The Great Acting Blog: “Commit To The Conversation Or Remain Silent”

The Great Acting Blog: “Commit To The Conversation Or Remain Silent”

I was in a shop recently when I caught the tail end of a conversation between the manager and a sales assistant. I say conversation but this was more of a monologue by the manager. It appears that he was telling the girl to fix something but she clearly look confused by the instruction. She made numerous attempts to interject only for the manager to talk over her. She made one final effort when it appeared that the manager had finished speaking, but before she could get any words out, he said; “I don’t care! I just want it done!”, and walked off. The girl remained still and expressionless for a moment before continuing to stack items on a shelf.

It reminded me of a time many years ago when I was working on a short film, and the director was dissatisfied with the performance of our lead actress in one of the scenes. He duly gave her notes and we tried the scene again. But again he was unhappy and gave her exactly the same note. Anyway, this went on for about another half dozen takes, by which time the actress had given up trying to act the scene and merely mimicked what the director did in order to get him off her back. Yet he still was’t happy and continued to give her the same note. Eventually the director muttered bitterly something like; “that’ll have to do, we need to move on”, and so we did. To this day I can’t see what the problem was.

Articulation is the key when explaining anything, especially notes to an actor. After all, it’s the actor who has to step out and potentially make a fool of himself. If you’re going to give instruction then you have to commit to the conversation. It’s not good enough simply to say what you have to say and hope the other person is able to decipher it. You need to explain it to that other person’s satisfaction, so that they are then in a position to carry out the task described. Giving direction or instruction in any walk of life should never be blase because you are in a position to affect the listener enormously (they want to please and do the best job they can), the listener should be handled with care. If you cannot pay them the respect they deserve by doing things properly, then you should remain silent.

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