The Great Acting Blog: “How To Direct Yourself”

The Great Acting Blog: “How To Direct Yourself”

One of the biggest objections I hear from actors about producing for themselves is that they need a director to tell them how their performance is going, that they have no antennae for monitoring their progression.

You don’t need a director. The job of the director hardly existed a hundred years ago, but today, actors are saying they can’t work without one. You don’t need a director to tell you about your own work, in the same way a painter doesn’t need one when he is working on a canvas, and the same way a poet doesn’t need one when he composes a stanza. You don’t need a director.

Successful self-direction involves two things: 1. Caste-iron technique. To have total confidence in your technique, so that you know exactly what you’re doing, how to problem solve, and how to organise your performance. Without proper technique, you will almost always be reliant on an outside eye, and so never independent. 2. Self-awareness. You cannot improve and shape your work if you’re not aware of what you are doing. In rehearsal, observe yourself during the scene, then afterwards sit down and decide what needs to be improved, what can be cut or changed. Continual employment of this process, will see you give shape to your work in the same way a sculptor does his.

Be an individual creative artist, not an employee.

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