The Best Piece of Acting Advice I’ve Received Recently

As actors who continuously seek out growth and learning, there tends to be a lot of parsing through opinions and advice to find what really works for you. Once in a while, I receive a note that stops me in my tracks…all of a sudden has me shifting my whole approach and feeling reconnected with my spirit.

I was given a very straightforward piece of advice from my acting teacher, some thing that caught me off-guard. We were practicing Meisner repetition exercises and I, like my classmates, was being a bit too nice: “throwing bones” to my scene partner, trying to be accommodating, instead of operating from my desires and from my own experience. My teacher said this:

Be f***ing selfish.

He described how most actors, if they’re taking class, have a hunger. A need to allow a certain part of themselves to step forward. We hold that part of ourselves back when we try to manage, and accommodate for, other people.

Everyone can fend for themselves.

Two people are accommodating each other is going to be extremely boring for the audience and the actors alike. This is what we do in real life, when we behave and act polite, but we crave drama as catharsis, as a release for all we suppress in daily life.

This was personally striking to me. Always chastised for doing anything that could be perceived as selfish, so I learned to hide my desires under layers of accommodating and people-pleasing. I do feel this hunger he talks about— this vibration that raises inside of me when I step into the arena, so to speak. I want to feed it. I know I’ve fed it when I leave it in class satisfied because I let myself go, and I let myself take what I needed. He described his own experience going to classes and being so hungry to be there that he was ruthless, cutthroat. His eyes light up when he said it. Many actors are selfish in a different sense, caring more about their own performance and their own preparation than about spontaneous connection with the ensemble, and engaging with the actors present onstage with them. However, being selfish in the moment when you’re face-to-face with your partner and leaving your preparation at the door? That is true bravery down impulse is true bravery and honesty, and the basis of great acting.