Expert: Taylor Sheppard - 7/27/2010

Question
Hi Taylor,
I don't know if these questions might sound a little strange, but

I was wondering: When I act, I see myself from the outside, it's like I control my motions by watching myself (does that make sense?), not usually with text though as i'm usually concentrated in my lines. And I was wondering if that was a good thing?

And another thing: How do you know if you're any good? How do you know you are doing it right?

I'm supposing that the second answer is based on what your teacher would tell you, but, how do you know it in yourself?

By the way I haven't acted too much, about a year with teaching, but I love it, and plan on keeping it going.

Thanks in advance!

Answer
Hi Karol,

Well, you are not the first actor to wonder if you're good.

One saying has it that you are not a singer, musician or actor until someone says you are. Makes sense if you want to subscribe to that idea.

I believe it in a way, but I have also learned to trust myself. That is super important as an actor. It is also important to BE.

Being the character is breathing life into it. The character is also YOU! You have to think of it as you with other qualities. That is the FUN part of acting -the part that most of us became attracted to in the first place -a chance to say and do things that we'd like to do and be just for the experience. If you don't embody the character it limps around half-alive, a freakish thing.

I can't say if you are right or wrong in feeling like your own audience, but I know the feeling. I also know it can stem from caring too much (or at all) about what the people watching are thinking.

Believe it or not, you aren't responsible for them. In fact, a German school of thought on acing had it that it was DECIDEDLY NOT the actor's job to spell it out (interpret) the emotions to the viewers at ALL!

There was a study done at a university about this. They showed slides of people's faces and told them a "backstory" about what was happening to them and what they were going through at the moment of the picture. Know what? It was a BLANK expression! They told the models to just stand there and think of nothing. What did the audience say? They totally felt what the person was going through! A death, winning a million dollars, finding they were pregnant, a long lost sibling....etc. It was because the context framed the emotion and the audience bought it because they weren't seeing a face being dishonest (TRYING to convey an emotion). Many actors thing you have to make the audience know what they are going through. Not to say that you always just stand there, only that acting is like salt- just a little is required and goes a LONG way!

An old acting fable: A director yells "cut!" and the actor says "what?" He is told to do less by the director. He goes again..."cut!" The director says: "Less!" (this is repeated several times until the actor gets frustrated and yells: "If I do any less, I won't be doing anything!" -The director says "EXACTLY!"

You need to get an internal attitude of not giving a crap. Meaning just do it and stop worrying about anything. In fact, HAVE FUN AND PLAY! A casting director made a request a while back to my agent. She said, "Please be sure to tell everyone to relax and smile. I am so tired of everyone coming in frowning and serious. It shouldn't be that grim!"

Whenever I have gone to an audition listening to that little voice saying: "You really need this! You need the money! (or) This would make your career!" -never got it. When I started just learning the lines and relaxing, playing with the lines, doing weird stuff that they would never ask for....I got called back and got the role. How sad to have to not care to win?

An actor can really easily get "up in their head" -a place you should try to get away from. In real life, when you go about your day, you don't think about how you do it, you just do it.
When you have the lines down cold you don't have to worry and that frees you up to do it..
 

Best,

Taylor