Monthly Archives May 2019

If you ever find yourself prepping for an audition and you’re having a hard time grasping the character they want, the answer is in your headshot. When you’re called in for an audition, it’s because they like your headshot. The reason they like your headshot is because they saw their character in your headshot. Whatever you and your photographer captured in your headshot, the filmmakers looked at it and saw their character. What they want you to do is walk and talk and live and breathe as the headshot version of you. Your headshot is the character. In many cases,
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Directors aren’t looking to see how well an actor fits a direction to the scene or makes the direction work with the scene. Directors are looking to see how well the actor can turn the scene into what they want it to be. If actors want to be hired and re-hired by directors, they will try the director’s direction  even if it doesn’t fit the scene. Great directors of acting know that playing against the scene creates a more three dimensional performance on camera. Here are three things that make directors want to work with actors again and again while
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Actors are taught when the other actor in a scene is speaking, they should give their focus to the other actor and let the other actor have her or his moment. In editing, we can cut to the actor listening if we want but why would we? On camera, someone just listening isn’t interesting. A character struggling with her or his own emotional experience while another character is speaking is what creates cinematic power on camera. What the camera loves more than anything is a character caught up in his or her own emotional experience. This doesn’t mean actors shouldn’t
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There are things we dislike about anyone in our lives we know well. It doesn’t mean we dislike the person. It means things the person does or says, such as habits the person has, preferences, beliefs, tastes, or qualities, we don’t like. When we meet someone for the first time, we often walk away thinking how nice and likable the person is. The better we know someone, the more we see a person’s flaws, and the more that person sees ours. If an actor doesn’t dislike anything about the character, one could argue the actor doesn’t know the character very well.
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