Beck Academy of Dramatic Art

Why do so many people want to become actors?

People often assume it's because actors enjoy attention.

I don't think that's the whole story.

I think acting offers something much more fundamental.

It offers the possibility of being seen.

Not simply looked at.
Seen.
Understood.
Recognised.

I think that's a deeply human desire.

The danger is when we confuse that desire with the profession itself.

Because wanting to be seen...

and wanting to become an exceptional actor...

are not necessarily the same thing.

One is about receiving something.

The other is about becoming someone capable of giving something.

That's a very different motivation.

I think the actors who endure are often the ones who gradually shift from asking,
"Will they see me?"
to asking,
"Can I truly understand another human being?"
That's where the craft begins.

I'm interested in your thoughts.
Why do you think so many people want to act?

Can confidence actually make you worse?

That probably sounds like a ridiculous question.

After all, we're constantly told to be more confident.

Believe in yourself.

Fake it until you make it.

Walk into the room like you belong there.

But psychology paints a much more nuanced picture.

One of the best-established concepts in psychology is self-efficacy—our belief that we can successfully perform a specific task.

Importantly, that belief doesn't simply appear because somebody encourages us.

It develops from several sources, but the strongest is generally mastery experience: repeatedly doing something, improving, and accumulating evidence that we can succeed.

That's why I think there's a danger in trying to manufacture confidence without building competence.
Imagine somebody who has enormous confidence but very little skill.

Would you want them flying your plane?

Operating on your brain?

Performing surgery?

Confidence isn't automatically a virtue.

Confidence that is grounded in competence is.

So I don't spend my time trying to make actors feel confident.

I spend my time helping them become more capable.

Because I trust something psychology has shown us for decades:
When competence grows, confidence has something real to stand on.

What do you think?
Can confidence become dangerous (as regards your mental health and wellbeing, mostly) when it exceeds competence?

Studies indicate that repeated failure is psychologically harmful (through the mechanisms of ego-threat, demoralisation and learned helplessness). So are you putting yourself in harm's way when you are impelled to take the advice of people who tell you to jump before you know how to swim?

Should actors mix acting techniques?

People often ask me whether they should combine Meisner with Method, Chubbuck with Practical Aesthetics, or bits and pieces from different acting teachers.

My answer is...

it depends.

The problem isn't mixing techniques.

The problem is mixing ideas that are built upon completely different assumptions about how human beings think, feel and behave.

If one technique tells you emotion comes from emotional memory...

and another tells you emotion emerges from behaviour...

and another tells you to focus on objectives...

you can very quickly find yourself trying to do several contradictory things at once.

The result isn't freedom.

It's confusion.

That doesn't mean techniques should never be combined.

But before we combine methods...

I think we should understand the psychology that sits underneath them.

Otherwise we're not building a coherent process.

We're collecting exercises.

I'm curious...
Do you train in more than one acting technique? Has it made your work clearer... or more confusing?

I'm going to say something that will probably challenge a few people.

I think Freud is still teaching in many acting schools.

Not literally, of course.

What I mean is that many of the assumptions that still underpin actor training were developed from psychological theories that are now more than a century old.

Meanwhile...

Psychology kept moving.

Neuroscience emerged.

Our understanding of emotion, behaviour, learning and the brain changed dramatically.

Yet actor training often continues to talk about the human mind as though very little has happened since the early twentieth century.

That doesn't mean everything that came before is wrong.
Far from it.

But if we're serious about understanding human behaviour...

shouldn't actor training continue to evolve alongside psychology?

That's the question I'm interested in.

The full BEAT episode drops next week.

Do you need drama school to become an actor?

No.

Definitely not.

But there is a significant “however”.

Over the years, I have realised that people are often asking me two completely different questions.

Some are making an intelligent, practical decision. They may be working full-time, studying at university, raising a family or unwilling to abandon financial security for a profession that offers none in return.

I understand that completely. I did not go to drama school.

But I trained rigorously for three years in the Meisner Technique—three classes a week—while studying, working in hospitality and telemarketing, and trying to maintain something resembling a life.

The route was different.

The work was not less demanding.

The other version of the question is more uncomfortable.

Sometimes, “Do I really need drama school?” means:

Can somebody give me permission to do less?

Can I avoid the years of training?

Can talent carry me?

Is there an easier route?

If that is the question, then I think you are asking the wrong one.

Because the issue is not whether you attended drama school.

The issue is whether you become good enough to compete with the actors who did.

Drama school is one route.

Private coaching, independent training and years of disciplined work may be others.

But none of those routes removes the standard.

You do not need drama school.

You do need excellence.

So perhaps the better question is:

Are you willing to put in the time and effort required to become excellent?

Why isn't emotion enough?

"Just find the emotion."
It's advice actors hear all the time.

I don't think it's enough.

Emotion matters.
But emotion doesn't exist in isolation.
It grows out of perspective.

Change the way a character experiences the world...
..and their emotions begin to change too.

One of the most encouraging things about acting is this:

If acting is the ability to shift perspective...

..then it isn't a mysterious gift.

It's a capacity.

And capacities can be developed.

That's why I believe great acting is built through training - not luck.

Two people can experience exactly the same event and respond in completely different ways.
Why?

Because they experience the world differently.

That's why I believe acting begins with perspective - not behaviour.

Behaviour is the consequence.

Perspective is the cause.