Category: Videos

Early in 2011, Matthew Harrison hosted a series of seminars, “The Craft of Acting” over the course of 3 days. These videos are from that series. They are live, uncensored, and edited only for time limitations. Perspectives are challenged, myths about acting are debunked, and The Craft of Acting is made practical.


What do you do when you don’t have the whole story?

Here’s the lat­est video in the Craft of Act­ing Series. A seminar-​member asks the obvi­ous ques­tion: “What do you do in an audi­tion sit­u­a­tion when you don’t have the whole story?” Faced with incom­plete infor­ma­tion, and the pres­sure of deliv­er­ing in the audi­tion, actors are tempted to impose a ‘Choice’ on the story. This is a dan­ger­ous line to walk. It tends to lead away from the story and con­se­quently the true actions of the char­ac­ter, and into your own intellectually-​based, under-​informed creations.

As Matthew explains here, this is not the ideal way to approach that sit­u­a­tion. A work­ing mas­ter­ful under­stand­ing of the laws of STRUCTURE will guide you to story-​based dis­cov­er­ies, define the actions of your char­ac­ter, and lead the way for your true essence to do the work, offer­ing cast­ing a true sense of you as the character.which, after all, is the POINT of the audition!

Char­ac­ter Rhythm

It’s easy to fall into an unre­al­is­tic rhythm with other actors, los­ing your character’s unique per­sonal rhythm. In real life, we don’t tend to do this tho. Matthew describes a tech­nique he uses to avoid this pitfall.

Hid­ing Behind Character

Char­ac­ter’ can often become a hid­ing place. A dis­trac­tion from the actual task at hand. Every­thing you need to know about the char­ac­ter is in the text. Do the work to dis­cover it.

The Jack Spar­row Effect

Audi­ences con­fuse and reward “Char­ac­ter­i­za­tion” for “Char­ac­ter”. We often to real­ize that the high­est com­pli­ment an actor can get is “but I only ever see him/​her doing it”. It’s the human­ity behind the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion that makes Johnny Depp’s “Jack Spar­row” the best loved “Char­ac­ter” in recent history.

Char­ac­ter is ACTION

We can tend to con­fuse and com­pli­cate the cre­ation of char­ac­ter. Things like ‘back story’ are only rel­e­vant as they serve to clar­ify the actions. The are NOT THE POINT. Char­ac­ter is ACTION.

Play the Actions

We’re so tempted to over com­pli­cate things. Once you’ve done all the home­work, it really boils down to sim­ply play­ing the actions of the char­ac­ter. Don’t worry about what the audi­ence does/doesn’t know, don’t be tempted to layer in infor­ma­tion that the story and audi­ence itself will take care of. just play the actions!

I Would Never Do That

Most of what you do as an actor should be out of your per­sonal com­fort zone. when it’s not, the work is bor­ing. early actors use ‘i would never do that’ as an excuse, vet­eran actors use ‘i would never do that’ as a rally cry!

Images & Self Knowledge

You bet­ter know what every­thing in the script means to the char­ac­ter and know what it means to you or the audi­ence will know that you don’t. Find your IMAGES. They’re both the process and the path to self knowledge.

Mem­o­riza­tion Technique

Line Mem­o­riza­tion is focus exer­cise. Not to treat it as such is to ‘mem­o­rize your way into a line read’ which is to ‘work your way out of the scene and into a pre­de­ter­mined choice’.

Speak Before You Think

Think­ing gets in the way of doing. you must get your think­ing out of the way. here’s a review on how your brain actu­ally func­tions, and where the ego actu­ally comes from. the way to get the ‘I’ out of the way is through process and work work work work work.

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