An ACTOR’S CRAFT – What Speakers need to know

In an Actors’ Studio interview, Ralph Fiennes said that in his audition for RADA he was told, not to make it happen but to let it happen. And that, that advice changed his work.

There are many ways of saying it so that it might sink in. Because when I first heard get out of your own way and leave yourself alone at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, I didn’t get it.

What does it really mean? How do you go about learning to do this?

LET IT HAPPEN. Do not make it happen.

• All your attention has to be on the person/audience you are speaking to– totally. Making eye communication – not eye contact – is what matters here. That means listening to what you are getting from your partner/audience and adjusting accordingly.

• You have to give yourself over to revealing yourself (it communicates your humanity and what you and the audience have in common).

GIVE UP ON PERFECTION – It is the enemy of GREAT.

You really have to STOP:

• Directing yourself and anticipating your actions/reactions,
• Judging yourself, watching yourself, and comparing yourself.

YOU NEED TO BE PRESENT

This can’t be stressed enough. YOU NEED TO BE VERY PRESENT – much more than you are in everyday life.

• Ask any actor or athlete; if their mind wanders even for a second from the scene or the ball or what is happening around them, if they miss a beat, their fellow actors/athletes AND THE AUDIENCE feels it too. In that instant everything is off.

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

TRUST, trust, trust yourself and your instincts, no matter how “wrong” they seem in your mind. Your judgmental mind does not belong in the scene.

• Marlon Brando in “Last Tango in Paris” laughs when his father dies. It makes complete sense when you see it. TRUST.

AND MOST IMPORTANT – Remember IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU

That’s right, it is not about you IT IS ABOUT

• the story you are telling,
• about the gift you are giving,
• and about the audience you are giving it to.

INTERESTED IN A GREAT SPEAKERS LEVEL TWO WORKSHOP?

Set up just for those people who have worked with me already.

(In a previous Great Speakers Workshop or in One-on-One sessions).

• No more than 6 people for six hours.
• $240.00 per person
• includes 1/2 hour phone consultation as well as my comments on a current speech you might be working on.