How to be a good actor?

Question

I recently did a bit of acting in 'One Flew Over The Cookos Nest" and I was crap. The only type of acting im good at is roles I can relate to (e.g teenager arguing, a miserable person ect)

Advice please? (that doesn't include taking up drama/acting lessons)

Answer 1

Anytime someone says they're willing to do anything to improve *except* take lessons, I know they're not really interested in reaching the next level anytime soon.

I'm an artist and I hear this all the time. "I want to be really good at drawing, but I don't want to take lessons. I just want someone to tell me the steps to drawing really well." It doesn't work that way.

Fine, you don't have to take lessons. You can get there without them, but it will take you a lot longer. Start by being painfully honest with yourself---what exactly was it you did, or couldn't do, in "Cuckoo's Nest" that made your performance "crap"? Acting is playing people not yourself. If you were unable to act that part, you may have the same problem even when it's a part you can "relate to". Presumably you will not be a teenager or a miserable person forever, so you will need to be able to play other roles than those.

Watch a lot of actors. Read a lot of books and plays. Maybe videotape yourself rehearsing your lines, and make yourself watch yourself afterward. Take every opportunity to perform that comes your way. That's the only advice I can give you aside from the obvious.

Answer 2

Well you said 'The only type of acting I’m good at is roles I can relate to (e.g teenager arguing, a miserable person ect)' If you want to improve you'll have to see the bigger picture and actually think about the character you are playing and understand it. Think about it do you think your favourite actor got into the business by saying ‘I’m only good at....’ You can practice mimicking people in shows like if you’re into a soap and you know a character understand it and try being them. Its really easy as soon as you stop saying ‘the only thing i’m good… at’ and practice you'll improve. But it would be worth taking up some acting clases. Even if its just a acting worshop in the school holidays. Or if your at school going to your school drama club.

Answer 3

the only way to improve your acting is to be in more plays.

And stop criticizing your own acting. If you think you are crap so will everyone else and you will never act again. It you want to be a critic, take journalism and get a job on a newpaper.

Problem is you have no idea what acting is. Like one of your answerers says, it is being a child playing at being someone else. It is fun and it is magical. I can tell you exactly what to do when you act, but without evaluation it will not help you, YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL ACTING CLASSES, Those people are correct who say you really do not want to improve it you are not willing to take classes.

Answer 4

How do you expect to get better without learning? Classes help you learn. An actor can play any role, correction a good actor. In class you learn how to breakdown a character, how to bring it to life. You need to take what are words on a page and make them real. If you don't learn what to do then you will continue going in circles, doing the same thing, making every character you play an extension of your own personality which is not what they were meant to be. They are their own people and you as an actor are supposed to breathe life into them. To do them justice for the hour and a half to 2 hours that your audience will come to know them. If you are unwilling to do that, then why bother?

Marianne

Answer 5

Actually it sounds like you are starting off really well. Starting with characters close to yourself, learning to use yourself, then expanding your range out including expanding your self experience so that when you finally take on roles that seem alien to yourself you will actually be using those parts of yourself that people don't normally see.

Work on expanding your experience of life and art. You can't give something you haven't got.

Answer 6

You remember how to play pretend, don't you? Remember when you were a kid, and you WERE a pirate, or cop, or robber, or whatever you were playing? Here's your chance to really get into it and play! Become that character. Don't hold back - be a kid and BE that character!