What's wrong with peasandcarrotspeasandcarrots?
Screw peas and carrots, John Lithgow describes how he and his grad-school castmates created the best on stage hub-bub this past summer in a production of King Lear.
Out came the best Shakespearean hub-bub I had ever heard in my life. It was the hearty sound of King Lear’s knights, celebrating a bracing day of deer hunting in elegant Elizabethan phrases. And every word was completely incomprehensible.
Nothing is worse than horrible non-spoken ad libbing in a show. I'm looking at you people who ruin perfectly great musicals.
Friday Movie Time - The coin don't have no say
Kelly MacDonald batting a million for me in everything. I guess Javier Bardem isn't bad either.
Nervous? Talk to yourself in the third person
From The Dish comes this study about how to talk to yourself in a stressful situation, particularly performance stress. Auditions anyone?
“Though we don’t tend to look kindly upon those who speak of themselves in the third person, the practice is not without its benefits. According to reviewers, who were blind to participants’ condition, those who’d avoided I and me in their pep talks actually appeared less nervous, and did a better job on the task at hand. Speaking to ourselves as though we are someone else, it seems, lets us distance ourselves from an overwhelmingly stressful experience.”
While it might make me feel like a loon, I'm gonna give this a try.
Robin Williams and his moves
The amazing Every Frame a Painting gives a rundown on Robin Williams' movement and why it made him a great actor.
We are often afraid of looking dumb or overacting or screwing up the camera, so we do nothing with our bodies. Robin Williams shows another way.
Bill Murray is relaxed
This has already been passed around but it is worth a second or tenth read. Bill Murray continues his assault on everything stressful.
“I think the only reason I’ve had the career life that I’ve had is that someone told me some secrets early on about living. You can do the very best you can when you’re very, very relaxed, no matter what it is or what your job is, the more relaxed you are the better you are. That’s sort of why I got into acting. I realized the more fun I had, the better I did it. And I thought, that’s a job I could be proud of. It’s changed my life learning that, and it’s made me better at what I do.”
What's the point of spending your money on a class or on headshots if you get freaked out in the doing of the work? If you do, screw Meisner/Adler/Checkov - every smart thought they have is academic if you are tense. Prioritize your sanity over everything. The good work follows from there.