The Great Acting Blog: “The Second Mistake Rule”

The Great Acting Blog: “The Second Mistake Rule”

The Second Mistake Rule is something I picked up from watching professional sport. Basically, what happens is that when a player makes a mistake, they become eager to make up for it quickly. In their eagerness however, they end up making a second mistake rather than making-up for the first, so compounding the problem. The rule is, if you make a mistake, make sure you don’t follow that up with a second one.

Recently, I broke the Second Mistake Rule when I unintentionally insulted someone, then, in an effort to get myself back in favour, I came out with a quip which I thought would lighten the situation but it served only  to create a double-embarassment. I won’t go into detail here, but lets just say there was a painfully long and awkward silence.

Breaking the Second Mistake Rule can happen most insidiously in an audition situation. When we think we’ve read poorly, our esteem takes a knock and we try to re-inflate our value by being overly-amenable during the post-reading chit-chat:

– “We would have to stick your head under water for quite a long time. It’s essential for the scene. Would that be a problem for you?”

– “No, I don’t have a problem with that, I actually quite like having my head stuck under water, so long as it’s not under there for too long. Actually no, it doesn’t really matter, you can stick my head under water for as long you like, for as long as you need it to be under there really, it doesn’t really matter, I’m fine with it.”

So, not only have we read badly but we’ve also made ourself look like an inauthentic fool.

How not to break The Second Mistake Rule? Well, after making your first mistake, think!