What Makes an Acting Class Right for You?

Choosing to engage in a relationship with an acting class/coach is like dating. You’re entering into a potentially long-term relationship that must be mutually beneficial, healthy, and free of mental and emotional abuse. The No. 1 factor when considering joining is the results of the work: launched careers, booked roles, awards, nominations, etc.

Class sizes must be small—I describe my classes as “private coaching in a class setting.” Because our classes are small, our actors get up and work every single week on a new piece until they have an undeniable acting breakthrough, or else they don’t sit down.

Do not join a class where you are forced to work with a scene partner. When actors are required to partner up, it means the teachers can pack the class like sardines. What sucks about this imposed dynamic is the inevitability that your partner doesn’t take it seriously. Why should you be shit out of luck just because your partner wasn’t prepared?

With seven clients landing series regular roles this year as a direct result of our work together, we believe classes and results must go hand in hand. 

This article was originally posted on Backstage

How to Use Confidence to Book the Role

There’s a wealth of literature out there on how to beat audition nerves, along with a ton of anecdotal advice passed along from actor to actor. There’s a good reason for this: Auditions are a huge obstacle/opportunity in the high-stakes game of industry success, and actors need to be able to use them as a tool for launching their careers. Actors get this. They get how much is riding not only on their ability to book, but on their ability to be memorable and to leave a mark. 

Rule No.1 of the audition: Stop trying to guess what they are looking for. Assume you are who they’re looking for and bring yourself to the piece with a specific and fun choice. 

One major element which helps to create an internal environment of audition anxiety is the irrational desire to be perfect—to be what “they want” or what “they are looking for.” This is so futile because quite often the producing team will have only a vague idea of what they’re looking for. Thus, in trying to figure out if you are what “they want,” you’re trying to answer a question to which they don’t even know the answer.

Your job has a basic role: Like a hired assassin whose one job is to pull the trigger, your one job is to make a goddamn choice. In trying to guess “what they’re looking for” you set yourself up for imminent failure and you prevent any sort of artistic development from occurring. By making a fun, brave, deeply emotional, and impactful choice, you force yourself to leap into the red mist of dangerous change-effecting acting. I’m not promising that everything will be OK if you do this (and anyone who does is a liar). What I am promising is that you’ll be taking a worthwhile step in your own evolution as an artist. You can’t control the outcome, but what you can control is the fact that you’ll be selling your life and your time at a higher price than the sad, flimsy alternative of trying to fit into some preconceived notion of what is “right.” With 85 clients booked in major film and TV roles (including six series leads) in the last year, I help actors make the truly courageous choices that ignite their performances with attractive confidence so they can go into the room and win the role.

Furthermore, the mental gymnastics of trying to be what the producers are “looking for” puts you in a disempowered position as an actor—no wonder it creates such audition nerves. The moment you cross the threshold of the audition room you need to emanate the platinum light of utter confidence. That is simply not going to happen if you are in the mindset of, “Gosh, I hope this is right” or “Golly, I’m going to try and be as perfect as possible.” You need to walk into the room lit up with the attitude, “I’m the answer that you’re looking for.” If you can’t walk into an audition room and truly own that point of view, then you need to do some very real soul-searching before you accept another audition. 

Creating physical confidence within your own body leads to mental and emotional confidence. One of my students likes to say the words, “You’re welcome, mother f**kers” to herself before she enters the room. These words, in conjunction with her consistent success, previous failures, and accumulated auditioning hours, have helped her to always audition with confidence. This is so important because, quite often, the actual audition is preceded with the “conversational audition” where the producing team attempts to “get a sense of the person” via chitchat. If you’re not projecting confidence, or if you’re trying to be the person that you think they are “probably” looking for, you’re not setting yourself up to win. You’re helping to create a truly tepid scenario where you become as memorable and desirable as a commercial for something like “Ted’s Furniture Warehouse.” 

I’m not saying that any of this stuff is easy, but if you’re truly serious about launching your career and reaching your Oscar potential on set, you need to have the willingness to cast aside any notion of what the producers want. Have the inner bravery to decide that you’re what they want and allow this adage to jumpstart your entrance into the audition room with genuine charismatic confidence.

This article was originally posted on Backstage

A Must-Read Book for Actors

David Mamet’s “True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor” is essential reading for any actor navigating the jungle of acting training.

Mamet’s book is indispensable, as it exposes the dirty underbelly of this industry by calling nonsense “techniques” out for being undoable, running actors through hoops, stealing their money, and offering little in the way of practicable, or actionable advice.

Mamet exposes the fact that character is an illusion created by the personality of the actor and the circumstances within the writing. For him, “There is no character. There are just lines on the page.” This concept is at the core of my work with actors—I help them to use their singular personalities to book the role and reach their Oscar potential on set. 

This article was originally posted on Backstage

6 Ways to Get Noticed Faster

I’m going to move to NYC/L.A. and I’m going to get an agent and sign up for an acting class with a reputable teacher. I’ll audition around town for a couple years and I’ll eventually land my big break in a major film or well-received indie or I’ll book a series regular role on a pilot that gets picked up. 

Great game plan. 

If this were, of course, 1996. 

This is a decent model for success for an actor in New York or L.A. approximately 20 years ago. 

Far too many actors are still trying to work this model: agent, audition, booking. 

And sure it does work. Commercially, I know a handful of actors who excel at it, don’t have day jobs, and regularly add to their retirement plans. 

Theatrically, I know five out of every 100 for whom this model is working. Meaning for every 100 actors I know, I know five who are steadily adding to their résumés, their bank accounts, and their general public popularity via the method of agent, audition, book role. 

This is 2015. The entertainment industry has changed. You need to be the one who wakes up at dawn each morning with a chisel and a cup of coffee, determined to carve one out for yourself. 

All that being said, below are six ways to get noticed faster.

1. Being pleasantly persistent and not waiting around. Most actors lack follow-through. Actors know they need to send follow-up emails to industry professionals who can help them move forward in this long-ass shit-shoveling show known as forging a career. But they don’t. Call it fear of rejection, call it laziness—whatever. If you start following through on every connection you’ve made consistently, I guarantee you’ll see results over time. 

2. Confidence. “It’s this way.” Have you ever followed a complete stranger’s directions, simply because they seemed sure of themself? You need to have the conviction of the random guy on the corner that says the marina is that way, even though there is no evidence indicating one way or the other. I help actors adopt a body attitude of attractive confidence to go into the audition room andwin the role.

3. Patience. Stop demanding instant results. If you start getting down on yourself that you’re not moving forward at a fast enough rate, you’re going to psych yourself out—and become victim to many of the elements that actors fall prey to: depression, low self-esteem, self-doubt, and aggrandizement of “safe” professions. (Maybe I should study for the LSAT?)

4. Stop being afraid to look like an asshole! I’ve seen so many safe performances, I feel like someone should pin a medal on me. Such performances often stem from the actor’s irrational desire to determine what casting or producers are looking for, and thus emulate that. The result is boring—so boring I feel like the actor should have to pay a fine. By letting out your inner weirdness, you make your performance a jillion times more interesting. 

5. Help a sister out. Give. Offer to read someone’s script and provide feedback. Go to someone’s table read. Be a PA on a friend’s short film. Give your acting class friend a referral to your agent if you can. In helping your colleagues out in these ways, you’re building up your ranks of support and creating a wealth of good karma that’s going to benefit you later. 

6. Create your own projects. This piece of advice is probably the most essential, and the one that actors protest against the most. But I’m here to act. I don’t/can’t/won’t write. OK, fine, then hire someone who can. Align yourself with talented writers and cinematographers who have the skills you don’t in order to create content that will get you noticed faster than any co-starring role can. 

This article was originally posted on Backstage

A Must-Watch TV Performance

I would highly encourage aspiring actors to watch the work of Mark Duplass. Duplass is the creator and star of the HBO series “Togetherness”—a show that looks at human relationships, expectations, dreams, and realities with honesty and humor. Duplass, along with a cast of capable supporting actors, navigate the challenges and general b.s. of life, families, and relationships with a truly nuanced wit and candor.

Duplass is also an important figure to follow because he condones a very proactive and realistic method of achieving industry success. Using his career as an example, Duplass empowers young creatives to produce projects—with almost non-existent budgets—that have the power to ignite their careers. Actors see more results when they generate projects themselves, rather than waiting for work to fall into their laps. If you can’t write, find a friend who can. In my work with actors, I help them to book more roles and launch their careers—on their own terms! Duplass is a testament to the powers of teamwork and self-created momentum.

This article was originally posted on Backstage

Why the Best CDs Don’t Want You to Please Them

Anyone who’s been part of my readership for even a few months knows that I constantly acknowledge that this business is hard for everyone. Working actors have to compete against formidable competition, while up-and-coming actors have to fight against the masses to get noticed. Staff members of post-production houses work 14-hour days or more. Shows are given the greenlit and halted liked the ebb and flow of the tides. Movies bomb, production companies are laughed at, and careers end based on opening weekend numbers. Casting directors are soldiers in this business, just like everyone else, and their jobs are truly difficult. 

You’re Not Here to Be a Pleaser
I make my living by empowering actors. So do certain casting directors. As much as I have dedicated my life to this work, it frustrates me when I see talented actors engaging in self-sabotaging actions that thwart their progress and derail their careers. These self-destructive behaviors include coming to class unprepared, making safe/derivative choices, or acting like their agents hold the keys to career success.

I can only imagine that casting directors, being the creative and eclectic group of individuals that they are, would have their same amount of frustrations with actors and their own pet peeves about the auditioning process in general. Just as some acting coaches don’t express their frustrations well (barking at actors or demeaning them), neither do casting directors.

But the No. 1 rule of the audition is always stop trying to guess what they are looking for, assume you are who they’re looking for, and bring yourself to the piece with a specific and fun choice. 

Aside from getting in and out of a room gracefully and making fun and specific choices, your focus should never be to “please” the casting director—or the director, or even the producer for that matter. Your job is to demonstrate through your brave choices, courage, ingenuity, and professionalism that you are the fucking solution. 

Casting directors are discerning gatekeepers, and many of them exude an artistry in their jobs that is obscenely overlooked in the industry today. While they can influence the final casting decision, they are not the ones who make it—the producers, writers, and directors are. Forging relationships with these individuals is equally important throughout your career as they are the ones who can actually give you a job.  

Casting Directors with Acting Studios
When it comes to casting directors with acting studios, this is indeed a balancing act of sorts. On the one hand, many casting directors are passionate about acting and want to help actors perform better in the room and share their knowledge. On the other hand, there is undeniably a slippery slope at work, as favoritism for being called in (or even cast) could be given to students of the casting director (which happens), and that poisons the merit-based well of “the best actor gets the job,” and creates an actor mentality that they have to kowtow to this casting director, or essentially pay for class as an indirect way to pay to get auditions or book work. 

The bottom line is: Great casting directors want great performances, not to have their asses kissed.

Forge New Relationships
Instead of trying to ingratiate yourself to industry professionals who are limited in the ways that they can advance your career, why not reach out to directors, writers, and producers and maintain relationships with them? Not only do professionals, like writers, not receive enough recognition, they are also likely to be more open to meeting actors and building relationships with them, as they’re not so besieged by actors trying to get their attention all the time. The same goes for indie directors. Making an effort to meet indie directors whose careers are on an upward trajectory is a wise idea: They want to meet new faces and they won’t have the hang-ups and barriers present that other industry players may have.

In my career coaching program, I help actors launch their careers—on their own terms—by building and maintaining game-changing relationships with major directors, writers, and producers.

Casting directors are an important alliance to have, but they’re not the “jackpot” that many new actors make them out to be. Finding off-the-beaten-track methods for opening industry doors is possibly the best way to get ahead in this business. 

This article was originally posted on Backstage