Whenever I speak to actors about what they struggle with, the main issue that crops up is knowing how to create an authentic character. Rather than focusing on the person they are to breathe life into, many actors focus on themselves; what they did wrong, whether they looked stupid, whether they got all the lines …
Getting a foot in the door seems to be getting more and more difficult as the number of people wanting to become actors rises year on year. Knowing how to win the acting game is something many aspiring actors struggle with for many reasons. It’s not as simple as applying for hundreds of castings week …
Lee Strasberg – the man who continued the work Stanislavski initially laid out for actors – and became known to many as “the method man”, discovered the 1 thing that destroys performances has nothing to do with talent. As I have been coaching actors for almost 7 years, I have witnessed the 1 thing that destroys …
As I delivered my workshop at Surviving Actors on living through the role, a fantastic question was asked by a young actress. She asked me, ‘how do I connect to a negative character?’. What she meant by this was someone who has done awful things and made bad choices that she didn’t necessarily agree with. …
Many years ago I felt angry and frustrated that my acting career was at a stand still. I applied for role after role, kept up my training (even after drama school), utilised my contacts to get work, sought advice from successful, respected actors, spent most of my days on Spotlight and CCP but none of …
The main goal for actors, after sufficient training, is to be working. This doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to book the work because we know that hearing no is the norm in the acting industry. To land the work we firstly have to get in the casting room. I used to find myself in a …
It’s a well known fact that the acting industry has more actors than jobs and we all know it takes a lot of hard work and perseverance to accomplish our acting goals. None of this is made any easier by the influx of wannabee stars infiltrating the industry, having seen the “overnight success” reality TV and the …
Knowing how to prepare for an audition is crucial for all actors whether you’re new to the industry or have been acting for many years. Some actors (myself included) often find the character a few weeks into a rehearsal process, but of course there is no formal rehearsal process for auditions and you don’t have a …
It can be difficult staying motivated when you keep hearing no. Lots of actors are sensitive (that’s what makes them great actors), but it can also work against them at times. It can be difficult not to take it personally, or not to start questioning whether there’s any point in continuing pursuing acting as a career, …
Cold reading used to TERRIFY me, in fact if I haven’t done it for a while those old terrors can start to creep back in IF I let them. Nobody’s perfect are they? Back when I first graduated from drama school I had no idea how to smash cold read auditions because everything I’d done …
