10 Things Actors Should Know About Staying Creative Between Jobs
Drawn from what is actually said on camera, so you can decide whether to
spend the 6:13 watching it.
The gaps are the shape of the career
Early on there will be long stretches where you want to be working and are not. Later, if things go well, you will have to insist on downtime. Either way you are still an artist in those weeks, and the question is only what you do with them.
Museums, films, plays. Theater is often cheap at off times or on last minute tickets, and the point of watching at all is to keep filling the tank rather than only ever emptying it.
An exercise one of her actors brought back: go to a museum, pick a painting, and write yourself a monologue out of it. It works observation, character invention and writing at once, and it costs the price of admission.
Improv, playwriting, and standup, which she singles out as terrifying and therefore useful. If you are feeling stuck, the scary option is generally the one that moves something.
Knitting, singing, dancing, painting, pottery. Creativity does not stay in the compartment you put it in, and a new way of seeing something in three dimensions comes back into your acting whether you planned it or not.
Piano, guitar, flute, or whatever you played at school and abandoned. She points at the childhood question directly: what did you do as a kid that you might want to play with again.
One of her actors had to sing and dance for a character, discovered she loved the combination, and now wants to do musical theater having never been a musical theater person. That came out of ordinary character work.
Character work is something you can do in the street
Go out and about as the character. See whether anyone believes you for a whole day, particularly if there is an accent or a physicality a long way from your own. It is free, it is practice, and it is genuinely difficult.
You need an audience to work against, which is the specific reason this art form does not survive isolation well. Working on other people's projects and letting them work on yours is what turns solo time into actual practice.
You will almost never play an actor. You will play people with entire lives you have not had, and every experience you accumulate is available to you later. That is the working justification for the pottery class.
How to stay creative between jobs. [Music] If you're an actor, you're going to have a lot of time between jobs. Hopefully, eventually, you will become so busy that you will just have to insist on downtime. But especially for actors at the beginning of their career, you will have time where you're not working and you want to be. You're still an artist. You're still creating things. Of course, being in a class will help you get in your reps, will help you stay creative. But you can go to a museum, go and watch see some art, watch a movie, go to a play. A lot of times you can go see theater inexpensively during off times or last minute tickets. These things don't have to cost you a lot of money. If you're got a lot of time between jobs, you might be a little broke. You can be writing something, working on something.
I had a an actor tell me about an exercise that they did where they went to a museum and they chose a painting and wrote themselves a monologue based on it. What a wonderful exercise to do. You're working all of those muscles. You can take an improv class. Work that skill. You can take a playwriting a standup class. Oh, standup is so scary. Take a standup class. Keep doing the things to keep you engaged with your creativity. Start knitting. Try singing, dancing. There are so many art forms.
Painting. You might even discover that you love one of them and you can incorporate it into your regular actor life. Instruments. Playing an instrument. Taking up piano, guitar, flute. picking up an instrument maybe that you played when you were younger, when you were in elementary school or high school. What excites you? What did you do when you were a kid? Maybe you want to play with that again. I know so many people who have added these new creative elements. There's so many actors if you who are also painters or musicians or writers. It's little creativity can take many forms and we don't usually just compartmentamentalize it in one way.
So see what it is that interests you. I had an actor who was working on a particular character and this character required her to do some singing and do some dancing and she's loved it so much she now wants to do musical theater. She has never been a musical theater person, but combining those three things, the singing and the dancing and the acting has gotten her very excited about this. How fantastic. This all came from her doing her character work. Character work. Another way to stay creatively involved. Walk going out and about is your character. Maybe see if somebody can believe you as the character for a whole day, especially if it's got an accent or something very different. I have another video about your physicality and working on that, right? Taking a dance class, a mime class, going seeing art, participating in art, volunteering for things. It there's so many opportunities and it can get frustrating especially acting because it's difficult to do alone.
you have this relationship with an audience and then with other people you can work on a one-person show, but doing it alone, you you really need that audience feedback. So getting together with other creative people, listening and working and helping them with their things and doing yours and you will be influenced. It will only enrich and deepen your acting life. If you're going to a museum with a whole new eye. If you're going to take a class and pottery class and all of a sudden you've got a new way of looking at something in three dimensions. Maybe you want to redecorate your place. You want to paint a wall. Maybe a wall for doing self tapes. Maybe redecorate. Of course, always things that are within your budget, buying things, uh, used, going to thrift stores. A lot of actors, interestingly, have this great fashion sense and maybe developing and repurposing clothes, re creating a wardrobe for certain characters and things. Stretching those creative muscles in any creative realm will only make you a better actor.
I promise you. We very rarely will play actors. We're we're playing people typically have a whole other life experience. So every life experience that you have is useful. Is there something that I've left out? Is there something that a creative endeavor that you has really opened you up or maybe one that you're a little afraid to try? I mentioned standup. I think that's a wonderful scary new realm to try if you're feeling a little stuck or you've got some downtime. And you can also just go to a comedy show. When you are ready to do what you came here for, come and take a class with us in person if you're in Los Angeles or online if you're not. And I'll see you next week. And that's why that was all wrong.
[Music]
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