Real life is the best acting class, and it’s free.
The invitation
If you pay attention in ways most people don’t, real life becomes the best acting class, and it’s free. Try this: the next time you’re at a restaurant, sit near people you’d never talk to and eavesdrop.
I’ve done this countless times. Every time, I’m shocked by how many kinds of people I never meet. They talk about things I’d never discuss, in rhythms I don’t use. When you really notice, you’ll see that people communicate in ways that are foreign to you, how they move, how they sound, and what they emphasize when they speak.
It’s humbling. I’m reminded how small my world can be, and how much there is that can expand my “library of acting choices.” Moving closer to people we wouldn’t normally engage is part of what makes acting a never ending joy. Great theater, film, and TV let us rediscover the human condition over and over. As actors and audiences, we get to experience ways of being we might never encounter otherwise, and in doing so, we touch what Meisner called “those human things that are universal.”
That shrinks our experience and our ways of seeing the world, and it shrinks our acting.
Jason Bennett, The Little Bubbles You Don’t Know You Live In, original article.
Where to do it
You can do this anywhere: on a bus, the subway, in a waiting room. You can follow someone’s energy for a few minutes and just watch. You can even interview someone you’d usually ignore. People love to talk about themselves, and you will harvest monologues for years. But general observation is not enough.
Why specificity matters
Most of us are not truly observant unless we decide to train it for many hours. This is the part many actors miss. Your observational skill must become specific.
Start simple. As someone speaks and moves, notice: where tension sits (jaw, shoulders, belly); rhythm (choppy or smooth, fast or slow, heavy or light); vocabulary (what topics repeat, which never show up); feeling expression (what appears easily, what never appears at all).
There are dozens of traits to log. These externals tell a story, the story a person tells just by being who they are, moment to moment. Unique externals equal unique characterization.
Your job
We all tell stories with how we move, dress, speak, feel, and think. Your job is to choose and tell stories on purpose with body, voice, and mind. That is characterization.
Actors like to think we hang with everyone. Yet we are tribal animals. Without noticing, we surround ourselves with people like us. That shrinks our experience and our ways of seeing the world, and it shrinks our acting. It narrows the roles we will be hired to play.
Fight the bubble
Most people glide past the tiny quirks, blinks, sputters, and nuances that make a person singular. You cannot. Do this consistently: expand your circles of observation. Increase the specificity of what you notice. Build a simple way to translate observations into playable choices.
Your job is to choose and tell stories on purpose with body, voice, and mind.
Jason Bennett, The Little Bubbles You Don’t Know You Live In, original article.
Tiny experiment for today
In a public place, quietly observe one person you would never talk to. Capture one repeatable detail: a tension spot, a rhythm, a favorite word, or how their lines end (question, period, or trail off). At home, read eight neutral lines three times, changing only breath, posture, and rhythm to match that one detail. Record, label, and save. This is the start of your library.
Tools
The tools for this live in the category of acting tools called Externals. Train them, gently and often, in class at the studio. See you in class.
Connect observation and imagination with Using Dreams for Your Acting and The Ingredients of Great Acting.
