How do you know when actors aren't acting?

Question

This isn't a joke, I really want to know.

No, my question isn't restristed in anyway.

Answer 1

they are not breathing and in a fancy box getting ready to be put in the ground

Answer 2

Part of the answer has to come from your definition of acting. An actor who is on stage, and is using the emotion he feels because he has just broken up with his girl friend to bring extra emotion to a scene - is he acting? Or is he acting out his own emotional state

Are you restricting the question to what happens on stage?

Method actors (a school of acting) believe that you have to experience the emotion. You have to "get into" the part.

Most actors who work in the business treat it as a craft - you cannot feel the emotion eight shows a week or you burn out very quickly. They would say the key to acting is to communicate the emotion to the audience - whether you feel it or not. So you can be performing a very dramatic very emotional scene - and inside, you are going over the list of errands you need to run before you go home. Now is that acting?

The best acting, of course, is when you believe the actor so much you forget that he is acting at all.

Answer 3

I've been around actors and the theatre for a long time. And, from my experience, this much is true:

Actors who are "acting" all the time really aren't very good actors. Without exception, the best actors I've known personally have been essentially normal, thoughtful, intelligent people, and they know when to be ON and when to chill.

Answer 4

I believe that a good actor, feels and becomes the character ... they live the character in flesh, they become somebody else ... like the movie Capote, you can feel and see the real Capote and not the actor, you forget the whole movie that you are watching an actor... is pretty amazing...that's when I feel the actor is not acting...

in the other hand a bad actor you can really tell he is acting, trying hard, like Tom Cruise ;) sorry I hope you are not his fan...

Answer 5

I feel an actor is pretty much acting all the time. It's just that sometimes you have to act like someone that you have to study first. Most of the time though your just acting like this person you feel like you are.

Answer 6

Actors Always act no matter where they are or what they are doing. For actors life is a stage and the people on it are actors. So you will never know when they are not acting unless you ask them and even then you don't know.

Answer 7

It's much the same as asking how one knows when plumbers aren't plumbing.

Acting is a job, like any other. Actors act when they're at work. Other than that, their concerns are the same as anyone else's and their lives demand the same sort of attention anyone elses lives demand.

Answer 8

When they are being themselves.

Actors tend to learn to be good comunicators/ listeners, and also learn about pursuing goals, and overcoming obstacles. If you feel this is what someone is doing in a relationship of somesort, it's just good communication. If you think they are reciting lines, and "playing" a character other than themselves, then they are probably acting.

Answer 9

almost everyone is acting all the time actor or not, putting on a show for peers, or putting on a straight face when they are really mad or upset about something... everyone is almost always acting

Answer 10

They are always acting whenever they are in the spotlight...and that's pretty much always. Here in the US, with no privacy and paparazzi everywhere...you're always on!