hoffman stayed up for 3 days and 3 nights. Hoffman’s committed performance helped to make the film a critical and commercial success.

Hoffman originally studied method acting at the Actors Studio in New York and ultimately went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor twice, once for Kramer vs. Kramer in 1980 and again for Rain Man in 1988.

 

Natalie Portman

After a stunning debut in Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional, filmed when she was just 12 years old, Natalie Portman has gone on to have a highly varied and successful career. Perhaps best known for her starring role in Star Wars Episodes I-III, Thor and Thor: The Dark World, Portman’s most critically-acclaimed role was playing the lead in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Portman undertook over a year of intensive ballet training, including 6 months were she trained 5 hours a day, 6 days a week. This training not only got Portman into shape for the role and allowed her to do a certain amount of her character’s dance scenes herself, but also helped her get into the headspace of a professional dancer. She explained:

 

“You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, so you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.”

Robert De Niro

1976’s Taxi Driver was one of the key performances that really made Robert De Niro a star. In preparation for his leading role in the film, De Niro worked 12-hour shifts as real New York cab driver to give him a reference when creating the character. He also made use of animal exercises, a classic Method technique, whereby he based his physical performance in the film on a crab, whose side-to-side motion he felt represented the character’s indirectness.

De Niro’s dedication to the Method earned him an Oscar nomination for Taxi Driver, one of 7 he has picked up over his career. He has won twice, picking up Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather Part II and Best Actor for Raging Bull.

 

Naomi Watts

With two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress to her name, British actress Naomi Watts is one to watch. She studied acting under Stella Adler and has worked on critically acclaimed projects including Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman and 21 Grams, David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.

Recently Naomi Watts devised a clever way to develop a deep bond with her co-star Matthey McConaughey for Gus Van Sant’s Sea of Trees. To simulate the closeness of the married couple they were playing on screen, Watts and McConaughey spent a month and a half exchanging emails in character.

Watts explained:

 

“If you can’t get in a room with a person and see their eyes and take time with a conversation, writing can be a good way to connect.”

Daniel Day Lewis

A legend among method actors, Daniel Day-Lewis has won the Academy Award for Best Actor 3 times, a feat unequalled by any other actor. His first win came for 1989’s My Left Foot, his second for 2007’s There Will Be Blood and the most recent for 2012’s Lincoln.

Day-Lewis is particularly well-known for his dedication to authenticity and the extremes he is willing to go to in preparing for his roles. For Last of the Mohicans, Day-Lewis spent 6 months living alone in the Alabama wilderness only eating food he had tracked and killed himself.

He is also known for his refusal to break character on set, preferring to keep himself to himself between takes. Day-Lewis is notoriously interview-shy, but has explained in the past that he prefers staying in character as it takes less energy than slipping in and out between filming. It also allows him to focus all of his efforts on his performance.

 

Meryl Streep

No list of method acting legends would be complete without mentioning the magnificent Meryl Streep. With an astounding 19 Oscar nominations to her name, Streep is the most frequently nominated performer in Hollywood history.

Streep is also one of only 6 actors and actresses to have won more than 2 Oscars. She took the Best Actress gong for Sophie’s Choice in 1982 and The Iron Lady in 2011 and also picked up the Best Supporting Actress award for her part in 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer.

Speaking at the University of Texas, Streep explained what motivates her as an actress:

 

“The thing [that’s always] ignited my own excitement about working is to know more about somebody: What made them do this? What in God’s name went wrong?”

 

This desire to understand a character’s motivations is absolutely key to method acting as it allows you to relate the character to your own life experiences and motivations. Getting this right time and again is what has made Meryl Streep perhaps the greatest actress of her generation and one of our most valued method actors.

 

Join these Hollywood legends by learning method acting

If you want to become an elite actor like these Hollywood legends, you need to learn the Method. Our Studio is the UK’s leading provider of method acting tuition and has produced numerous successful professional method actors over the years.

Our ever-popular courses include 3-Day Method Acting Boot Camps and our One-Year Ultimate Acting Programme. We teach you everything you need to know to master the Method and become a successful professional actor. Unlike most acting courses, we also focus heavily on the business of acting, giving you the skills and resources to start finding paid acting work the moment you graduate.

To find out more, please take a look around the rest of the website and, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 

Meryl Streep is often referred to as the best actress of her generation and not without reason. In a career spanning more than four decades, she has received 19 Oscar nominations (more than any other actor or actress in history) and won 3 times, once for Best Supporting Actress and twice for Best Actress. Meryl Streep is one of those rare performers for whom the word “legend” is not an exaggeration.

This level of success did not come about by chance. Streep is a phenomenal performer much praised for her ability to completely transform herself into the characters she plays, offering deep and utterly convincing performances in a wide variety of roles. This kind of acting ability is rare indeed, but there is a method behind it and, by understanding how Meryl Streep approaches her craft, you too can begin to follow in the footsteps of the “the greatest living actress”.

 

Finding herself in her roles

Meryl Streep once said:

 

“Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.”

 

For her Oscar-winning role as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, Streep found herself identifying with Thatcher’s “position as an outsider”. Streep saw parallels between Thatcher, a grocer’s daughter from Grantham and the UK’s first female prime minister, and her own experience being one of the first female students at a previously all-male college.

This idea of finding the similarities between a character and elements in your own life is a core technique of method acting known as ‘affective memory’. Making these kinds of connections can allow you to relate to experiences that are totally different to your own life. In this way it is possible to bring a high level of emotional truth to a role, by calling up the emotions you felt during your own experience that resonate with your character’s situation.

 

Creating a physical presence

One of the most remarkable things about method actors is how they create such complete characterisations, producing performances that feel completely three-dimensional. A key part of this is developing the physical side of their character, including the way they move, hold themselves and any distinctive habitual actions or ticks they engage in.

For her Oscar-nominated role as Helen in Ironweed, Streep based her idea of the character around the musical sign of the treble clef. Streep said:

 

“It expressed for me her passion for music and her inner grace, and it gave me the sad, drooping line of her body.”

 

By visualising the character in this way, Streep was able to take an abstract concept with strong emotional associations for her (Streep is a keen musician) and use it to connect the characters internal and external life. The result is a performance with a physicality that reflects perfectly the inner life of the character, adding depth and a real sense of truth to the performance.

 

Learning confidence

Streep describes herself as being something of an introvert which may seem surprising for someone who performs for a living, but in fact many of the best method actors are quite introverted. Because method acting requires a great deal of reflection and understanding of yourself, people who are naturally inward-looking often make better method actors.

That said, acting does require confidence and this is something Meryl Streep had to learn. She uses her mother for inspiration who Streep considers to have been much more confident than herself. By imaging how her mother could have handled any given situation, Streep is able to boost her own confidence. She says:

 

“It’s a good thing, to imagine yourself doing something you think you can’t. I do that every day”.

 

This kind of visualisation technique can be extremely helpful for actors. It can help you get used to the idea of dealing with difficult situations making them easier to handle for real when the time comes.

 

Being professional

One of the most important things for any actor is being professional. Method actors are often well-regarded for their high-level of dedication and the strong work-ethic they bring to their roles. This is a result of the rigorous process that method actors go through and the fact the Method allows them to produce amazing acting on cue over and over.

Dustin Hoffman, who co-starred alongside Streep in her first Oscar-winning role praised the actress, saying:

 

”She’s extraordinarily hardworking…I think that she thinks about nothing else but what she’s doing.”

 

This gets to the essence of what makes method actors so well-regarded in the industry. They work hard and they have an incredible level of focus about their work. This is why so many actors, writers, directors and casting agents prefer working with method actors.

 

Staying humble

Streep is also well-regarded for her lack of ego. Her Into the Woods co-star Anna Kendrick, said of Streep:

 

“She is cool as a cucumber — so smart, so down to earth”

 

This humbleness is really important for being a successful method actor. Although many people imagine Hollywood stars are all hugely egotistical (and some definitely are!) the best, like Meryl Streep, always keep their egos in check. Not only does this make them easier to work with (the importance of which cannot be overstated) it also makes them better actors.

As an actor, you will often be asked to put yourself in situations which you may find embarrassing or to play characters who are deeply flawed, either physically or psychologically. To do this successfully, you need to be able to detach yourself from thoughts of your own self-image.

As Streep famously once said:

 

“I think the most liberating thing I did early on was to free myself from any concern with my looks as they pertained to my work.”

 

Learn the art of method acting like Meryl Streep

Great actors like Meryl Streep are not born with some magical natural talent. They have to study and work at developing their craft. By learning the art of method acting you too can develop the ability to bring real emotional truth to your acting and begin the journey to become a truly exceptional actor, just like Meryl Streep.

 

Our 3-Day Method Acting Boot Camps are the perfect introduction to the world of the Method while our 1-Year Ultimate Acting Programme teaches you everything you need to know about becoming a professional actor. The Ultimate Acting Programme offers a full understanding of the method acting process used by Meryl Streep as well as the majority of elite Hollywood actors. Not only this, we also teach you how to navigate the business side of the acting world, giving you the knowledge and skills to go out and begin finding paid acting work straight away.

To find out more, please take a look around the rest of the website and, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 

Know your lines and don’t bump into the furniture. – Spencer Tracy, actor.

 

Knowing your lines and remaining steady on your feet is easy for an acting veteran. If you’re starting out your acting career, however, you could have a case of blanking appear at any time. When it does, don’t worry – and don’t flee the country mid-run like Stephen Fry did in 1995. Odds are you’re not yet famous enough to pull that off.

 

Forgetting Your Lines

 

I was halfway through a three-page monologue and I just blanked. I could not have told you my name. John Mahoney, actor.

 

It’s an actor’s worst fear; it’s also inevitable. Blanking on stage happens often enough that there’s an industry slang term for it: drying. It can be caused by both under-preparing and over-preparing; learning lines is something of an art more than an exact science. Analysing why you’ve blanked in the moment isn’t possible; instead fight-or-flight takes over.

 

“You know the word you’re searching for, it’s just that you can’t remember what it is. It begins with an L. Is it an L? Or is it a P? Too late; the line is upon you, your mouth is already framing the word, and you have no option but to allow instinct to kick in.” – Michael Simkins, actor and writer.

What to Do

In nearly every performance someone will forget a line or a cue – and every actor will be that someone, at some point. One day it will be you. If you follow these steps and set the play back on course, it’s no problem at all.

• Don’t panic. You have “dried up” momentarily, but panicking will make this last much longer.
• Look up. Looking down signals to everyone that you’ve blanked; looking up, on the other hand, helps your brain to visualise.
• Let your partner know you’ve blanked. You can do this by improvising a line suitable to the situation. They can then help by picking up the scene and throwing you new lines. The whole play will come flooding back to you with the right trigger line, and the audience will never know anything was wrong.

Don’t worry about taking a moment or two to go through these motions. A good dramatic pause never hurt anyone – so rehearse your pensive stares!

 

Stage Fright

Stage fright is similar to drying, but often worse due to the build up. Clammy skin, upset stomach, shaky knees, dry mouth – symptoms like this can start affecting you long before you get on stage. Suffering from stage fright doesn’t mean you’re a poor actor: Laurence Olivier, Amanda Seyfried, and Stephen Fry have all experienced it. Olivier called it “the actor’s nightmare,” but he worked through it; and so can you.

 

“You can be afflicted at any point. That’s the scary thing. It can be really intense. You’re heart’s going 10 to the dozen. It’s a real shocker. It intensifies as you walk towards the stage – and it never actually leaves.” – John Simm, actor.

 

Don’t think you’re particularly sensitive, or singularly unfit. One medical study revealed that amount of stress actors felt on their first couple of opening nights is equal to experiencing a car crash.

What to Do

The best cure for any kind of blanking is pre-emptive. Remembering your lines and staying calm is sometimes as simple as preparing properly. If you’re new to the industry, you might be blanking frequently because you haven’t quite honed your line-learning skills.

If you’re playing a lead role in a line-heavy play such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, you might quite rightfully be worried; but we have some tips to make the line-learning process much easier.

• Read them out loud. On your first few read-throughs you should experiment with tone and delivery, and get a feel for the rhythm of the sentences.
• Early on, go for a walk while you practice. Keeping your body busy will stop it from distracting your mind, so you can focus.
• Later, work your physical acting into the lines. That way they can inform each other: if you forget what your next action is, the line that goes with it might remind you; and vice versa.
• Finally, don’t forget to memorise your cues, too!

Remembering your lines in different situations – while walking, while sitting, while in rehearsals – is vital. If you only ever run your lines one way, you’ll find it difficult to incorporate anything new. This means that any acting notes you get in the lead-up to a show could result in blanking.

 

Relaxation

Instead of fighting the adrenaline that comes with blanking, you can harness it. In method acting there’s a technique called relaxation. Performers do it before every other exercise, and throughout their careers often continue to do it before a performance. Method actors swear that relaxation puts them in a trance-like state, through which acting becomes instinctive and natural; it’s almost a form of hypnosis.

In relaxation, you sit limply in an armless chair. The aim is to release tension from the body; this is done by lifting limbs and wiggling joints until there is no stiffness remaining anywhere in the body. If you still feel some tension, try vocalisations: groaning, shouting, screaming. Something guttural or without words.

Relaxation is difficult at first, in no small way because you’re probably still overcoming any shame or embarrassment you have (experienced actors learn to relinquish such things). However, like any exercise it becomes easier with repetition. If you practice them soon after your blank moments, you’ll be able to enter the trance-like state you were in throughout rehearsals; this could jolt you back into the play.

At the end of the day there’s no secret or shortcut to preventing blanking; you just have to put in the time. Even then, you’ll probably blank at least once in your career – you’re only human, after all.

 

 

If you want to experience a relaxation class or develop a trusting, or learn more about how to build a helpful bond with your scene partners, perhaps you should consider our Ultimate Acting Programme. The next intake is October 2016 and the next set of auditions are on 31st August, so if you’re a budding star – apply now.

 

If you’ve enjoyed performances in a critically acclaimed piece of film or theatre recently, then it’s more than likely that you’ve seen method acting in action. The vast majority of successful actors are very good at applying the method to their performances, in fact, since the year the year 2000, more than 80% of winners of the ‘Best Actor’ Academy Award have won for roles in which they utilised method techniques.

The actors who have taken home the Oscar, as well as the films they starred in, are all incredibly diverse and varied. However, one thing they all have in common is they are some of the highest regarded actors of this, and any other, generation. Anyone who takes their long term goal to be a successful actor seriously will, of course, aim to become a part of the acting elite. So, if you’re aspiring to be the best actor that you can possibly be, you need to look at and emulate what the top 5% of actors are doing. This is exactly why you should be studying and applying the method if you want to become a better actor than you ever have been or even imagined you could be.

 

What is Method Acting?

If you’re not 100% sure what method acting entails or how to get started, then don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many people look at the top 5% of actors with every intention of following their lead, but don’t know how to get started. Fortunately, though, the answer is much simpler than you might have thought.

The most basic explanation of the method is that it is the “ability to find inspiration on cue.” This means that you immerse yourself in preparation for your role, so that each and every time you arrive on set you are confident and fully knowledgeable about your character. After all, there are very few professions which would allow you to show up on the job with no training or preparation, right?

By creating an in-depth life and fully rounded personality for their character, actors who apply the Method are able to develop a believable, multi-dimensional persona on screen or on stage and portray stunningly realistic performances time and time again.

 

Applying The Method

Applying the method is nowhere near as scary as some stories would have you believe. One valuable secret that could save you years of painstaking, uphill work is this; the Method has already been cultivated and created for you, it is there for the taking. You don’t need to ‘reinvent the wheel’ by coming up with a brand new concept for acting techniques. You can become a truly groundbreaking performer by using a tried and tested formula.

 

Get Inspired by the Greats

Three of the most famous examples of Oscar winning actors who have proven just how effective the method can be are Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day Lewis.

Of course we’re not suggesting that anyone who sticks steadfastly to method acting is in with a shot of becoming the next Nicholson! But no matter what field you’re in, it makes sense to look at the most successful and highly regarded players in that industry and do exactly what they do.

The 1977 musical drama, New York, New York is a perfect display of method acting by Robert De Niro. Despite never having played or even so much as picked up a saxophone in his life, De Niro was dedicated enough to hire a teacher and learn to play the instrument for his role as musician, Jimmy Doyle. The saxophone teacher was, admittedly, put through his paces by De Niro’s commitment, but this ultimately paid off and he was met with critical acclaim.

Perhaps more famously, Robert De Niro studied every single piece of film footage there was of Marlon Brando, from the 1950s onwards, for hours every day. This allowed him to take on even the most subtle of Brando’s mannerisms for his role as the young Don Corleone in The Godfather II. He portrayed his predecessor realistically without it ever coming across as an impersonation.

Similarly, Jack Nicholson has described his take on method acting:

 

“You gotta make it come from the inside. It’s all about who you are. That’s all you can really contribute. I feel autobiographical about whatever I do.”

 

He even famously spent three months living inside a mental institution to prepare for his iconic role as Randle McMurphy in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Then there is Daniel Day Lewis. Often held up as an example of method acting at its finest; There Will Be Blood is a wonderful starting point for actors to watch and learn exactly what lengths the great British actor goes to in order to delve deeply into a role.

 

The Method Can Improve Any Performance

These examples are, of course, serious actors in extremely serious pieces of film, but that doesn’t mean that The Method should be reserved for heavyweight roles. The idea that method actors are constantly delving into deep, dark emotional territory is a popular misconception. If you have a light hearted or even comedic part to play, using the method will still allow you to get into character to the best of your ability. Applying The Method can improve comic timing and make your performance as natural as possible.

Critically acclaimed comic actors such as Sacha Baron Cohen, Rowan Atkinson and Robin Williams show just how much of a difference the Method can make when applied to the funniest roles around.

 

Focus on Character

To become a member of the exclusive group of excellent actors there are a few things you will need to focus on when applying the Method. The first, and perhaps most important element for you to consider is character development. What does it mean and what is it all about?

Two of the actors mentioned earlier are perfect examples of just how important commitment to character development is to creating a sense of realism. You might think that De Niro and Nicholson took things to the extreme, but in fact, evidence has consistently shown that the more ‘obsessive compulsive’ you are in researching and rehearsing your role, the better the results will be.

This doesn’t have to be anything huge and grandiose, such as learning a whole new instrument or moving into a mental health institution. You could do small tasks which help you to feel as though you’re living a day in the life of your character; speak in their accent, make your morning cup of coffee the way they would or spend some time in the places they would go.

 

It’s All in the Details

As you learn more about the Method, you discover how to do detailed research into your character so you too can achieve this level of authenticity. A whole lot of research and practice will eventually lead to the next level of method acting, which is getting under your character’s skin. Soon you’ll find that you are so immersed in the role you are playing, that you will no longer have to think long and hard about character nuances such as facial expressions, tone of voice or hand gestures – all of these things will become second nature to you and make your performance completely real.

It is essential to keep in mind how important character detail is before taking on any role. After all, you wouldn’t expect a chef to turn up for their first day on the job without any culinary training, or a bus driver to get behind the wheel without a full knowledge of the roads. The exact same thing can be said of acting. If you want to achieve acting excellence, do the detailed research and apply the Method.

 

Keeping it Real

Although the Method is a technical skill, don’t make the mistake of thinking that only the most highly trained are capable of getting themselves under the skin of their character. One of the most important things to remember when studying and utilising method techniques is to understand how emotions work and learn how to access them at any time by identifying with experiences and memories from your own life. This is something to keep in mind and consistently refer back to while you are learning how to master the method.

One true test of your method acting ability is to try your character out on the general public. Again, this could be speaking in a certain voice or accent, or it could even be behaving in an outlandish way if you are inhibiting a particularly ‘out there’ personality.

Running your method by the public works on a few different levels. Firstly, it is yet another way to delve into the mind of your character. Getting out there into situations which are totally unscripted will test your ability to react naturally as your character would to different situations. Thinking on your feet like this is the ultimate test of your ability. This sort of improvisation is also a good way to judge your believability and see whether a completely unprepared and unbiased audience of people buy into whoever you are portraying.

 

Become a Method Actor

With all of this in mind, it’s clear that learning to apply The Method is an absolutely essential skill for anyone who is serious about achieving acting excellence.

Our Method Acting Boot Camp Weekend and the Ultimate Acting Programme can start you on your path. Get in touch today to find out more.

 

Robert De Niro is one of the best-known actors working today with a career spanning more than 50 years. He has won 2 Academy Awards, taking home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Godfather Part II and Best Actor for Raging Bull. De Niro has also picked up a further 5 Oscar nominations, including most recently for 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook.

The secret to De Niro’s success is his reliance on the Method. As a younger man he studied acting with the highly respected acting coach Stella Adler and with legendary method acting teacher Lee Strasberg. This early grounding in method acting has helped to shape De Niro’s career allowing him to become one of the most successful and respected actors of his generation.

 

Acting instinctively

De Niro is a big believer in acting instinctively. Speaking to Esquire, he said:

 

“I always tell actors when they go in for an audition: Don’t be afraid to do what your instincts tell you.”

 

When auditioning, you’re not just selling your vision of that character, you’re selling what you can do uniquely as an actor. By following your instincts, you are showing a casting director what you have to offer them. Even if your audition doesn’t match the casting person’s and the director’s vision for that part, if your performance is good, they will remember. The examples of actors going for one part and ending up being offered another are too many to recount.

Acting instinctively might sound like the opposite of method acting or like something you could do without training. Nothing could be further from the truth. Learning method acting techniques is about training your acting instincts so that when you come to perform, you are capable of allowing those instincts to take over. This leads to totally authentic, unmannered performances. Method actors do their thinking and planning beforehand so that they don’t have to work out what to do next in the middle of a performance; they just know. This is what De Niro means about following your instincts.

 

Master of subtlety

Although De Niro has given some big, bold performances in his career, one of the reasons he is so respected is for his range. An important thing to understand about method acting is, it doesn’t always mean giving big, demonstrative displays of emotion. De Niro is capable of exhibiting great subtlety in his acting and method acting is often at its most powerful when used in a more restrained fashion. As De Niro once said:

 

“It’s important not to indicate. People don’t try to show their feelings, they try to hide them.”

 

This is a key lesson to learn: just because you are using affective memory and other techniques to generate real emotions on stage or in front of a camera, that does not mean you have to let all of those feelings out. With camera work in particular, feeling an emotion and then working to repress it can create a layered and deeply real performance unachievable by other means.

 

Committed to preparation

Method acting is all about grounding your performance in the real. This is something Robert De Niro understands deeply, which is why he has gone to exceptional lengths over the years to prepare for his roles by finding real experiences to anchor them in.

For his starring role in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver, De Niro wanted to really understand what it was like to live the lifestyle of a New York cabbie. To achieve this, he went out and worked 12-hours shifts driving a real cab in New York. To play real-life boxer Jake LaMotta, De Niro spent hundreds of hours sparring with La Motta and even fought in 3 real boxing matches.

This kind of preparation is not strictly necessary for method acting as the Method teaches actors to use memories of experiences they already have. This means that you can produce an authentic performance based on a scenario you have never encountered by working out its emotional core and relating this to experiences that brought out similar emotions in yourself.

However, if you can more directly experience situations similar to the ones you are being asked to simulate, this can add an extra layer of verisimilitude. It’s also worth bearing in mind that, even if you can’t match the exact circumstances your character will be going through, you can still work out what emotions they are likely to be feeling and then look at what experiences you can seek out to stimulate the same ones.

 

No room for ego

People often remark that Robert De Niro is surprisingly humble for such a successful actor and many consider him to be quite shy. He once said:

 

“I’ve never been one of those actors who has touted myself as a fascinating human being. I had to decide early on whether I was to be an actor or a personality.”

 

This lack of ego is crucial to the method actor. Great acting involves truly becoming someone else and to do that you have to be willing to sacrifice your own ego. You can’t be thinking about whether you will look foolish or cast yourself in an unflattering light. You have to totally commit to the character and do what is right for them, not been constrained by your own self-image.

Putting your ego aside is also crucial for working effectively with the rest of the cast and crew on a production. De Niro is clear that acting is about being open to what others have to say:

 

“As an actor, it is important to be a good listener. You need to listen to what others have to say, the director, the producer, your co-actor… everyone. I try to listen to everyone and take their inputs on what I have to do.”

 

De Niro also offers really good advice about getting into acting for the right reasons:

 

“Don’t expect to be famous – do it because you really love doing it and have fun doing it.”

Learn method acting like Robert De Niro

If you aspire to be a truly great actor like Robert De Niro, you have to study method acting. The Method has been used by 80% of Oscar-winning actors this century and offers an unrivalled ability to bring emotional truth and an enviable level of professionalism to every role you play.

We offer both 3-Day Method Acting Boot Camps for those wanting to explore the world of method acting and a comprehensive 1-Year Ultimate Acting Programme. This year-long course of study covers everything needed to become a professional actor, including a full understanding of the Method and a practical insight into the business of acting, giving you the skills to start getting paid acting work right away.

To find out more, please take a look around the rest of the website and, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 

There are hundreds of self-help books that promise to transform your life. The 80/20 rule, though, is too powerful for any book. It’s free to use and nearly universally applicable. Here, we’ve applied it to the art of acting.

The rule sounds straightforward: 80% of results come from 20% of actions. While this is simple, it’s also broad. Since its inception in the 19th Century it has transformed over and over, from an economic concept to a self-help lifestyle guide.

 

Origins

When Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80% of the wealth in Italy went to only 20% of its population, he didn’t just write a change.org petition and forget about it. Instead, he saw the bigger picture: every result, no matter how huge, can be linked to only a few actions. The 80/20 rule (or Pareto Principle) is such a powerful concept that it can be applied to nearly every field – and has been!

Many people swear by the 80/20 diet, and in 1997 self-help author Richard Koch turned the notion into a lifestyle. Living the 80/20 way means finding out which 20% of your actions fulfil your passions, and then slowly cutting away the other 80% from your lifestyle.

 

The 80/20 Rule in Acting

If you’re here, your passion is probably acting – how do you apply the 80/20 rule to a career in theatre or film? Thankfully, we’ve already thought this through.

In acting, we can see the 80/20 rule as a breakdown of actions that lead to successes (e.g. booking a job or a good agent). The way we see it, you would use 20% of your training in 80% of your performances, and 80% of the work you get will come from 20% of the casting directors and agents you contact.

OK – this seems negative. Right now you might be thinking: I’m wasting 80% of my time! How is this good news?

The good news is that wasting 80% of your time is exactly how you learn not to do so later. Early on in your career, wasting 80% of your time is inevitable – how else would you learn which of your actions is in that vital 20%? To become a better actor you need to first recognise which 20% of your training you are regularly using, and which 20% of your contacts are useful. Focus on these, and file away that unused 80% of your repertoire. By narrowing down and growing your 20% of productive activities, you can eventually become 100% productive.

 

How to Recognise Your 20%

As usual, we like to focus on the positive instead of the negative. An actions diary is a good place to start: log all your actions over the course of three days: all your training, socialising, performing, working, and any other menial tasks. Look back on it afterward and check off which actions really improved your career as an actor.

Was there a social event that you made a good connection at? Was one class you took consistently more useful that the others? These actions are your 20%.

 

How to Grow Your 20%

It can be hard to immediately cease 80% of your actions – that’s most of your life! Instead, focus on growing the 20% until it encompasses your lifestyle. Job by job, audition by audition, you can slowly add an hour or so of 20% actions to your day until you are 100% productive.

One way to grow your 20% without changing your lifestyle drastically is to make a productivity checklist. This is a list of ten things that help you achieve your goals – ten actions that are in your 20%. You should aim to tick off at least three of these things every day.

Your list might look something like this:

• Go to an audition
• Rehearse or practice a scene
• Attend a class
• Go to bed early
• Wake up early
• Attend a social event
• Update social media
• Read a play
• Watch a play or film
• Update headshots/reels

You might be surprised to see social media and social events on that list, as you probably consider these “actions” to be off-duty, but the truth is quite the opposite. In a highly competitive field like acting, it’s often who you know as much as what you know that lands an actor their breakthrough role.

To an extrovert, this might sound too good to be true. We mean it, though: forging relationships with friends of friends and people who know people is one of the best ways to get your name out there.

 

The Next Level

If you know that being an actor is the most joy you could get from life, there’s a next level you can take. Make like an entrepreneur and commit to your goals by dropping everything else.

 

Getting busy is not what makes you rich.

 

Entrepreneurs say this, and its a sentiment many actors could learn from. Waitressing every night or working in an office only to act after-hours is keeping yourself too busy to succeed. To completely commit to your 20%, you might consider cutting your work hours partially or even completely.

Why spend 80% of your time colour-coding or fetching coffee? You have goals to achieve! Instead, spend your 9-5 practicing, auditioning, and networking until it pays off – and it could do very quickly.

Finally, you can use the 80/20 rule to console yourself. If you didn’t book a particular job, or an agent fell through – they were part of that 80% of life that is pointless clutter. They don’t matter anymore – you have a 20% to focus on.

If you’re committed to acting, you might be the right fit for our Ultimate Acting Programme – all guaranteed to be part of that 20% of training that pays off. If you’re unsure if acting is your all-encompassing passion, why not try a three-day introductory course instead?

Auditions for this year’s intake of the Ultimate Acting Programme are on 27th July, so if you’ve got what it takes – apply now!