As actors, you may feel that there’s a lot of pressure and stress in the audition process. You may get last-minute auditions with a lot of pages to learn; you may have to find a scene partner or reader, set up the technical part of your self tape and memorize your lines “well” and fast so you don’t forget them or make mistakes while you’re auditioning. As a consequence of this, you may have tried a lot of different techniques or methods to learn your lines faster and better; and then you may have realized that none of that worked. At the end of the day, you’re not being your character. This can be really frustrating.
When you watch my training below you'll discover that the root of the problem is that you prioritize your focus on getting your lines right, as if you were a good school student. And when you do that, you bypass all the opportunities for you as an artist instead of coming towards the project from a place of allowing yourself to discover where that story touches you, what’s your perception about it, why you want to defend that character and let all that beauty of the material inform your instrument so that new life may come out of it. That’s when art happens. But when you obsess about your lines and devote all your energy and time to learn them quickly, you are not allowing that beautiful swirling between the written material and your instrument to happen so that they can approach and melt into one another.
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Also, your job as an actor is not about regurgitating lines without any mistakes. All of that comes from a place of fear, stress, ego and your conditioned self as if you were still at school, where you were tested, asked to do things “right and fast”, to be better, etc. This has nothing to do with art and is not satisfying either. Knowing your lines will be the consequence if you go about acting as an art form and allow yourself to start your creative process. Then, you have a chance to understand your character in a profound way, to get to the world of the story, to have your unique perspective on it and to become the character progressively. In other words, you can just be your character and dance with their circumstances.
When all these essential parts of your commitment start to do their magic, then you don’t need to learn your lines quickly. You will just say the words that will enable you to move the needle of what you’re going through as the character, as a human being in those circumstances. These lines will just pour out of you as a necessity to get what you want in the scene.
Instead, when you memorize your lines fast and say what it is written, then all your truth and freedom are gone. Everything that you could possibly bring to the table is not present.
Watch my training below to hear all my thoughts on this topic.
After you watch the training, I'd love for you to join in the conversation happening in our private Facebook Group THE INSTINCTIVE ACTORS' SOCIETY. You can get answers for your specific situation directly from me and connect with HUNDREDS of like-minded actors across the globe, so we can move things forward faster together.
If you're not already a member, be sure to request to join ASAP here.
See you there!
Jo Kelly
Creator, The Reset Journey From Resistance to Freedom
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are two ways I can help you:
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Get on the waitlist for my program, The Reset Journey From Resistance to Freedom, and stop struggling to access your natural, authentic talent in the audition room or on set. You'll learn how to reset your instrument to be 100% instinctive and free in just 33 days.
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