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Laurette Taylor on "The Quality Most Needed" by thisisnotarealperson • last post Apr 9th
Shoutout to /u/cryoncue for referring to this often enough to make me track it down. Some context: *this was written in 1914*. Don't forget that as you read. Some of the references and cultural things won't land as intended, but this is a full eight years before Stanislavski's troupe would tour the States and captivate a New York audience that included Lee Strasberg, among others, who sought out these actors to teach them the style they were using. Stanislavski did not invent realism, he just attempted to codify it. Laurette Taylor has an interesting history. She worked on stage to great acclaim and in silent films. Her star faded and she was an alcoholic which led to a decline in opportunities, but she absolutely electrified audiences in her final role in 1945 as Amanda Wingfield in the original production of *The Glass Menagerie*. This lady knew what she was doing. Below is her text, excerpted from *Actors on Actors*. --- I have been asked to discuss, for the benefit of those who may go on the stage, the qualities which are most important as elements of success. If merely the financial or popular success of a woman star is meant, I should say that beauty is more essential than magnetism. But if by success you mean all that is implied by the magical word Art—success in the sense that Bernhardt, Duse and Ellen Terry are successes—I should say most emphatically the reverse. And I should add that imagination is more important than either. Mere beauty is unimportant; in many cases it proves a genuine handicap. Beautiful women seldom want to act. They are afraid of emotion and they do not try to extract anything from a character that they are portraying, because in expressing emotion they may encourage crow’s feet and laughing wrinkles. They avoid anything that will disturb their placidity of countenance, for placidity of countenance insures a smooth skin. Beauty is not all-important as an asset, even when the star is not anxious to achieve true greatness. Many of our most charming comediennes are not pretty women. Rather, they are women of great charm and personality. I cannot for the moment recall a single great actress who is a beauty. At least not in the popularly accepted idea of what constitutes beauty. Personality is more important than beauty, but imagination is more important than both of them. Beauty as I understand it does not mean simple prettiness, but stands for something illusive and subde. The obvious seldom charms after one has had to live close to it for any length of time. Being all on the surface, there is nothing left to exhilarate, once the surface has been explored. On the other hand, the beauty which emanates from within becomes more enchanting upon close acquaintance. It is constantly revealing itself in some new guise and becomes a continual source of joy to the fortunate persons who have the privilege of meeting it frequently. That is beauty of the imagination, and that beauty all the really great actresses have. The case of Bernhardt is as good an example as one would wish. In her youth especially, she was the very apotheosis of ugliness; still, through the power of her rich imagination that glorified her every thought and act, she held her audiences in the hollow of her hand. It is the strength and richness of her wonderful creative mind that makes it possible for her to present the amazing illusion of youth which she does even today. It isn’t beauty or personality or magnetism that makes a really great actress. It is imagination, though these other qualities are useful. You see a queer little child sitting in the middle of a mud puddle. She attracts you and holds your interest. You even smile in sympathy. Why? Simply because that child is exercising her creative imagination. She is attributing to mud pies the delicious qualities of the pies which mother makes in the kitchen. You may not stop to realize that this is what is going on in the child’s mind, but unconsciously it is communicated to you. It is the quality of imagination that has held your attention. . . We create in the imagination the character we wish to express. If it is real and vital to us in imagination we will be able to express it with freedom and surety. But we must conceive it as a whole before we begin to express it. There will be those who will disagree with me and say that magnetism presupposes imagination. This is a mistake. Many magnetic actresses are wholly lacking in imagination, their hold upon the public resting chiefly upon personality and charm and beauty. Have you ever gone to a tea party where you met some very magnetic woman who radiated charm, who not only held your attention but exhilarated you until you became impatient to see this scintillating creature on the stage, where you might realize the fullness of her wonder? And have you not felt, when your opportunity came and you saw her on the stage at last, the disappointment of realizing a wooden lady with a beautiful mask for a face, speaking faultlessly articulated lines—an actress who rose desperately to the big moments of her part, and who never for a moment let you forget that it was she, that actress, whom you saw, not the character whom she was portraying? There may have been splendid acting but you were conscious of the fact that it was acting. There was no illusion. She was conscious at the big climax that she was acting this part and that she must reach this climax. She was acting as much to herself as to you. That is not the art of the great actress. The imaginative actress builds a picture, using all her heart and soul and brain. She builds this picture not alone for the people out in front but for herself. She believes in it and she makes the people across the footlights believe in it. Unless she has done this she has failed. She must stimulate the imagination of the audience. An actress should not only be able to play a part; she should be able to play with it. Above all, she should not allow anything to stand between her and the thing she is expressing. How often does an actress play a part so as to leave you with the feeling that you have so intimate a knowledge of the character that you could imagine its conduct in any position, aside from the situations involved in the action of the play? Unless this happens, you feel that after all you have seen a limited portrayal of the character and you realize that though the acting was practically flawless there was something missing. And, in nine cases out of ten, that is because the woman playing the part did not use any imagination. She was entirely bound by the traditions of the theatre. She did everything just as it would have been done by anyone else on the stage. This is fatal. You feel untouched by the play because it was not made real to you. The artist looks for the unusual. She watches everyone, always searching for the unusual in clothes, in manner, in gesture. The imaginative actress will even remember that the French have characteristics other than the shrug! Think of the number of times that there have been Irish plays, of the number of times that the Irish character has been used in the working out of a plot. Yet never, to my knowledge, has an Irishman been played on the stage. (This excepts, of course. Lady Gregory’s players and Guy Standing’s rendition of a current IrishAmerican role.) Real Irishmen have never been played. The Irish can be the most melancholy people on the face of the earth, yet the traditional stage Irish have been lilting colleens and joking Paddies. The most interesting thing to me in acting is the working out of the character itself, the finding of that which is uncommon and the small, seemingly insignificant trait which will unconsciously make an appeal to the audience and establish the human appeal. Too much importance is laid on clothes. In the main, I think that all clothes hamper unless they express the character. Personally, I detest “straight” parts for that reason. They necessitate the clothes that make me self-conscious—or, rather, “clothes conscious.” I want to get right inside the character and act from the heart as well as from the head. That is impossible unless one is free from outside interference. I think actresses pay too much attention to the tradition of acting. That is a great mistake. It cramps creative instinct. I received a good deal of criticism for my walk in The Bird of Paradise. Some of the critics said I should be taught how to walk across the stage. Of course I paid no attention to that. My walk was the walk of the barefoot Italians who carry loads on their heads, and I had learned it from them. It certainly was not the traditional stage walk, but we are living in a time when simplicity and truth are the watchwords of the theatre. The traditional stage walk would not have fitted the character I played. The stage has come to a period of simplicity. A few years ago the direct attitude adopted by the younger actresses of today toward their roles would have been considered ridiculous. The changes have been positive but subde, and the actress without concentration has been unable to discern them. They are the ones who are still sparring for time in their emotional scenes, using the traditional tricks to express grief, joy, surprise, chagrin; and they wonder why they are sitting at home without engagements. They cannot comprehend that the very little basket of tricks which made them the idols of a few years ago fails utterly to get results today. . . The time has come when we may as well realize that we can no longer give a filmy portrayal of emotion and pad it out with stereotyped pieces of “business.” The younger actresses of today express the elemental emotions as the elemental person would express them in real life. There is no such thing as a compromise in the logical development of a character in order to make a theatrical effect. . . Too few actresses follow their instinct. I think instinct is the direct connection with truth. It is not enough to know just what you are to do yourself in the action of a piece; you must know also the exact relation you must bear to every other character in the play. For instance, take the business of dying. You must in your imagination realize not only the fact that you are dying but the effect which your death will have on every character related to your part. You know that you are not dying and the audience knows it, but in your imagination you must really believe you are. The business of dying becomes actual to you; also, you compel the audience to believe in you by the very sincerity of your attitude. This trait is really remarkable in Maude Adams. Recall her work in Chantecler. Without her tremendous imagination to gild her impersonation, this frail little woman would have been hopeless in the part. Yet through her marvelous richness of imagination she produced the illusion of bigness that many women better fitted physically could not have done. One would never say that Maude Adams is beautiful, in the sense that she is pretty or has a beautiful physique; but she has charm, magnetism and imagination. These three make a beauty that transcends mere beauty. Beauty, personality and magnetism are not important in the equipment of a star, when compared to the creative faculty of imagination. The first three qualities are valuable adjuncts, and no one should sneeze at them. But you might get along without the slightest beauty and little or no personal magnetism if you were generously endowed with the imaginative mind.
My hopeful life as an actor by Deniz2323 • last post Apr 8th
First of all. I'll apologise in advance for the lengthy post, but at this point I need advice and help Since I was 5 years old I've always wanted to be an actor. At times of felt like it's futile and have tried to find other interests but I've always come back to it. I've done work as an extra and a feature extra in projects that are close to my area. The next part will probably lose you all, but here goes. I have had no acting training but I feel like I am good enough to do the work once I learn more tools to flesh out a script. Truth be told the audition process scares me and I struggle with the character I am trying out for. I guess I'm scared too as training formally for acting. I did drama all through high school and a basic acting class during those years too. I guess my question is how do you get to that next step where you can audition for bigger an better projects without having a huge background of study. Classes would probably be fine but is it not possible to find the right agent that can push you forward into auditions. Are there any reputable agents that take on new clients and provide opportunities for those bigger roles? Thanks in advance, any and all advice is appreciated and hopefully I will get there one day.
How to not break character acting like my ideal self? (May be a weird question, read below) by fvckari8 • last post Apr 8th
This has nothing deeply to do with becoming an actual actor but it kind of does. Anyways, I've been trying to become my best ideal self for awhile now & I come across so many videos that say "act like your ideal self to become them“, "create an alter ego, write down what they do & act like them". “Life is one big movie and the world is your stage.” Etc etc. Yet I know all of these things yet when I get around certain people I cannot act like them. It's like I break character. I write down all of the traits & characteristics I want to have but yet I seem to break character in different settings & around people. This is a crazy question but to all of my actors out there how do I fully act like this person & NEVER break character. Any tips? I’ll link two videos where they talk about this below, If you’re more curious. [the “month of acting”](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTd95XJ9n/) [create your identity through method acting](https://youtu.be/Tb-BsdyRdqw)
are you ever given less than an hours notice for an in-person audition? (toronto) by Single-Character-434 • last post Apr 8th
I live almost an hour (max.with traffic) outside of Toronto and was thinking of moving right downtown to be within walking distance of the major casting houses. But I am now thinking otherwise because I would have to give up my car to afford the rent in toronto. from what I've heard and read, self-tapes and virtual auditions are now the new norm with in-person auditions happening only AFTER they like of your selftape/virtual audition. I think if I get an in-person audition, once as they at least give me an hour to get to the location, I should be fine living outside the city and just driving in when I'm needed... BUT I'm a newbie actor (who overthinks everything,so bare with me,lol) So my fear is that if i get called for an in-person audition, they would only give me like 20 minutes to get there. Does this happen or has this ever happened to any of you?
event stress by RenB97 • last post Apr 8th
I've organised a fundraising event, with comedians and actors for the 16th of April. I'm getting super stressed that not enough people are going to turn up. How do I spread the word and get people to come?
Took some new actor pictures of myself, wanted to share with you guys by ywayne • last post Apr 8th
Agencies (Los Angeles) by waynegrundy • last post Apr 8th
What's up! ​ Feel free to DM me if you'd prefer that over commenting. I'm just trying to get some intel on some of the agencies that I've had meetings with recently since I'm shopping around. I find it's hard to know as an actor what they're like to work with ahead of actually working with them. As far as I can tell, they all have working and booking actors so that's great, this is not about if they're legit or not. I just want to know if anybody here has worked with or maybe knows somebody who worked with them and what their experience was. \- Making Stars Talent Agency (hearing mostly positive things but also some unhappy people) \- Dream Team Talent LA \- Spark Talent ​ Thanks! Again, if you don't want to share publicly, I totally understand so just DM me if that's the case.
I got a part! (but have no training) by ZealousidealFront560 • last post Apr 8th
I stumbled into having a small role in a local film (two minutes of screen time and two short lines.) I am not an actor and haven't done anything like this since school plays. Is there anything I should know about being on camera or acting in general? Any exercises or warm ups I can do to get ready? I know I'm lucky to get this opportunity without trying, and I really don't want to mess up.
Booked 2 projects from 1 callback! by ParticularPaper6095 • last post Apr 8th
A few weeks ago I got a chemistry read/callback from a self tape that I messed up (I made a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/acting/comments/tlln4u/i_got_a_callbackchemistry_read_with_a_messed_up/) about it). When I went to the reading the casting director wanted me to read another project. She told me she hasn't started casting yet but wanted to have some actresses read it. I read it and I thought she just wanted me to read it to get a feel for it. No, she wanted me to audition! When the rest of the actors came to read for the first project, she asked me and another actress to leave and practice the second project. Long story short, we kept switching from project to project and I read with different actress. After the reading I left and thought it was pretty cool that I was being considered for 2 projects now. Today I got a message saying... SHE WANTS TO OFFER ME A ROLE FOR BOTH PROJECTS!!!!!! I'm so excited!
Native Ukrainian language actors comfortable with war scenario context wanted, 50~ lines for $50 by ViperConcord • last post Apr 8th
Regards, we are looking for male native Ukrainian-speaking actors who are comfortable with, in this climate, participating as talent in our action game voicing Ukrainian military operators. Our Ukrainian talent is unfortunately stuck under occupation and will be adjoining you once they can. Simply read the script in Ukrainian with ad lib encouraged, export the files to our needs and send. Quality equipment and clean sound. Cca 50 lines for $50. Deadline: April 15th. Demos in comments or DMs. Thank You.
Looking for male Arabic and Vietnamese actors by ViperConcord • last post Apr 8th
Regards, Male Arabic and Vietnamese actors wanted, 50-55 \~ lines - $50, combat game. Native only, simply read the English script in Arabic or Vietnamese and export the files as per our instruction. Ad lib encouraged, usage will be across multiple factions including paramilitaries and national militaries as depicted, including insurgents so only apply if you're okay with that. If you're good, we would love to have you on retainer for when we expand. Quality mic, no popping and noise. Demos in the DMs or in the comments, I'll be checking them all out. Comms through Discord or email are fine. Anyone in possession of the skill and male is encouraged to pop in, we have actors that are first time ventures. Deadline: April 15th
$5 Fem voice for Superman fan film animation by artiboi_navarro • last post Apr 8th
I’m looking for someone to play Lois Lane for my fan film “Superman: Fortress.” She has three scenes, but I’ll link the script bellow, it’s only 7 pages. I’m looking for someone who sounds mature, witty, feminine, perhaps a bit arrogant but only because you have to be confident as a reporter with a military dad. As a fan film I will not be making money on this project which is why it’s only $5 USD. I’m hesitant to spend any money at all, but I’ve had a hard time getting a hold of any fem voices. As with all my voice actors, I’m happy to add your socials to the credits. Anything you can fit in a tweet. Here are the [characters](https://imgur.com/a/UARXKee) And here’s the [script](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g4c-PDA2lTl8Ur6oZEnn5sWTDiW1r4s3vBRVrOgmQKs/edit)
Feeling demotivated by Strict_Carpenter_661 • last post Apr 8th
Hi everyone, I recently auditioned for a few a few acting jobs that I really wanted. I put a lot of time and effort into it & personally thought I did good but I guess the casting director thought otherwise. This has been ongoing for a while now and made me feel quite down and even made me contemplate about quitting my dream about becoming a film/tv actor. Has anyone ever been in a similar situation and any advice on to stay motivated, thanks.
Headshot-Age Range-Character Type Feedback by AutoModerator • last post Apr 7th
Use this thread to post your headshots for feedback, get info on your age range/type, find good headshot photographers, ask any questions you may have about headshots. If you are posting a DIY headshot for feedback, and not just a snapshot in order to get feedback on your age range/type/etc, it is advised that you do at least some basic research on what actor headshots look like--composition, framing, lighting. You will find a Google Image search for "actor headshots" to be very helpful for this. Non-professional shots are fine for age/typecasting; please keep in mind that one picture is a difficult way to go about this. Video of you moving and speaking would be ideal, but understandably more difficult to post. For what it's worth, the branding workshop at SAG-AFTRA recommends a five-year age range. That's inclusive, so for example 19-23, 25-29, 34-38, etc.
anyone here love the chase of it all? by MaveInfinite • last post Apr 7th
When it comes to acting, I just love the chase. I never in a million years saw myself in that acting waiting room getting ready to pour my soul out. I basically didn't know what I wanted to do till I turned 19. I just had a love for tv and movies. I have co-stars and national commercials under my belt, but what I love is the chase. Submitting to agents, changing up my pitch email, trying new headshots, new acting classes, trying to out-think the business, waiting for that phone call, etc. Oh, don't get me wrong, I hate the fuck out of it sometimes..but at the end..I love it, I love the hustle of it. The journey truly is the best part and I don't think most actors realize that. anyone else feel the same?
how to be on character when it pokes at your biggest insecurities by kira_bakapot • last post Apr 7th
I'm not an actor, I'm a singer and have to sing the song from Chicago by the Velma character. I have to act out a performance of a sexy, flirty e charismatic character.... I'm a big curvy girl insecure in my body, this is the worst CH I could ever do. The performance is fine, but my acting is so bad, I don't feel it at all, it's so embarrassing. Sometime before practices I think of quitting cause I really really don't want to do it. Help/advices pls
Uta Hagen’s A Challenge for the Actor by mpchop • last post Apr 7th
So I’m a junior in HS and I’m currently taking a musical theatre class and learning more about theatre as an art form, and truly living up to my theatre kid potential. I asked my teacher if I could borrow Uta Hagen’s A Challenge For the Actor. He said I could and ever since, I’ve been reading it. I’ve made it up to Chapter 1 pages 14-15. Is it just me or… is the book kind of… boring? I know I’m only a few pages in obviously, and I’m not a big reader (I’m trying to read more since I want to be a writer), but I don’t know if I quite like or enjoy the heavy exposition dumps of what acting used to be like hundreds of years ago. Or am I coming off as too entitled? Am I missing something reading this book? Do I need to have a certain mindset? Thanks.
Is backstage legit? by oriisdead • last post Apr 7th
I’ve always wanted to act, and I actually consider myself pretty good at it (I know so do most people who want to be actors). Anyways, is backstage a good place to find auditions/extras jobs to start gaining experience?
Supposed to be the busiest time for me - but I'm getting nothing. by SpelingBeeLoser • last post Apr 7th
I'm Sag-E and repped by a really great agency in Houston, Tx. In the past, I've gotten to audition for some amazing projects! Co-star, Recurring, Leads - you name it! But since Covid, the auditions have dropped dramatically despite me seeing other actors in my agency still booking roles. I know they're submitting me for roles since I've been speaking with them and they've told me what they've pitched me for, but I haven't been getting auditions. I've gotten work on HBO, ABC, Hulu, USA and Netflix, so I just don't know what's happened. It's frustrating because I've gotten positive feedback from directors, casting directors, my teacher, and my agent so I just don't know what's going on. I'm 26 and I feel like there's tons of roles out there for me that go with my age and look. Any thoughts on what may be aiding in this slump? ​ I understand location can play a factor and have looked at moving, but my agency get breakdowns from NM, Louisiana, OK, GA, SC, TX and tons of productions film out here - especially GA. I'm just concerned that if I move it'll still be the same.
What skills does a movie actor have that many TV actors lack? by JayJax_23 • last post Apr 7th
I’m curious because I hear and see it mentioned quite often that TV actors can’t transition to film well because they lack the skills to act in flim. Although there have been several cases of actors who started on TV shows and became successful on the big screens. What is the major difference between acting on TV and acting on flim? What skills does a TV actor need to be successful on flim?