The Great Acting Blog: “Don’t Act! Stop Acting!”

The Great Acting Blog: “Don’t Act! Stop Acting!”

Don’t Act! Stop acting! and like phrases, are dumb and meaningless. Infact, I think they are damaging and are part of the contemporary predilection for degrading and disrespecting actors and acting. The inference is that acting is somehow shameful, a despicable habit that the actor needs to be cleansed of.

Defenders of these phrases will say that what is really meant is that the actor’s work is false, and if that is true, then I would reply; “why not say that then.” If you say to an actor; “stop acting!” what an earth are they to do? Just stand there and stare into space?

No, the phrase “stop acting” is completely meaningless in relation to the craft of acting. It’s true purpose is to enable the speaker to appear to be superior while at the same time not know what they are talking about. For if they did know what they were talking about, they would articulate themselves more fully and offer specific practical help to the actor.

I’ll say it again: “stop acting” and it’s variants are nonsense phrases which should be ignored.

The real point here of course, and I’ve said this many times before: is that each individual actor needs to become an expert on acting for himself, then he will find it a lot easier to distinguish between those who can genuinely help him in his work and those who cannot.

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