If you have a passion for the performing arts and have enrolled in one of the acting schools near you, expect a career that is people-centred. First you’ll need people skills to engage with casting panels. Then it’s agents, directors and fellow actors. But it’s when you get down to the work of acting that the interpersonal skills needed for teamwork come to the fore. Films and plays are, above all, team efforts and may fly or fall on the strength of the team itself.

The long and the short of it is that you’d better be a team player, at least when you’re on the job. You don’t actually have to be a ‘people person’; that’s something else. After-hours you can proclaim that you want to be alone and go batten down the hatches. But if you’re no good at teamwork, expect a rough ride, whether that’s in an actual production or in your acting courses.

Most of us think of ourselves as team players, even when we’re not. Team players are able to put their own interests second to those of the group in order to achieve a common goal. Being late for rehearsals is the sign of a poor team player. So is not learning your lines properly, because that affects the whole cast.

In fact, if any of your actions have a negative impact on the team effort, then you’re falling short as a team player. Sloppiness and inefficiency are just one way to do that.

‘Actor’ and ‘ego’ are two words that often go together, and not necessarily in a good way. Though there may be temperamental actors and divas in the industry, successful actors know that ego control is important to the quality of their performances. This applies to students taking acting courses just as much as it applies to established stars.

You may have heard people say that X is a ‘generous actor’. That usually doesn’t mean he or she is free with money. It means that X does not allow his or her personality to swamp others on stage and, literally, doesn’t hog the limelight.

Put yourself in the shoes of a casting director. He’s narrowed down a crop of promising graduates from acting schools and is down to choosing between two equally talented young actors auditioning for a role. One is a team player. Which one has got the edge?

A generous actor understands that a play or film is like a well-cooked dish. The constituents complement each other and work together to create something bigger than the sum of the parts. Too much (or too little) of the main ingredient, no matter how good it is, and the dish is ruined.

We often read media reviews that focus on actors’ individual performances. In reality, actors don’t just act. They interact. On stage or screen, actors take cues from each other and work in tandem. That’s teamwork and it’s the oil on the wheels of a good dramatic production.

As an actor, who inspires you? More importantly, what is it about Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep’s work that says to you ‘Wow! This is what great acting looks like’.

One of the great things about being an actor is that you can chalk up going to the theatre or watching movies as an extension of your acting courses. As an actor you’ll learn a great deal about your craft in acting courses in london, from your teachers and fellow actors, and from your own efforts to master roles. After hours, watching the legends of stage and screen can also be an important part of the learning process.

The thing about great acting is that it doesn’t look like acting. It’s hard to separate the actor from the character. If you ask ‘How do they do it?’ the answer may not be obvious – because the experts do it so well.

It’s worthwhile studying the techniques used by the actors whose work blows you away. You can download film scripts from the web and try playing suitable scenes yourself. Having the words in front of you may help you to identify just what the actor is adding to the scene.

That could be the emphases, tone and pacing of their verbal delivery. It could be the way they marry gesture and movement to the spoken word or the way they use the performance space. If you can get a sense of how different actors amplify and add texture to the roles they play you can use that insight to analyse and enhance your own technique.

Of course you can’t see an actor’s approach to the role and the way he or she prepares. No amount of watching films or plays will reveal how top actors achieve the task of dissolving the boundaries between their own persona and the character they are playing.

Luckily, one way to do this is an open secret, though not all acting schools teach it. Many of the most celebrated actors of our times use the techniques of method acting to prepare for a performance. One principle of method acting is that drawing on emotion-laden memories helps actors to focus and to break down those boundaries.

That results in the seamless performance that is the hallmark of the greats. If you take the time to study their performances, the actors who entertain and move you can also be role models and teachers, from whom you can learn a lot.

Few actors in film have been as successful as those trained in The Method. Why? Because from the point of view of directors, screenwriters, and the audience, method acting works because it delivers the characteristics promised by a character.

One of the screenwriter’s first steps is to write a character biography. This comes after the initial inspiration taken from the real cast of characters in the writer’s lives. By taking one trait from one person and another from someone else, a real person takes shape in their mind.

For instance, they’ll take Aunt Martha’s jealousy of younger beauties and combine it with Mum’s need to wipe off surfaces all day long even when there’s no sign of dirt anywhere. This establishes, for the writer, someone who is insecure, aging, and trying to hold onto a sense of control. In remembering Aunt Martha, the writer smells her icky-sweet perfume, and sees her crusty makeup’s mark on napkins and cups. These details provoke emotions (pity and disgust perhaps) in the writer. Method acting classes aims for a similar result, using the actor’s own emotional memories.

When the director “takes the helm” of a script, the characters take another test of believability. Directors have their own references for a role. Perhaps it’s a male friend who goes on drinking binges in response to his wife’s cheating. The director remembers his yellow fingertips from smoking cigarettes and his shaky manner. As a real person, this friend is totally believable. Solid acting training gives you just the kind of honesty that will convince the director that you’ve turned into this guy. (For the time being, of course!)

Everyone has life experiences with real people in it. It’s up to good acting schools and method acting in particular to point the way to how you can pass those “truth” tests with amazing results.

An actor bring a character out, from inside, using emotional intelligence. For the writer and director (not to mention producers and crew), the process stays trapped in their heads. An actor trained in method acting goes on a natural process of bringing personal emotional memories to serve the character’s needs.

How well the actor does this is key. It’s a lot to live up to, I know. But it’s also one challenge method acting training is equipped to meet. As the leading provider of method acting classes in London, I can help you get there.

When you get there, you’ll feel it. The director sits back, setting the script aside. All that matters now is you, the character, in action. That’s powerful. And there’s no faking it. Aunt Martha won’t go for it.

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

Most people assume that actors use their emotions. Not so. Many actors come from the ‘faking it’ school of acting. In many UK Drama Schools and Acting Schools, they actually hold acting classes and acting lessons on how to fake crying and laughing.

The technique used by many of the drama schools involves the actor using their diaphragm (the area below your stomach) to fake crying and laughing. You basically pull the diaphragm in and out rapidly to stimulate your solar plexus to hopefully produce the desired result. It is also assumed that because the two emotions come from a similar physical area, the same approach can work for both.

There is another method acting school of thought.

In Method Acting, the actor is required to stimulate, for REAL, the appropriate emotion within themselves for the scene. The human being is a complex instrument and is capable of creating emotion at will – no need for faking.

The way that this is achieved is through the senses. We experience the world through our senses. We see things, we hear things, we touch, we smell and taste things. This is how emotion can be recreated.

For example, have you ever heard a song from your past that reminded you of someone or a particular moment, and started to feel emotional? Or, have you ever been really hungry, and started to salivate when thinking about your favourite meal? This is what Method Actors call ‘sense memory’.

Method Actors have acting classes and acting lessons on how to use their own memories in conjunction with their senses to recreate emotion, which they then fuse with the imaginary character and events they are portraying.

This is extremely effective for the actor in their actor training. It also allows a more interesting journey through their acting training. The actor works through a series of predefined exercises, and builds up a bank of memories which are then used when required.

In much the same way that a plumber or joiner selects the correct tool for a particular job, the Method Actor selects the appropriate memories for a particular scene.

Acting courses should be designed to empower the actor, and give them a way of working that is both creative and progressional. For the Method Actor, the more they experience in life, the more they have to bring to their acting. It is a continual process of improvement for the actor, and all actors should continually experiment in acting classes and acting courses.

Best wishes

Brian Timoney