Expert: Wanda Reinholdt - 4/24/2010

Question
Hi,

I started acting last year but after some improvisation that made me feel completely uncomfortable I've started to freeze up. I find it so hard to improvise. I know I can, but something is holding me back - fear. Like, say I'm doing a scene about me being in a foreign country and I'm walking somewhere, like I worry what I will say won't be right - the facts won't be right. Does it matter that the facts won't be right? Or can I just make it up and not care?

Thanks so much

Answer
Hi there, Dan...Thanks for the comments and the ratings.  :)  I wanted to write back because you used the word truth in association with wanting to be right.  I find that interesting.  And I want to speak to that further.

On stage, as an actor, your job is to the tell the truth of what that person that you are playing believes.  You are to tell their story with conviction and with courage and to believe without a doubt in what they say and who they are.  In other words, you are to become that person for a moment in time.  You are to tell their truth.  

This is different from being right.  Being right is not their truth.  Being right is restrictive because there is no openness to possibilities other than what you think.  Telling the truth about the character you are playing requires that you are open to all in the rehearsal process to learn and see the person you are playing from all sides.

So for improv, your job is to just be in the moment and believe what you are saying with conviction.  In other words, truth does not get in your way.  Rather, it frees you.  If you are honest in each moment and open to what happens in each moment, you are free to move and to live on the stage.

I hope that helps you further...

Wanda
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Hi there, Dan...And thanks for writing.

For some, improv is some of the hardest acting that you can do.  It's because it tests the willingness to just let go and to not fear being right.  You cannot act well if you want to be right.  The two just do not go together well at all.  The reason is that it does hold you back.  It prevents you from experimenting and enjoying the dig into what the scene is about.  

So, first, be encouraged that improv can be hard.  However, it is important for you to continue these exercises learning how to not care about whether or not you are right but to just allow yourself to make up and to have fun with it.  As long as you are following the rules of the improv game, the rest is clearly open to you.  

Does that help you?

Wanda

www.reinholdtproductions.ca