You have practiced and heard so much about breathing.

We breathe all day long so why the focus on something normal.

My experience is that it takes a long time – a lifetime – to assimilate the best breathing practice into your acting. To make it yours.

Your goal should be to breathe as you when you’re acting. Not to be imitating ...

Acting class is a place where you can practice details of your work.

You’ll see some actors trying to be good or interesting. They aren’t practicing – they’re indicating.

Working on one little thing is enough of a reason to be practicing.

To make the point I asked the actors if we were making spaghetti sauce what ...

I’m quoting below from Walter Murch’s book In the Blink of an Eye.  I’m not going to add much, if anything, to Murch, but I’m including it as one of my Tips & Thoughts because of the specific and singular nature of his point.

A blink isn’t much.

Yet, Murch takes this act and elaborates up and out from it. See here how …

A successful acting teacher tells his actors to, ‘Be compelling.’

I don’t know what that means.

In acting class I’ll have an actor get up and wait for a bus. Then, I’ll say, ‘OK, do it again, but this time be compelling.’

The teacher and the student both have obligations.

In the actor training circles the actor-talk is generally focused on what the teacher was like and/or was it a good class.

Very seldom do the actors seriously discuss their own work and more importantly whether they fulfilled their responsibility.

Being a proper student is simply ...

Whether acting in an audition, on set, or in class, a real person is always in front of you.

So, there’s no need to pretend.

Try to catch their attention.

Really try.

It won’t be easy to attract ...

You don’t have to make any sense when you talk about your work.

Your talk should reflect whatever you are grappling with at that moment.

This doesn’t mean actors are nonsensical. No.

Directors and acting coaches need to be clear and make sense as they are running the ...