Your Acting Mindset from Brian Timoney on Vimeo.

Winston Churchill once said that the US and the UK were nations divided by a common language. This could also be said of UK and US acting schools. We may seem similar to the United States but we have a lot of differences in the acting schools department.

The Russians heavily influenced the US back in the late 1800s, mainly due to a man named Konstantin Stanislavsky. Stanislavsky invented a new way of training actors to create more believable acting, which he called ‘The System’.

After his death, his work was continued by Lee Strasberg who developed what is now commonly known as ‘The Method’.

Many acting schools in America follow the workings of ‘The Method’, whereas in the UK they have, in the main, avoided it.

Why? Well, the UK historically has been more comfortable with a less emotional approach and has favoured a more technical approach to acting. “No emotion please, we are British” and the old ‘stiff upper lip’ attitudes have dominated acting schools in the UK for many years and to some extent still do. It is changing – but very slowly.

Because US acting schools followed ‘The Method’ approach, they conquered the film medium very quickly, whereas the UK focused on the stage.

The truth is that you need both aspects in an acting school. You want an acting school to train the actor to deliver emotional content but still master the technical aspects such as voice and movement.

The core aspects of acting training are acting technique, voice and movement. Personally I don’t think that some of the current training goes far enough because today’s actor needs more than the core aspects.

It’s a very competitive industry and the actor needs to know how to navigate the industry, get work and mould a career for him/herself. Many acting schools don’t pay enough attention to this.

What many acting schools need to accept is that the business of acting is an art form as well. Too often I have heard the excuse that actors are artistic therefore not business-minded. Whilst I can understand that someone of an artistic nature is not automatically predisposed to business-type activities, this does not mean the actor can’t understand and learn these aspects as a necessary part of their career development.

To be frank, most people can learn anything if they want it enough.

But often acting schools do not help the situation as they tend to reinforce the view that actors are artistic and therefore they can’t handle the business aspects.

I believe that acting schools have a major role to play in educating the actor on all aspects of the business. What we want is all-rounders; people who are brilliant artistically, who can conduct business with the industry and create outstanding success for themselves.

It is possible. I know for a fact it is. At my acting school I make this a focus of the training – and it makes a difference to how the student approaches the industry when they graduate.

In my experience, acting school teachers fall into three types.

The first is the ‘pleaser’. This kind of teacher just wants to please the student and won’t cause any waves. They don’t like having to confront and they themselves are looking for approval from the student. The problem with this is that, as a teacher, you need to confront students in order to move their ability on. Also, it is dishonest. If a student’s work is not good, they need to know or they will never improve. In fact, this type of acting school teacher is deadly to a student’s progress.

A teacher is not there to be a student’s best friend; they are there to get the student to reach their full potential – and that can mean challenging the student.

The other type of acting school teacher is the ‘dinosaur’. This is an acting school teacher who has been in an acting school for 100 years and has lost touch with the current acting industry. You come across this in some of the old drama schools. The teacher has worked for the school since 1895 and they don’t want to get rid of them because they have been there so long. They may have some insights of value on the craft but they haven’t kept apace with the current acting industry and its demands.

This is also not an ideal situation. As with any industry, it’s crucial that acting students are up-to-date about how to navigate the industry and what will be demanded of them when they finish training.

The last kind of acting school teacher is the ‘truth teller’. I would put myself in this category. This kind of teacher will tell you like it is – warts and all. They do it not to offend but to create pressure whereby the student pushes themselves to their full potential. The teacher also needs to nurture as well as confront. The student should be aware that the teacher has their best interests at heart, to ensure that when the difficult critics arise they are able to deal with them.

I guess there could be a fourth kind of acting school teacher and that is the kind that only confronts and tears a student down but doesn’t build them back up. This is counterproductive and won’t allow the student to move on. Plus, this kind of teacher probably has the student’s best interests at heart.

As with most things in life, a balance is required.

My personal bugbear with some acting school teachers is that they treat it as an ego trip whereby they talk about nothing but themselves. The process of teaching someone is not about the teacher – it is about training the student. Common sense really.

A great teacher is able to put their own ego to one side and make it about the student. A teacher is in the business of helping others and passing on their knowledge.

The interesting thing about great teachers is that they want to work with the best students and that often can be challenging for the teacher.

Despite what you may think, believe me, there is not an abundance of great students. What I mean by “great” is that they are open, eager and willing to put in the hours.

It is a two-way street. Anyone who is highly skilled at something wants to work with others who are easy to work with and have the potential to be great also.

Imagination is a key element for any actor. To people outside of the profession, imagination would play a vital role when working with special effects and though this is true, imagination is at work at all times. Method acting classes as well as other styles work with actors to develop their imagination throughout acting courses.

Method acting classes, provide actors with exercises that utilize their imagination from the start. Actors have to be able to be comfortable at pretending to be in any kind of environment, and on occasion this environment may no longer exist, or have never existed as it is a fictional futuristic one.

It is not just because of sets and environments that imagination is so crucial to the success of any actor. If an actor picks up a prop or even pretends to have an object in his hand, the actor has to convince an audience that it is real. Method acting classes, subsequently teach this aspect of the profession, and configure exercises and courses that all hone the imagination of their students.

Despite the emotional connection method actors have with themselves, as they use their own experiences to generate real emotion for their performances, if an actor cannot appear to be natural in a given environment, or if they fail to convince that there is a person on the other end of a phone call, the game is up. This is especially prevalent in stage acting, where generating and maintaining the illusion is crucial to the success of the performance.

Imagination also helps an actor connect to a character. Many of us may not know what it is like to be a King, however, method acting classes teaches the actor the elements that make a King: Great Power, followers, wisdom, motives, and desires, which in effect make the character human, enabling the actor to relate and to portray the character in the proper light. Imagination is at work here at all times, and often it works in a sublime fashion in the background, but it is always essential to an actor giving a good performance.

Arguably, imagination is the fuel for an actor, and the other techniques taught in method acting classes, are powered by it. Generating the real emotion that sets method actors apart from other actors is made possible through the actor’s imagination.

Would an actor be able to bring fourth real emotion and deliver that emotion together with their lines and appropriate gestures without imagination?

The complexities of method acting are considerable. Actors not only have to be able to connect to emotions they have experienced in the past and recreate them for their part, but they also have to be able to analyse a character, and decide how to portray that character in any given scene. Often, the imagination of the actor will govern how convincing they were in doing that. This is why method acting classes put a great emphasis on this element of the style.

There are many elements that make a method actor. Imagination is one of the most important ones.

There is a very strange thing that has happened in the acting industry around drama school training in the UK. Many acting schools have forgotten that it is a business as well as an art form. The truth is, that to be successful in the acting industry today you need to be more than just an artist. You need to be a business person too – and that’s where many drama schools fall down.

It is my belief that to achieve acting excellence you must be great at acting and great at the business of acting. Hollywood has a different approach to the acting industry; it is very driven by the business requirements first and foremost, and there may be an argument for them being more open to the artistic side.

As with most things in life, there needs to be a balance.

Going to drama school and just learning Shakespeare and Chekhov isn’t going to prepare you for the real world of acting. Most Casting Directors are casting TV roles where they need people to be real and believable – and not to act.

As an actor you have to think of yourself as a company – You Ltd.

You need to get up each day and think that your job is to get a job, and once you get the job your artistic side kicks in and we get to see your work.

I actually think that actors have a duty to sell and market themselves very well, because if they don’t we will never see their work – and all that expensive drama school training would have been a waste.

I am often dumbfounded by how badly wrong many drama schools get it. They train people in the art of the craft but don’t provide them with the tools to get food on the table.

The romantic notion of the struggling artist living in a bedsit is for the birds. There is nothing cool or romantic about it. You need to be positive and proactive out there; hustling to gain a position within the industry.

One thing is for sure. No-one will turn

up on your doorstep with a leading Hollywood role for you to play. You need to go out there and claim it; you need to be business-savvy about how to get in front of the right people.

Part of your acting training should focus heavily on this. I know that’s what I drum into my students and we go to great lengths to equip them in the right way.

Your acting training should be a great experience but it has to face you in the right direction to take on the realities of today’s industry.