Writing

A favorite quote of mine regarding technique is by the singer Lionel Richie, who said, “Let go of your training wheels and let your talent speak for itself.” This statement has two key implications: First, he didn’t say not to train. I’m a highly-trained actor myself, having studied an amalgamation of acting approaches over many years, including Meisner, Method, and personal coaching from the renowned acting teacher Harold Guskin. Most great actors have studied an acting technique, and many of the greatest actors have benefited greatly from those techniques.

The second implication is that at some point, you have to let go of the training wheels. You have to trust yourself and what you’ve absorbed and internalized. Because when you’re in a scene, you’re not thinking about technique — you’re living. And the moment you start thinking about technique, you’re no longer living. You’re managing. And managed acting is dead acting.

What I’ve found, both in my own work and in working with actors over many years, is that the most powerful moment in an actor’s development often comes not from learning something new, but from releasing something old — a belief, a habit, a safety mechanism that was once useful but has since become a cage.

Stella Adler was once asked what her biggest challenge in training actors was. She said, “Their middle-class conditioning.” Another way to say this is that they were under the influence of a “one size fits all” conditioning that valued conformity over authenticity and originality.

From early childhood, through years of schooling, and with the overarching impact of cultural conditioning, we’ve been taught to distrust our instinctive animal nature and replace it with thinking and control. The truth is, we are animals, and the degree to which our animal nature has been domesticated and suppressed is the degree to which we’ve lost the fullness of our humanity as well.

Great actors are like the wild animals we see in nature. They’re alive, instinctive, unpredictable, and incredibly intelligent. It’s not that great actors aren’t thinking when they’re acting — they’re just not living in “ideas” of what a scene should be. Actors who play the “idea” of a scene know ahead of time what’s going to happen. But how can anyone possibly know what’s going to happen until it happens? That’s what being in the moment is all about.

When you find “your way” as an actor, a tremendous confidence — without arrogance — emerges, along with self-trust and self-respect. You feel safe to be the human animal you are, and you discover numerous, previously hidden aspects of yourself, now free to be expressed in the roles you play.

You often hear people say that certain actors have great presence, that you just can’t take your eyes off them. But why do some actors have more presence than others? The answer is so simple and obvious that it’s often overlooked: they’re present. That’s it — and that’s a lot.

Life can only happen in the present moment, and life itself is pure power. In acting, you have to trust that what IS… is enough. If you don’t, you’ll make the big mistake of trying to force something to happen, playing “ideas,” and becoming a predictable actor.

Great acting is about being fully alive and present — characters that are unique and memorable from one project to the next. Think of Daniel Day-Lewis and Frances McDormand. The fact that this exceptional quality of NOT acting in their work can be filmed, watched repeatedly, and never get old speaks to the power of presence.

In my previous writing on presence, I talked about how certain actors have a remarkable presence in their work — how Marlon Brando, for instance, improvised his actions with an unexpected cat in The Godfather, and how that became one of the most iconic images in cinema. A master at being present in the moment, Brando didn’t plan it. It happened.

This is the essence of “not knowing.” Not knowing is not the absence of preparation — it is the willingness to let preparation dissolve in the moment and allow something true to emerge instead. Most actors know what’s going to happen in a scene before it happens. They’ve planned it, rehearsed the emotional beats, decided where the climax comes. And that’s precisely what kills it.

The audience doesn’t lean in for the expected. They lean in for the real. And the real only happens when the actor genuinely doesn’t know what’s coming next — because they’re actually alive, actually listening, actually responding to what’s in front of them rather than executing a plan.

Not knowing requires courage. More courage than technique ever demands. Because technique gives you something to hide behind. Not knowing leaves you fully exposed — with nothing between you and the truth of the moment. That exposure is the work.

Stanislavski had a great term for not being self-conscious as an actor. He called it being “private in public.” After all, there’s an unnatural element to acting that’s rarely mentioned: you’re being watched. While actors love being watched (otherwise they wouldn’t be actors), it can still freak out many talented people. Self-consciousness puts actors in the worst possible place: their head. The head is dead. The moment is alive.

The foundational challenge in acting is overcoming the self-consciousness every actor faces. Each of the respected techniques — Meisner, Method, Adler — contains a wealth of discovery, and the common thread among all of them is eliminating self-consciousness while providing a pathway to truthful acting.

It took me years to realize how easy it can be to be private in public — and that understanding only came when I found my natural way of working as an actor. Recently, in class, I demonstrated a powerful way to explore a character using Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story. I spent several minutes diving into the multi-dimensional character of Jerry. Using the approach I teach, I became so immersed in my exploration that I forgot the students were even in the room. This level of privacy in public is thrilling and addictive. Once you experience it, you’ll never settle for anything less.

The Art of Listening is the foundation of The Art of Not Acting. Truly listening as an actor requires being open, vulnerable, receptive and spontaneous, while embracing a state of not knowing. It demands being fully present, because real listening can only happen in the moment.

We often think of listening as simply hearing, but it is much more than that. Listening involves all of our senses and extends beyond sound. We listen with our eyes by observing behavior, both obvious and subtle. The more nuance we notice in our scene partner’s behavior, the more fun it becomes to respond. Our sense of touch can also deeply affect us as actors, whether it’s the feel of a prop imbued with personal meaning, or the physical touch of a fellow actor in a scene.

Stanislavski proclaimed, “Truth in art is truth in circumstances.” I would add that truth in art is also truth in listening and genuinely responding within those circumstances. Only through listening can you respond truthfully and authentically to what is happening in the moment. Show me a great actor, and I’ll show you a great listener.

One of the biggest pitfalls that blocks a talented actor’s ability to be present is falling into performance mode. In doing so, the truth of the moment is sacrificed for the sake of outer approval, which ultimately leaves the actor frustrated and defeated.

Every infant and child has a natural desire for their parents’ approval because it’s critical for their sense of survival. Driven by this need, many of us sacrificed our deepest animal instincts and intense feelings when our parents gave us strong messages that these parts of us were upsetting or overwhelming to them. As a result, our rejected feelings and instincts were suppressed and resisted, eventually settling into our unconscious.

Actors hit false notes when they don’t trust that what IS… is enough. Developing the inner muscle where truth matters more than approval is the foundation of authentic, powerful acting. All we have is what’s happening right now. And now. And now. Actors who dare to bask in each unknown moment become more able to access their true animal instincts, free from conditioning.