The Great Acting Blog: “Unlocking Your Creativity”

The Great Acting Blog: “Unlocking Your Creativity”

Concrete acting technique not only breeds confidence, it is also the catalyst for the actor’s creativity. The script is not the catalyst, nor is the director, it is technique.

Technique helps the actor to take his attention off himself and focus it on something more compelling. Worrying about summoning emotions or doing a character is actually a hinderance because they create self-consciousness which in turn dries up creativity. The technique I am referring to is that of doing actions, whereby the actor converts the fiction of the script into a concretely doable action.

For example, I was playing character A in the mini-scene below, I might give myself the action, “to tell off a fool” (remember, there is no perfect action, you might choose a slightly different one, the one which is interesting to you and in line with the scene’s intentions).

Going into the scene I would focus my mind on my action and then do it, responding in the moment to whatever the actor playing character B throws at me.  The point is, because I am concentrating not on myself but on my action, creative energy flows freely. Whatever emotion there is, will be produced organically as a side-effect of my attempts to do the action.

Technique unlocks our creativity.

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