Live with Intention. Act with Intention

This is one of my favorite acting tips, revised and updated.

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Continue to learn.
Appreciate your friends.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.

Translated into The Brass Tacks of Acting:

Have an intention, a purpose, something you want.
Take a risk, make it personal and fight for that thing you really want.
Listen with your body, your heart, your soul.
Rehearse in a way that is respectful of you and your scene partner.
Play, have fun, let go.
Laugh - find the humor in the scene.
Make big choices and let go of the results.
Study acting, life, living.
Enjoy your scene partners, make them the most important person in the scene.
Follow your passion - acting or whatever it may be.
Let every audition, class and opportunity to act be your moment to express yourself.

Vague Intentions

Persuade, Convince,Realize and Understand are unspecific and unhelpful intentions. When an actor tells me that they are using one of these intentions, I instantly know what's wrong with their audition.

Think about it. How do you know if you persuaded me? How do you know you convinced me? Because you made me feel or do something.

For example, if I'm trying to persuade you to buy my car, I want you to make a decision and give me money. Now that gives me something specific to fight for and listen for. And, I know I got my intention when you give me that money. This gives you, the actor, something tangible to do in the scene.

Next time you ask yourself, "What's my intention?" and to persuade, to convince, to realize, or to understand come to mind, ask yourself, "What do I need them to feel or do, to know that I have persuaded or made them understand."

Ownership

Often actors and singers are told, "You need to own the material." Ownership comes from making the material personal to you and allowing yourself to share that personal journey with your audience.

I believe that the script is written to serve your personal expression and not the other way around. Good script analysis should tell you the character's intention and then it's your job to find out how their intention relates to your intention in the moment. When you perform, your job is to then commit to your personal intention and use the script to communicate it. Whether you say those words or sing them, this technique will make the material yours and it will make you compelling to watch.

Don't be Polite!

What I love about acting is I get to do stuff that in real life I have to censor in order to be a polite, socialized person. Many actors struggle when their good training from mom gets in the way of their scene work. When we're polite, our scenes lack conflict, drama and stakes. Believe me, I understand this one. My acting teacher always told me I was being too polite in my scene work. And now my writing coach says the same thing about my dialogue!

So when you're acting - TAKE EVERYTHING PERSONALLY! Yes! Let it in, let it hurt, let it sting, let it feel good, hear it, feel it, and respond to it -TAKE EVERYTHING PERSONALLY!

And on the other side of things: GET A REACTION OUT OF THE OTHER PERSON. Don't be polite - poke, prode, cajole, tickle, get under their skin - make the other people in the scene feel or do something now. So stop being polite - in your scene work that is!

What's the scene about?

As you know, I believe a strong intention and high stakes make for a good audition, but you can't even begin to find your intention or have high stakes if you don't know what the scene is about.

To find out what the scene is about you have to imagine yourself as the fly on the wall watching the scene. As the fly, ask yourself these questions: Where is it? What's going on? What are these people doing? What's that experience like? When you ask yourself these questions, I can guarantee you'll start picturing the scene in your mind like a movie and you'll start to recognize the experience of the scene as something you either have experienced yourself or can imagine going through.

Now you know what the scene is about and you can ask yourself, what would my character want in this situation (Intention) and you can raise the stakes. Knowing what the scene is about will increase your odds of booking the job because you are now an actor who is connected and present in the scene and you have something to do.