Student Filmmakers - June 2008 - (Page 18) Directing Helping Your Actors Overcome Their Fears of the Audience ‘Top Key Principle’ on Working with Actors Revealed by John Badham A jolt of panic rises in even the most experienced actor when he starts to perform in front of other people, even if it is just a rehearsal. He is putting all his talent and self-image on the line and is probably terrified that his audience may not buy into what he is doing. What if the crew hates it? It would be a personal rejection of the actor. The more he uses his own psyche to build the character, the more vulnerable he becomes. There is one key principle about working with actors. It is inviolate. Actors must feel they are in a place where they are totally safe. Your set needs to be a place where actors can expose their deepest emotions and feel support on their creative journey. You must treat them with love and support if they are to do their best work. And remember, the egos of the biggest stars are just as fragile as a less famous actor. Certainly it is extremely important that the actor get beyond any fears he may have of his audience now and in the future. As a director, there is an easy way to offer constructive help to this sensitive process. Make your rehearsal space a playground with a purpose. When all the muscles are bound up, creativity is bound up. If an actor can get past his fears of the audience, he can free his emotions and his instrument and liberate a true performance. The next time you are in a library or bookstore pick up any book on acting technique. Chapter One is usually about relaxation and Chapter Two is about imagination. These are ridiculously simple ideas, right? A student looking at that acting book in the bookstore will, without fail, flip past these first two chapters to get to the real secrets of acting. Well, guess what? The real secrets were back in Chapters One and Two. It is only through mastering relaxation and imagination that the actor can begin to use any of the other techniques that the book is conveying. Without the freedom that relaxation gives to the mind, imagination cannot flourish. Emotional memories cannot flow. Physical qualities such as voice and movement are strangled and stiff. If imagination is dormant the characters that emerge will be stale, clichéd, uninteresting, boring and flat. Acting is all about playfulness, openness. This is why we directors need to create a comfort zone for our actors where they are free to create without fear of failure. Do that and their imagination can work and the talent flows. Anne Bancroft told me, “Relaxation is the key to acting. Most actors will relax if you tell them they are the best thing on God’s earth.” Her line exhibits her wonderful sense of humor, but also underlines how important it is for the director to be able to get his actors in a creative space. Our job as directors is to guide this 18 studentfilmmakers June 2008
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