Drawn from what is actually said on camera, so you can decide whether to
spend the 8:23 watching it.
Acting from the neck up shows, even in a close-up
A great many actors engage only the face. The whole body is the instrument regardless of the frame size, and an unengaged one is visible to an audience that could not tell you why the shot feels flat.
Your character may not carry themselves the way you do
A dancer cannot slouch. A police officer and a cowboy move in specific ways that are not yours. Recognizing that difference is the start of the work, and it applies to far more roles than the obviously physical ones.
She has done classical ballet, jazz, tap, hip hop and African dance, and has never danced in anything. The point is learning to move and to carry yourself fluidly, which transfers to everything.
All of it teaches you to use the body deliberately. Look at what a drama school puts in its movement curriculum and build yourself a version of that program, since nobody is going to assign it to you.
An improv exercise she cites: walk around as your character, then change how you carry yourself and notice how differently people respond. Strong posture and eye contact produce one set of reactions, hunched and avoidant another.
They had thirteen weeks of boot camp, so do the work
If you are playing a Marine, the bearing was trained into them over months. Turning up without having built any of it asks the audience to accept something their eyes are telling them is false.
An impediment is a technical problem you can solve
A limp, a cane, an injury being recovered from. Professionals can help and you are also a professional. The working question is specific: why is the weight going onto this leg rather than that one.
Watching an actual dancer play a dancer is a different experience from watching someone approximate it. Catherine Zeta-Jones is her example: you believe it without your mind having to make any jumps.
Colin Farrell in The Penguin, moving nothing like Colin Farrell. Vincent D'Onofrio strapping timber to his legs for Men in Black to find an alien inside a human skin. Emma Stone in Poor Things, an adult body running on an infant's brain.
Every one of those was explored, tried, adjusted and rejected before it worked. Physical choices need rehearsal time in a way line readings do not, because the body has to learn them rather than agree to them.
Body transformation is a different subject, and health comes first
Losing or gaining weight is not what she means by physicality, which is about how you move. Productions on real budgets provide nutritionists and plans and time. Actors have done themselves lasting damage doing it alone.
Let's get physical as your character. [Music] So often actors forget that they've got an entire instrument to use, right? Your whole body. I see a lot of actors who are acting from the neck up. They're just doing this. Even even in a closeup, your whole body needs to be engaged always. And sometimes your character might carry themselves differently than you do. Quite often if I'm playing a dancer, I can't be all slouchy. If I'm playing a police officer, if I'm playing a cowboy, there are characters who are going to need to move differently than you do. getting into your body, being physically fit, limber, that doesn't mean having one specific body type or anything like that, but being able to use your instrument. I know it can sound pretentious, but it's true. This is what you're using to communicate all of those things.
So being able to use your body, taking a dance class, so important to take a dance class, even if you are never going to be dancing, it will help you learn how to move, how to be fluid, how to carry yourself. Taking a mime class, by the way, I have done all of these things. I'm not telling you to do things that I have not done. I have taken classical ballet. I have taken jazz, tap, hiphop, African dance. It's all helpful to you to use your body. I have never done any of those things on screen. A lot of times we forget, especially if you haven't been sort of classically trained. I will bring movement people into the studio sometimes so we you will learn how to use your body. You can create your own program. Look at what they're doing at drama school. Give yourself some of that.
Do weapons training, do combat training. That is also another way to be able to use your body. Think about the way your character moves. Our improv teacher, he'll do he'll make people walk around as their character and then change the way that they're carrying themselves. And it changes the way that you interact with the world. Walk around with a strong posture and see how people treat you differently as opposed to if you walk around hunched over and shy, not looking people in the eye. You're going to play somebody who's a Marine or somebody in the military. You better carry yourself like they do. They have 13 weeks of boot camp to learn how to carry themselves. You better learn that, too. And it can be fun. Let's say you have you're playing somebody who maybe has a limp or an impediment or something that changes the way that they walk.
This is something you're going to need to work on. Maybe they walk with a cane. Maybe they're getting over an injury. There are professionals that can help you. But also remember, you're the professional. You can work on this. Why is it that I put my weight on my right leg instead of my left? Watching somebody who is a who is a dancer playing a dancer is so different than watching somebody who is not a dancer. I don't want to call anybody out, but when you watch somebody like a Katherine Zeta Jones, who knows how to move and you see her, you believe it. You don't have to do any jumps in your mind. Look at an actor like Colin Frell in the television series The Penguin. The way he moves is so specific and so unlike how Colin moves through the world.
The actor Vincent Denophrio told a wonderful story about when he was doing Men in Black and trying to figure out how to move like an alien with an exoskeleton and putting stiff things on his legs, 2x4s and things so that he would change the way that he walks. Another example, Emma Stone in her Academy Award-winning role in Poor Things. The way that she's in an adult body, but moving as if she's a child, as if she's a baby, an infant. This sort of disconnect between the brain and the body. You can't just come up with that on set either. you are going to be exploring that, working, trying things, seeing what works and what doesn't work. When actors lose a lot of weight for a role, that's not really what I'm talking about. It's how you move in the world. A lot of times actors lose weight, gain weight for roles. I would always suggest that you do that with your health in mind first and foremost. A lot of actors have done a lot of damage to their bodies in doing that. But of course, when you watch somebody lose a lot of weight, we all want to know how'd they do that?
How can I do that? And then we hear that they ate a lot of protein and worked out a lot. And depending on the project, a lot of times they will help you with that. They will give you a nutritionist. They will give you a plan. They will help you with that. If it's a lower budget thing, they might cast you based partly on how you look or give you the time that you need to get into the physical shape. You're gonna play a boxer. I have a a student right now who is about to play a boxer, very famous boxer. He's got to make his physicality look like that, but he's also got to carry himself like a boxer. He's got to He doesn't have to do an imitation of the person. You need to believe that this man is a worldclass boxer, somebody who wins bouts.
the physicality of the role. Of course, if you're going to be playing somebody who is on the run, who's being chased by people who escaped, you're probably going to be thinking about what your physicality looks like. You're not going to be overweight. You might be a little lean, especially if your character is do an athlete or doing something with their body. It's very important. But even if your character isn't, your character, right, is a fashion model. Your character is going to carry themselves differently. Your character grew up somewhere else, paying attention to cultural and regional ways of interacting. Some people get much closer than people from other places. Some people get much more distant. Sometimes the way that we interact, male and female, might change based on where you are. This is all things to consider when you are working on your character.
How do I move through the world? Not just if you're playing a mermaid or a a penguin, but even for those roles that you think are very easy, I want you to consider that. So, please drop a comment. Let me know. Have you ever had to work on carrying yourself a different way? Do you want to? Well, I've given you some examples, but is there something maybe that I left out that is interesting to you or intriguing to you? And When you are ready to do what you came here for, take a class with us online or in person. And I will see you next week. She's doing the Saturday Night Live of Baby Body. [Music]
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