‘I’m ready.’

Don’t start until you’re ready.

After ‘Action!’ you need time between their order and your beginning.

It doesn’t have to be much time, but not jumping when the gun is fired is critical. 

Always try to be on top of your work. To put yourself first. 

To be in your own time and space that suits you to start the scene. Not theirs.

It’s a question of an outlook and approach that is opposite to trying to please them, trying not to hold up time, trying to get it right.

Going in your time is qualitatively different.

This does not mean you hold up production. No. It doesn’t mean you don’t hit your mark in time or meet the dolley move or the camera push. Doing that is being professional.

It’s the mental conception that you start.

When do you go on set? When the Trainee Assistant Director comes and calls you and leads you on to set chatting all the way or when you decide to get up and leave your trailer and go in your own peace? 

See if there’s a difference.

In acting class we practice this by the actors asking, ‘Am I ready?’ before they start the scene. And when they’re ready they say, ‘I’m ready.’

If they’re not ready they say, ‘I’m not ready.’ It’s a hyper exercise highlighting only starting when you’re ready. In your own time.

We take the exercise further by having one partner challenge the other, ‘You’re not ready.’ ‘I’m not going yet.’ ‘You don’t want to start.’ ‘You’re not ready.’ ‘Yes! I’m ready’ etc.
The actors must give their answer to what they’re actually feeling – ready, not ready. 

There are a myriad of ways to use this  - the start and how you start – to explore what you are as an actor.

It is about Time and how you control it.