In acting class, working with two beginners, one of them asked, ‘How do you do commercial auditions?’.

One key part is to go ready to improvise the situations they give you. 

I made up a Coca-Cola ad …

Lots of characters are bored.

People get bored. You get bored. I get bored.

In some scenes the two characters are just passing time. That’s their action. Their objective is to be happy. They get happy by hearing the …

One way you can pose the question of acting for camera is to say the camera is photographing thought. 

It’s pretty good.

As always, none of these truisms are ...

Bridge thoughts are the thoughts between the lines.

They start at the end of a line and before the new line. They bridge the end to the beginning.

You first receive the impulse from something sent to you, and then you respond, and, as you inhale, different thoughts affect your ...

The former Manchester United football coach Sir Alex Ferguson says:

“Prominent in the category of principles that are as important to me now as they were 30 years ago is the certainty that good coaching relies on repetition.  Forget all the nonsense about altering training programmes to keep players happy.  The argument that they must be stimulated ...

Pinchas Zukerman, the conductor, violinist, and teacher says if you find a good teacher - stay with them.

I fully support this idea.

Learning from a different teacher is fine but jumping from class-to-class to see ...

When preparing a scene you should ask questions.

The answers aren’t the point; the point is the ‘asking of the questions’ and getting your mind active. The questions will stimulate your imagination, one of the best ...

There’s a limit to what you would let someone say about your mother.

No way will you allow your mother to be humiliated beyond a line of acceptable social humour or criticism. 

You defend …

It’s a nice image when you’re trying to affect the other actor.

How sharply can you send your point? How much bloodshed do you want to cause? 

In this moment of the scene are you going to prick your fellow actor, or are you going to ...

Try to like how you’re playing the scene, doing an audition, acting in close-up, blocking for camera.

Sounds obvious but think about it.

The wonderful acting teacher Keith Johnstone asks the question after an improv finishes …

Follow how the scenes are built.

Something is happening, maybe a spy is lying, so you change your tack and pretend to retreat, drawing in the spy.

The one thing leading to the …

Always be looking to when you can have your face away from the camera. 

Your first impulse might be to give your partner all your attention and look them in the eye.

Decide what suits and is most …

In your close-up, as you think and speak, your head movement can follow a triangular pattern.

It looks good on screen.

And it’s part of film language. We recognize the pattern of the movement from …

When you send a line it can be like sending an arrow.

You could send that arrow right through the other character and out the other side into a wall ten feet behind.

Or you could send the arrow just to their chest, letting it stick there…

Read the original authors on the subject of acting.

That way you get to have your own first impressions.

It’s key to the development of your ability to think. Observing and having your experience in a conscious way as you read, then reflecting on …

Don’t get trapped in a canyon as you work.

If the character you’re preparing is a nervous, giggling neophyte, then practising only the giggle can trap you.

Firstly, it limits exploring what it isn’t, which we know …

Practice in class is different from performing or auditioning.

Practice is where you train your mind to do your acting. Learn to train it properly. It will give rise to good habits.

Always put ...

At the Moscow Art Theatre the actors had to pretend to hear the cherry trees being cut down.

In film you have real cherry trees to watch being cut down, so ...

It’s difficult to build something up but easy to knock it down.

Just as human beings are the most precious thing, so too is the work you do as an actor. 

Cherish, guard, and defend the …

Follow the basic TV acting guidelines:

• Look near the lens

• Be still

• Don’t …