The world's best acting technique: Leave yourself alone

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Published 2018-02-20
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The world's best acting technique? Stop acting and leave yourself alone. In this post I share a cool trick you can use when you feel like you are "acting" too much.

I’m Sarah Gaboury and what I do best is help actors get out of their heads and into the moment so they can book big jobs and tell stories that matter. We offer Zoom classes, private Zoom coaching sessions, audition coaching/prep, special workshops and on-set / performance consultant packages. Find out if you are a fit: bit.ly/20withsarah

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All Comments (20)
  • @abdul2009
    Reminds me of a saying by some guy (not sure who) who said "teach us to care and not to care". So "to care" is to prepare, and "not to care" is to trust that the preparation will work and leave yourself alone during the scene
  • @staciaseven
    You can apply this in life as just being yourself as a human being. I'm not an actor. I'm just trying to work on being at peace with myself, being present and knowing that I am enough. Someone told me to "leave myself alone". I was struggling. I didn't understand what the term meant. So I googled it and discovered this video. Thank you.
  • @a.a.s.3799
    love the quality of your videos. if you wanna step it up (and this is in no way shape or form a negative comment) LEAVE THE UNNECESSARY TRANSITIONS OUT THE DOOR it takes away from the information in my opinion keep on keeping on, subscribed.
  • @sudeepraj4378
    You're too good mam. It feels like I am talking to you while watching your Acting tips videos. Thank you.
  • @movieleaker2
    Thank you so much. It really helped me to think in the right way
  • @jonspanonyc
    "Stop acting and just say the lines." Not naturalism. Be okay with just saying the words. I have to remember to say this to myself before each self tape. Presence. LIfe. The moment. Do I believe me right now? - Working through all of that. - The times I've been more present without trying to please or focus on a result, the more "non-acting" I've been.
  • @erikatriggs
    Thank you for this! I have a real problem (sometimes) with just being too much in my own head and I know it ends up sabotaging me. I think too much about what something is going to look or sound like and then end up over analyzing it, and sometimes “over acting” it because I end up trying to hard to “not be myself”. I’m starting to realize that I have a strength that I could play to, and I think I’m a little afraid of it lol if that makes sense
  • Meisner would have said that there should be no character work or extra stuff added on until after the emotional learning and preparation were done for at least a year and truly worked into the being of the actor. He would also have rejected that "the character wants" something and told his students that THEY are the character, living truth under imaginary circumstances. That is probably why talking about "the character" amplified the "acting." Both he and Stella Adler would have screamed about how acting is not reading lines.
  • This message resonates with me. I've understood it as an exercise in "stilling" ones self. The practice of being still seems to make allow the audience, in a way, to project what they feel on to the character. In this way it feels like.ome.os able to reach more people with the performance. What do you think?
  • @riksinha5
    For me ,in this case this is something imagine you are living and then reacting.
  • @ReviewsWithAL_
    I can relate to this quite a bit I have an issue with my eyebrows they raise a lot lmao