Tag Archive: acting training


Prepare to Act

Filed Under: build confidence
Mar.08, 2010

Post written by Dharini Woollcombe

How To Be Ready for The Next Audition

  1. Practice and train your voice.
  2. Practice and train your body.
  3. Practice and train your mind.

——–

With the recent attention on athletes I can’t help but remember an acting teacher from my past. She used to say to us that to be actors, we must train like athletes.

Athletes spend hours, days, months and years preparing for their moment in the spotlight. They do not coast on their basic abilities and raw talents. These things help them along but they are not the reason these athletes excel. Not at all. It is the athlete’s steely determination, their focus, their dedication and their tenacity that drives them to the summit of their athletic achievements. It is their commitment to practice, their commitment to being prepared that carries them to the top.

In many ways our acting world is not unlike the world of athletics. There are many easy distractions, there is the fear of failure, and the competition is always fierce.

The difference is that everything in our field is last minute and subject to change. There is no set date for the race that we run. We live in anticipation of the unknown.

When will my agent call with an audition?

When will I find out what time my audition is?

When will I find out that I got a callback?

When will I find out if I got the job?

When will my wardrobe call be?

When will my pick up time be?

When will I find out if I’m in the next episode?

When will my agent call with another audition?

And yet, we have to breathe life in to someone else’s concept, create a world out of someone else’s words, and live from our heart and soul at any given moment.

How does one prepare for these unknown moments that await us? By starting with that which is tangible: voice, body and mind.

Train your voice.

Practice your breath work.

Exercise and stretch your body.

Practice concentration and focusing the mind.

Practice. Practice. Practice. And do it Regularly.

It’s a lot to ask, I know. But it will make all the difference. When your agent calls with an audition in two days for a regular role on the new tv show in town, you will be miles ahead of the average actor. Your voice, body and confidence will be ready to go. Your mind will be able to focus on bringing the character to life. You will be prepared, confident, capable and focused. You will be ready to master your task:

The task of creating a compelling human being from the depths of your soul.

Dedicate yourself to your work. Set aside a certain amount of time each week for your practice. If you want to be an actor, then be an actor and do the work.

Don’t just wait for race day, be prepared for it.

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Humiliation: A Kick In The Arse

Filed Under: be inspired
Dec.26, 2009

Post written by Dharini Woollcombe.

How to Handle Humiliation:

  1. Allow yourself one day to sulk, lick your wounds, hide and eat your favorite treat.
  2. Go exercise and begin to break down the facts of the event – what happened, what did you do or not do to make this happen.
  3. Build yourself up and get perspective by focusing on technique, taking a class, talking to a mentor or teacher and remember that because of this time, you will do better next time.

———

Oh man. Do you know that feeling? The one where you actually wish you could drop into the floor, where you feel your body physically trying to leave the room as you attempt to keep your cool, and you hold on to some semblance of a calm expression as you feel steam coming out of your every pore. It’s an awful, sick, sick feeling. Humiliation. Perhaps the worst feeling there is.

I remember feeling the hot and sticky, ickyness of humiliation one particular day. I had just blown an audition. I tried to mumble thank yous as I walked out of the room, but my voice was thick and husky. I was humiliated and there was no one and nothing to blame, but myself.

I didn’t know what had happened. I completely lost my lines, I felt disoriented, confused, and I couldn’t hear the director, just the echo of my own voice in my head. For some reason I couldn’t find myself, I couldn’t find my feet and get grounded. I had experienced stage fright.

Stage fright? Me? After all this time, in the middle of nowhere? I called up my very first acting teacher and proceeded to bawl and blubber in to the phone. With the voice of a saint and the wisdom of years she suggested I spend some time in voice class  and get back to basics. Now this was something I had not done in a while….

It was the best advice I could have gotten. By getting back to basics, I realized how much I’d grown. I also realized that I had been taking short cuts in a way that did not support my acting work when I was under duress. Most importantly, it reminded me about process. I had begun to put so much pressure on myself to get the job that it all became about the end product, and worse, it was about trying to give the auditioners what they wanted.

This is an impossible and destructive feat.

If you don’t know what they want, and you’re trying to give them what they want….then what on earth are you doing? You’re not focused, you’re not in the moment, you’re not making strong, simple choices. You are failing. You are failing yourself and you are failing them, so get the hell off that stage and out of that audition room until you sort yourself out.

Clearly it’s time to get back to basics and revisit the foundations of your acting training.

And THAT, my friends, is what humiliation can do for you.

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