Acting – The Power and Magic of Listening

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Kimberly Jentzen presents a new and dynamic series: The Power and Magic of Listening, Part One. The following is an excerpt from her newly released book, Acting with Impact: Power Tools to Ignite the Actor’s Performance.

POWER TOOL: LISTENING

LISTENING IS WHERE THE MAGIC LIVES

Listening is opening up and hearing with not only your ears, but with each of your senses. To really hear the rain or take that moment to really taste the ice cream, or allow your eyes to take in the light through the trees in the early morning; these are all forms of listening.

Listening is being aware in the moment, like when a lover listens to your body and follows its message, or when a friend picks up on your indirect cues to leave the party and together you go. Listening is not only about hearing words, but being engaged with the whole communication of another and hearing with sensory intuition.

A skilled actor understands how to listen for more than just the words, sounds and tonality, but also with an emptiness inside that needs to be filled by the other character. When you listen to others, what do you really listen for? And what is your character listening for?

Listening is the first real obligation required to carry out a believable truthfulness in the moment. It creates an honest connection between scene partners. The actor has to surrender the planned response to allow a true response that can only come when really listening. Nothing can replace it.

Early in my acting career, I struggled with listening. I was playing the lead role in a play and I couldn’t find my character. My friend told me to try to get a reaction from the other actor, some physical response, be it a smile, a laugh or even a raised eyebrow—just play the reality of attempting to get an organic, real moment from my partner on stage. This concept completely improved my work. I began to listen for a response instead of just my cues. I realized that predetermining how to say my lines gave a performance that pre-judged the experience of the moment. My lines now had a goal: to generate a response from my fellow partner. This was a major breakthrough, and I also had more fun in the process.

To listen is to put your attention on the other actor and what is being said both verbally and non-verbally. You watch, you hear, you wait; you are captivated in an active process. You can even listen to the silence of someone. Listening is taking in emotional reactions, body language, facial expressions and energy.

We live in the moment, uncertain of what
the next moment will bring.

 

You can’t “act” listening

Never pretend to listen. Sometimes actors will move their head up and down, nodding or shaking their head, acting as if they are listening. How can you know whether you can agree or disagree until the other actor has finished their thought? You have to wait and really hear the actual thing that will generate your response.

The only way to listen is to honestly engage in the activity of listening.

When you really listen, your line deliveries gain nuances and become organic. Once this occurs, everything about the work can fall into place. When you really listen, you concern yourself with receiving the other actor—responding not in the way you previously planned, but with what naturally comes forth. It is genuinely accepting and connecting to what is being given.

Your listening dictates the delivery of your lines.

 

The connection is above the communication

Have you ever engaged in a conversation in such a way that you forget what you were going to say next? The organic response that comes from that conversation is a true connection. What you were going to say isn’t as important as the experience with the person with whom you are conversing.

Sometimes actors make the written words more important than listening to what lives beneath them. The truth of life is that the communication never rises above the connection.

Another life truth is how we listen. We respond differently in every relationship. Wouldn’t you prefer to hear bad news from one person rather than from another? We have special bonds with a select few. All of that is taken into consideration as part of the real communication.

Let’s say you are playing a small role as a messenger. The film takes place during 1944 and you must tell a Midwestern woman her husband was killed by the Germans in France. Your appearance in the film might be minimal, but the connection to the information will have a lasting effect on the life of this woman. And how you take her in, how you study her eyes as you tell her the news is crucial to the delivery of the lines.

**Acting with Impact is available at Samuel French Bookstore, Hollywood and kimberlyjentzen.com

Acting: From Stage to Screen – Part 2

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Working your Internal Life with “Intentional Energy”

Acting is the ability to believe in an event as if it’s happening now. In film and television, it’s particularly crucial that the acting feels like it’s occurring for the first time. This is true, no matter how many takes are needed to complete the job; acting requires “intentional energy.”

Intentional energy gives the actor a focus by playing the consequences of the scene. Intentional energy puts the actor’s attention on the character’s need, and all listening is filtered through that need. A great example is in the film Moneyball, when Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill sit across from each other, juggling phone calls as they trade baseball players for their team. The intentional energy between them keeps the stakes alive.

Too much energy can be distracting. It can trip the actor up by circumventing listening skills, making random movements or being all over the room. Energy that is too low can produce similar results and cause you to deliver a dull and unexciting performance. Both energy issues disable the actor and demonstrate problems with mental focus, physical stillness and believability in the performance.

We’ve all heard casting directors, directors and industry professionals speak about how important energy is and that all great actors have a lot of it. So what gets in the way? Here are some thoughts I’ve come to that I hope will aid you in harnessing intentional energy.

Self-awareness can steal energy. If you are watching whether or not you are doing a good job, your energy will be disconnected from your intention. Your intention must stay with what the character wants, not the performance you want. Often what happens when you watch yourself is that you edit your ideas and the instincts that you think are bad, may actually be good. You can’t know this without trusting your instincts as you attempt to live into the character’s intention.

Another energy issue that happens is when you attempt to play a character that requires you to go beyond your own comfort zone of emotional expression.

If you have been conditioned to censor your own thoughts and emotions—to hide yourself from feeling what is real within you, there will be energy issues.

Often in life, there are times when we can kind of “check out.” Sometimes, just to survive our youth or current situations, we may bury our emotions thinking, that it’s the only way to survive. And our cultural upbringing has great influence on us as well. We might suppress our feelings so deeply that our own passion gets hidden. And when passion is buried, energy is buried.

Eye contact radiates energy and connects you to your scene partner. It gives you your eye line. It also helps the editor give you your close-up because if you look at the wall as you listen, while your scene partner is delivering their lines to you, it is difficult for the audience to perceive the relative space. You’re close-up might be lost to a two-shot so the audience understands the juxtaposition.

However, you never want to “stare” at your partner. You want to really listen and react. You want to be engaged in the life of the scene.

Let’s explore this. Right now as you read this, stop for a second and stare and then observe what happens…. When you stare, basically there is nothing going on. Staring is “checking out,” it is the opposite of listening. Connecting with your partner requires energy to listen and react. You do this naturally when you live into the character’s intention.

In a scene, there are three places our eyes can go: 1. With our scene partner. 2. Away from the scene partner and into our own thoughts, and 3. The environment—where you take it in and then use it to stimulate the energy to fulfill the moment. Each requires the actor to live into the character’s intention with focused thoughts so that living into the reality of the circumstance allows you to be fully engaged and in the moment.

Intentional energy is harnessed through Stanislavsky’s beloved principle called the “magic if.” Living into the circumstance as if it is really happening to you. In every scene and exercise you do, attempt to live into the “magic if.”

Along with this approach you will find it necessary to discover your character’s objective. If you do that successfully, you will have the opportunity to build on a focused energy. What and how you listen will determine whether or not you are winning your objective. These simple tools can be the source of a focused energy that allows risk taking and the building of an intentional energy.

Stage to Screen Acting

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For years I’ve been coaching talented theatre actors as they make the transition from stage to film and television acting. It seems the distinction between stage and film acting has become an obsession for actors who want to make the leap!

The ability to adapt between the two has undeniably become an extremely important skill for any actor who wants to be a working professional. I have worked with students who have thrived in theatre, be it starring roles on Broadway or repertory companies; but found themselves a bit befuddled when it came to translating their acting ability to film.

The following is the beginning of a series of videos and articles that will continue to shed insight into this important skill and the differentiation between stage and screen acting. Read more

Acting: The process is the Product

A rare interview with Award-Winning Director/Teacher Kimberly Jentzen by Emmy Award-Winning CD/Teacher Holly Powell

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Watch this interview — Emmy Award-Winning Casting Director, Holly Powell talks to Los Angeles Acting Coach, Kimberly Jentzen, author of “Acting with Impact” about the acting process: “Know that your performance is created and lives in the moment and can’t be fixed in place or held in time. The key is to not judge yourself but to accept yourself in the process.” Enjoy this excerpt from the introduction of Kimberly’s book!

ACTING IS LIVING TRUTHFULLY IN AN EVER-CHANGING EXPERIENCE

When you hike up a mountain you have two choices. You can enjoy the changing sky, the view below, the flowers along the path, the struggle up to the top, the breeze, the sun through the trees, the smell of pine… or, you can focus on lunch at the end of the trail and miss the beauty, the adventure and, most sadly, the actual trip.

The adventure is the journey, and the process as it happens is the actual experience of acting. The product of the performance is being engaged in the moment without focusing on how it comes out. Your goal as an actor is to live honestly in the experience of the moment. If your attention is on the end result, you will sabotage the journey.

When you attempt a scene, many times you have a predetermined picture in your mind of how it will go. You practice in your bedroom, you give an award-winning performance and you know that in your heart, when you get to that audition, it’s going to blow everybody away! Then, in the actual audition, you watch yourself in the reading and wonder, “What is happening?! This is nothing like I rehearsed at home!”

There are two main reasons for this phenomenon: expectation and concentration.

Expectation

When you were at home in your bedroom, you were caught up in discovery. You were in the richness of your imagination and could visualize it all. You were seeing and experiencing what the character, in that moment, was seeing and experiencing. Then, when you actually auditioned, you attempted to recreate the result of that bedroom performance instead of the imagined elements that got you there in the first place. Attempting to recreate a performance always puts you in your head because you judge everything against an ideal, and you can never measure up to that kind of expectation.

Another aspect of this expectation is your unique instrument. There is no one in the world like you. And because your approach to the material hasn’t ever been done before, there is a potential shock when you observe your own performance. Doesn’t your acting always sound and look better in your head? All of those judgments in acting can take energy away from your effort.

Concentration

When you have an audience, the pressure to entertain becomes VERY real. It takes more concentration to create and hold onto your given reality in a scene. If your preparation is not strong enough, the pressure from the audience can overtake your attention, and you will then watch yourself. Great acting is participating in a given reality and not focusing on what your audience is witnessing.

Know that an audience will always have an energetic influence on the actor. This is natural. We pick up vibes from anyone in our immediate space. Have you ever felt a stranger looking at you prior to you noticing? Often we can feel the energetic pull of any attention we are getting.

Part of the actor’s job is to accept the audience without sabotaging the performance. The audience’s gaze is part of the magic of performance, and every audience will experience your work uniquely. When an actor allows the audience to be a witness, the performance improves. The vibes you pick up in the room have the potential to inspire the best in you.

Know that your performance is created and lives in the moment
and can’t be fixed in place or held in time.

The skill of acting is the ability to live truthfully in an ever-changing experience.
The key is to not judge yourself but to accept yourself in the process.

Being paid to go inside

Acting is an opportunity to work on what is inside you, a part that most other professions avoid. It can be painful or scary to look inside, but without this self-investigation, you cannot grow. It is called “growing pains” for a reason. It is in our nature to avoid pain unless we are made to change through pain. But the only way to grow artistically or spiritually is to allow the experience of life’s pain to penetrate our hearts without becoming a victim of our own experience.

To look within is to discover, accept and acknowledge your own emotional triggers, struggles and triumphs. This is the process of acting—being willing to feel, being willing to look, and being willing to seek in the moment. It is seeking, listening and discovering…and seeking again. It’s not planning the reaction in the scene; it’s experiencing the reaction in the moment. This is our climb up the mountain.

Acting with Impact and Life Emotion Cards are available at Samuel French Bookstore, and at actingwithimpact.com and on Amazon.

The Objective: ACTING your character’s NEED, Part 1

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The Objective is one of the most important power tools for an actor because it provides a starting point in the analyzing stage of any scene.

So what is the actual definition of “the objective”?

Every character is attempting to “get” something in every script and play. It may be love, a job, recognition, money, respect, sex, attention; this list can go on and on. However, it is important for the actor to figure out and articulate what the character you will be portraying wants and/or needs, and what is worth fighting for.

The objective supports the dynamics in any and all scenes, be it drama or comedy. If no one wants anything or needs anything in a scene, if nothing is at stake, the acting becomes uninteresting to watch. All drama and comedy is based on conflict.

“We are captivated by a struggle. We are captivated when watching a game that has two strong opponents.” – Acting with Impact

Think of a boxing match. If neither fighter wants to win the match it would be a silly and uneventful spar. But if both of their objectives were to let the other guy win, that would be an objective. And if they really played with that intention, because it is unexpected in a normal boxing match, the audience might even find it funny because they are taking great risks to lose instead of win. However, if they enter the rink with no need to win or lose, nothing at stake in fighting, no sense of competition, eventually the onlookers will lose interest in the fight.

Life is about going after a goal—a want, a need, something worth fighting for… some people want a family, others a career, and some both. Some are fighting for better health, some for a better day job. We all want, and because of our want, we feel emotion. When we feel we are winning in life, we feel happier than when we feel we are losing in life our objective. Interestingly, the Objective gives us many life lessons on how we experience our journey.

If we don’t have an objective in life, we may feel lost and without direction. This is also true in acting. If you discover that you feel a bit lost or without direction in a scene or cold reading, discover the character’s objective you are playing and play their objective with all of your heart. This will give your acting a point of reference of the character you are playing and support your commitment to live into their world.

Here are some fun exercises that will serve your ability to utilize the objective:

Watch a film, play or TV show with attention on what the main characters want. Ask yourself “what do they want?” Try to articulate their objectives in terms that allow you to visualize what it might look like if they did receive and win their objectives. And take note of their emotional life and notice how they feel by whether or not they are getting closer to what they want.

Also, take a moment to look into your own life to decide what you want and what you are willing to fight for, what’s at stake for you in your life. Perhaps you are looking for a breakthrough in your acting skill, or a chance to audition for a certain casting director, or you may want to book a job with a specific director, or you may have a love interest. Take note of your desire, your actions, and the risks you take to get it. Now, knowing that every character cares as much about their objective as you do about your own, play the character’s scene objective with that much commitment. Be compassionate to the hunger that lives in any character to get what they desire.

Your acting will always be enriched when you effectively take the risks that surrender your own desire to be great, and instead play the character’s desire to win their goal. One can never watch themselves in the work when playing the character’s objective with true intention.

Be strong, believe and live authentically,

Kimberly Jentzen

For a more complete lesson on the objective, please check out my book, Acting with Impact: Power Tools to Ignite the Actor’s Performance.

Confidence and Becoming a Great Actor

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Confidence… we all need it to be successful. No matter what we do in life, we depend on our ability to communicate effectively with great belief in what we have to give.

But one can’t gain confidence by demanding others to praise or approve of them. This same rule applies to anyone who is attempting to be a successful working actor. You gain confidence by demonstrating to yourself that you are worthy of it.

Read more

The Objective-An Actors NEED

The Objective: ACTING your character’s NEED, Part 2

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The Objective is one of the most important power tools for an actor because it provides a starting point in the analyzing stage of any scene.

So what is the actual definition of “the objective”?

Every character is attempting to “get” something in every script and play. It may be love, a job, recognition, money, respect, sex, attention; this list can go on and on. However, it is important for the actor to figure out and articulate what the character you will be portraying wants and/or needs, and what is worth fighting for.

The objective supports the dynamics in any and all scenes, be it drama or comedy. If no one wants anything or needs anything in a scene, if nothing is at stake, the acting becomes uninteresting to watch. All drama and comedy is based on conflict.

“We are captivated by a struggle. We are captivated when watching a game that has two strong opponents.” – Acting with Impact

Think of a boxing match. If neither fighter wants to win the match it would be a silly and uneventful spar. But if both of their objectives were to let the other guy win, that would be an objective. And if they really played with that intention, because it is unexpected in a normal boxing match, the audience might even find it funny because they are taking great risks to lose instead of win. However, if they enter the rink with no need to win or lose, nothing at stake in fighting, no sense of competition, eventually the onlookers will lose interest in the fight.

Life is about going after a goal—a want, a need, something worth fighting for… some people want a family, others a career, and some both. Some are fighting for better health, some for a better day job. We all want, and because of our want, we feel emotion. When we feel we are winning in life, we feel happier than when we feel we are losing in life our objective. Interestingly, the Objective gives us many life lessons on how we experience our journey.

If we don’t have an objective in life, we may feel lost and without direction. This is also true in acting. If you discover that you feel a bit lost or without direction in a scene or cold reading, discover the character’s objective you are playing and play their objective with all of your heart. This will give your acting a point of reference of the character you are playing and support your commitment to live into their world.

Here are some fun exercises that will serve your ability to utilize the objective:

Watch a film, play or TV show with attention on what the main characters want. Ask yourself “what do they want?” Try to articulate their objectives in terms that allow you to visualize what it might look like if they did receive and win their objectives. And take note of their emotional life and notice how they feel by whether or not they are getting closer to what they want.

Also, take a moment to look into your own life to decide what you want and what you are willing to fight for, what’s at stake for you in your life. Perhaps you are looking for a breakthrough in your acting skill, or a chance to audition for a certain casting director, or you may want to book a job with a specific director, or you may have a love interest. Take note of your desire, your actions, and the risks you take to get it. Now, knowing that every character cares as much about their objective as you do about your own, play the character’s scene objective with that much commitment. Be compassionate to the hunger that lives in any character to get what they desire.

Your acting will always be enriched when you effectively take the risks that surrender your own desire to be great, and instead play the character’s desire to win their goal. One can never watch themselves in the work when playing the character’s objective with true intention.

Be strong, believe and live authentically,

Kimberly Jentzen

For a more complete lesson on the objective, please check out my book, Acting with Impact: Power Tools to Ignite the Actor’s Performance.