The number one obstacle to having a career in acting is usually YOU!

A hard pill to swallow, but generally true.

But it’s not your fault. You may be influenced by those around you, telling you to concentrate on a proper job, informing you that actors never get work and reminding you that you don’t even know if you have any talent.
If you want a career in acting, DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!

No one would ever do anything in life if it depended on the opinions of others, especially those with no experience in the field.

There is nothing more soul destroying than an unfulfilled goal. So, if you want a career in acting, you need to take some massive action.

First, get some acting lessons. Take some acting classes and acting courses so that you can understand where your ability is. Then you may well want to apply to an acting school or a drama school to gain professional acting training.

There are many Drama Schools in London to choose from. London tends to be the hub of actor training in the UK, although there are some Drama Schools in the major UK cities.

After you have trained, you will want to venture into the big bad world of show business.

Here, you will need to master the ‘business of acting’.

You must think of yourself as a product, and market yourself as one. Understand your unique selling points, and then contact a large list of potential buyers of your product – in this instance, they’re called Casting Directors and Agents. Show your product off. Get your buyers to see your work, so they feel comfortable with their purchase.

Then once you have a foothold in the marketplace, things get a bit easier. It’s just like starting a new business – getting it off the ground requires time, energy and investment.

But your first stop is your acting training and getting involved in good quality acting courses.

Check out my acting courses at www.briantimoneyacting.co.uk/acting-courses which is my acting school, providing high quality acting courses in London.

Best wishes

Brian Timoney

Getting into Drama School can be a difficult and, sometimes, traumatic process.

I have been on both sides of the fence. Many years ago now, I went through the London Drama Schools‘ auditions to gain entry to start my actor training. Now, I audition students for entry onto my Acting Programmes.
Here are 5 points that will help you get through the Drama School audition and get accepted.

1. Pick Appropriate Audition Speeches

   You will be required by most acting schools to learn two audition speeches. One modern and one Shakespeare. Modern means any play written in the last 100 years (roughly). An audition speech is a monologue given by a character in a play directed to another character or given by a character speaking out their own internal thoughts to themselves. The latter, Shakespeare referred to as soliloquies.
   I would recommend finding speeches said by characters of a similar age and type to you. If you are 18, it‘s easier for you to relate to, play, and be convincing to a panel, as an 18 year old character from a play. Obviously, you can widen the age range but I would veer away from characters that are much older than you.
   Also, find characters that you can relate to and who are of a similar type. It‘s best to make the process as simple and enjoyable as possible. Find characters you resonate with and enjoy playing. If they are of a similar type to you, it will be easier to produce high quality acting for the part.

2. Get Professional Coaching

   Most Drama Students take professional acting lessons and acting classes run by professional coaches to practice and perfect their audition speeches. If you decide not to do this, remember you may be up against students who have been perfecting speeches for years with professional coaches.

3. Know the Character and Play Inside Out

   You MUST know the character and play intimately. During your Drama School auditions, you may be asked questions by the audition panel on the character and the play. The panel will know many of the plays very well. They will ask you questions to make sure you are committed and to ensure you‘ve done your homework.

4. Take Re-Direction

   If they ask you to do your speech in a different way, this is called re-direction. They are doing this to see if you can do it differently when requested or if you keep repeating it the same way. You MUST take the re-direction fully. However they ask for it to be redone, don’t question it, and fulfill it as fully as possible.
   If you fail to take the direction, it will be a mark against you.

5. Don‘t Block In Improvisations

   If they ask you to improvise, just throw yourself in and don‘t block the other actors. Here is an example of ’blocking‘.

   Actor A: Hello, would you like to go for a walk?

   Actor B: No, I don‘t want to.

   Actor A: Oh, go on.

   Actor B: No, I want to be left alone.

   Actor B is blocking and that won‘t be liked by a panel.

   They are looking for people to join in, communicate, and create.

   Also, don‘t take yourself out of any group situation they put you in. If you don‘t join in or are reticent, they will think you‘re not a team player.

It would be a wise move, in advance of your acting training, to take acting courses in improvisation so you are at home with this acting technique.

Following these five points will help you gain entry into Drama School.

Best wishes

Brian Timoney

Creating great acting has always required the actor to be highly emotionally aware. Not just regarding their characters, but of themselves as individuals.

In the early 1900s there was an amazing actress called Eleonora Duse, who was arguably one of the greatest actresses that ever lived. When she was interviewed regarding her acting, she said that one of the reasons her acting continued to grow and get better was due to her ability to use her own experiences within her acting. Instead of seeing her personal life issues as distractions, she saw them as potential inspiration.

To this day, many actors struggle with this concept within their actor training. Many acting classes and acting courses tend to veer away from this area, as it is felt that it is very psychological.

This is an interesting standpoint for an industry that is built on revealing the psychology and lives of characters. Surely this requires the actor to delve into the emotional states within themselves to recreate those states for a character? This was what Duse did to create her outstanding body of work.

There is an actor training that does focus on emotional recreation – Method Acting.

Method Acting lessons focus on allowing the actor to get in touch with themselves to recreate emotion, consistently. Its foundations were borne out of Behavioural Psychology, where it was established that humans react to sensorial stimulus.

During Method Acting courses, the actor spends a lot of time reliving personal memories from their past in conjunction with their senses. For example, to recreate joy, they may work on a memory where they experienced extreme joy – and relive that event by recollecting the sounds, sights, tastes, smells and feel of the event. During acting classes, the actor carries out these acting exercises to recreate the correct emotional content, as emotion in itself can only be recreated through the senses.

In the UK, Brian Timoney Actors’ Studio is the only UK acting school or drama school in London to solely focus on this approach. The acting course is focused on recreating real, in depth, believable acting of the highest standard.

Brian Timoney recently said “It’s important for the actor to be emotionally aware. My approach to acting training is to get the actor to get in touch with this side of themselves to build their ability to express themselves without fear.”

Best wishes

Brian Timoney