July 14, 2022
Hello, in this video you will learn how to get into character. That is the question. Well, actually, the character is in you. You don't get into it, it gets into you. So please write this down. That character is always me under these different given circumstances. You don't go somewhere else to become the character, the character is in your imagination. And it's also largely a projection of the audience. Right? Please write down. My wardrobe speaks before I do. In today's world, your background speaks before you do. Your choice of material speaks before you do so in this world of Zoom and it always was US folks, but the minute you come on, an impression is made, right. But it's based on what you're wearing. So as you've been watching a few of these videos, you have a take on me and my character. But what if on the next one, or the first one, I came in wearing a pink feathered headdress on rollerblades wearing nothing else, but a gold LeMay thong? And I said, Hello, everyone. I'm so happy you could come today, you would say what a character. Right? That guy's a real character. Well, I'm the same guy. Right? It's the choices I made. So your work, what is talent? What is character? It's a product of the choices you make. Stella Adler, my great teacher. And by the way, you're one degree from Stella Adler, because I studied with her, and you're over here with me. So one degree, and she studied with Stanislavski. So one degree from Mr. Stanislavski to Stella and two degrees here today. Right? She said your talent is in the choices. So it's the choices you make. And that's the character. Now, how to get into character? Start with what's the first choice, choose your shoes. Whenever possible, don't act in your own shoes. You all have some guys do this, sadly, not as many as women do. That, you know the borrow a dress, that borrow clothes, they borrow shoes for a specific event because they know the choices they make are going to make them feel a specific way. Right. And I love watching those changes happen three, four, sometimes five times or more. And you can tell how many times you change your clothes by how much you care about the event or the date you're going to go on. Right? That's really important. The shows will make you feel like you're not in your usual day to day life. So build the character from the ground up undergarments, everything, all the choices you make will affect you emotionally because it's an imaginative art and to allow the part to play you. But the characters inside you. It's not out there. You know, when we're casting folks, we always talk for a little while we go. So where were you born? Oh, so you're from Mississippi? Well, you don't sound like you're from Mississippi. Oh, well, I didn't live there very long. I left when we all- Okay, so we're going to talk for a few minutes. And then I'm going to say, well, let's read this. I want to see that person, the essence of the person I was just chatting with, with this material. Sadly, many actors go man, I have a moment to get into character. And I always feel like please don't because they take the moment and they go like that and then they go. Hello. And I'm going this is not Kabuki class, right. We're not here doing that stuff. So I want to see you through this material. You bringing this material Stanislavski. Again, the teacher of Miss Adler, she studied with him in 1934 in Paris was so fun to study with her because I sometimes referred to it as great moments with Mr. Lincoln, because suddenly she would outburst in her 80s. It was 1934, it was Paris. And Mr. Stanislavski said to me, and I'd be going whoa, it's crazy stuff. Mr. Stanislavski introduced the idea of something called the magic if. If I were born in London, if I were born in the East end of London, if the year was 1908, if I worked in you know a stable you how would I be? I, the magic I. Always put it into an I statement. Actors love to say well you know what he's feeling here and I always think this person has multiple personalities because they think there's a he. Now you can say there's a he but guess what's gonna happen? We're gonna hire him. And it won't be you because the first thing, the most important thing is to personalize the writing, to take it off the page and put it inside yourself. Right? So you don't actually get into the character, the character is inside you. So that question needs a little bit of work that way. So how much fun have we been having? Please feel free to comment below. I read every single one of them, right. Click below. How do I get into character? Let go of the words good, better, best. Replace them with choices, stronger choices, the strongest choice. Now in training and remember folks looking at videos is fantastic. I've learned how to rebuild a carburetor by watching videos. You can't learn acting solely by watching videos, right? I'm always amazed that someone will come to our class. And you know, under training, they'll have master class, the videos they watched, you know, on, you know, cable or satellite or YouTube or wherever going well, no, there's one thing to watching a class and there's another thing like I know some people that have observed Stella Adler's class when she was alive.
I got up in front of her and and took the heat, it's a very different deal. So every actor has very specific needs. I sometimes refer to myself as Tommy, the tailor. So my job is to go wow, yeah, that's really a great piece for you. And that really suits you well, and that piece has architecture and you really embraced opposites. I think you're going this way, then you go that way, which is the key to playing anything comedic, and never judged the character you're playing. Right? What we're fighting every second of our life, whether you're an actor or not, is self criticism and self judgment. It locks everything up, it creates all kinds of difficulties. intimately, it just shuts everything down. Right. So it's all about keeping the focus off yourself. That's the key to relaxation. But whenever you send self judgment coming up, we can call that the shadow, you can call it the inner enemy. I had a great teacher called it part x. Identify that and do something positive and active. Yeah. You know, I find that there are essentially two personalities when I first meet them that want to be an actor. The not so happy one is they really don't like themselves. And the idea of becoming another character is wildly attractive until they find that the only view, where you must begin the healthy choice is I want to dig into who I am and find out what my life's purpose is. Because all of us are here to find our purpose. That's really it. That's a great song from Avenue Q. If you don't know Ave Q, you got to find your purpose. That's really important advanced acting is then I'm going to take on somebody who's got a dialect, or maybe there's a physical transformation in addition to the core work, which is first finding out the essence of yourself. Something else to write down, pick up that pen. Remember, there is potential, power and purpose in that pen. All art possesses a personal, passionate, precise, political, purposeful point of view. All art possesses a personal, passionate, precise, political, provocative point of view. I like alliteration. It helps you remember it. My name isn't alliteration. Maybe that's why I like it so much. So the healthiest reason to want to do this is because your aura, your psyche is so huge it doesn't fit in a cubicle. Okay, and you want to be around other very passionate, deep feeling artistic folks like yourself, and you find your tribe. By the way two years ago was the 50th anniversary of The Cubicle. Isn't that depressing? Before that there were just rows of desks. If you look at Billy Wilder film, The Apartment, the secretarial pool was just rows of desks. You didn't even get a cubicle. Yeah. One thing I'm certain of about the human spirit doesn't fit in the cubicle. As life is dualism, there are those that feel like they're not enough. And there are those that were told they were too much, children should be seen and not heard. If you feel like you were told you were too much, come visit our class on Saturday as our guest, come to the first one. It's been called the Too Much Club. And one of my students labeled me Captain Too Much. So come on Saturday. Come on down. Click the link below. See you Saturday.