Some of the best scenes ever shot have no lines
Wild, Gravity, Cast Away. Long stretches of each carry enormous weight with nobody speaking. If the words were the substance of acting, none of those sequences could work at all.
Acting Tip: It's Not About The Lines
The dictionary definition of rote is mechanical repetition with little intelligence, which is a strange place to start building an intelligent character.
5 Things Actors Should Know About Why It Is Not About the Lines
Drawn from what is actually said on camera, so you can decide whether to spend the 2:04 watching it.
A famous line is not famous because of the line reading
Michael B. Jordan's is this your king did not come from saying it a hundred times in a bedroom, or trying it in a dozen accents. It came from the story, the circumstances, and how the character behaved in that moment.
Casting is watching for believable behavior
What they want to see is a person living in imaginary circumstances believably, because that is what shows them your humanity. Everything else in the room is a proxy for that one question.
Acting means doing
Look it up: to behave in a specified manner. The definition is about action rather than delivery. Whatever process you use has to end with you doing something, not with you having the words correct.
Rote means mechanical repetition with little intelligence
That is the actual dictionary definition, and reading it out loud is the argument. It is a poor foundation for building an intelligent, specific character, which is why the process should start with behavior instead.
Acting Craft is built by Web For Actors, who also wrote the 85 things casting directors and coaches say about auditions, which draws on videos like this one.
Full transcript (308 words)
Acting is not about the lines. It's not about the words. It's not about memorizing them perfectly. In fact, some of the most powerful moments in television and film are scenes that have no lines at all. Even look at movies like Wild with Reese Witherspoon or Sandra Bulock and George Clooney in Gravity or Tom Hanks in Castaway. Powerful movies, powerful moments, no lines. But then in the case of really famous lines such as Michael B. Jordan saying, "Is this your king?" It's not like he got that by, you know, doing jumping jacks in his bedroom and saying the line 10 times, which I know a lot of actors that do that or in a bunch of different accents or a million different ways. That's not how he got to having that great moment. That moment comes from the story and the circumstances and behaving and how he behaved in that scene. And that's what casting wants to see. They want to see you behaving, living in imaginary circumstances believably, right?
Because that shows your humanity. Now, let's go back and look at what is acting. Acting is if you look at the dictionary, it acting is doing. It's behaving in a certain in a specified manner. That's the definition. So acting is doing or behaving. Let's look at memorization. What's the de definition of that? To learn by heart. Okay. Can the heart really learn? No.
So then the next definition of memorization is to learn by wrote. What's by wrote mean? It's mechanical unthinking repetition with little intelligence. So it's not a great place to start your process of getting to be an intelligent character with unthinking mechanical repetition and little intelligence because the best place to start is with behavior and be doing. And that's what the nine questions of intentional acting do.
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