“Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances”
— Sanford Meisner
Introduction
Acting is arguably one of the oldest forms of storytelling. Alongside oral storytelling and singing, acting has existed since the dawn of storytelling. Maybe it wasn’t as complex of an art as we perceive it today, but the ability to use your imagination and pretend to be someone (or something) else has always existed.
Storytelling through acting is an amazing skill to possess. First and foremost, acting is very diverse in its applications: it’s used in theatre and film as well as daily conversations. Acting is one of the great subtexts for storytelling. Through tone of voice, dramatic pauses, displaying emotion, you can make a single line of dialogue have multiple meanings. We all do this to some extent in our conversations day to day, but actors have mastered the art of using these skills in an imaginary setting.
We’re all actors, though we might not think it. In our conversations we change how we present ourselves depending on the social setting. How we talk to our family is very different from how we talk in a meeting at work. How we talk at a party is different than how we might give a speech. Acting is a natural part of human existence. It’s not inauthentic to present yourself differently. In fact, it’s a skill that can be harnessed.
We’ve all seen movies with bad acting. We’ve all seen movies with good acting. We may not know the specifics of what makes one performance better than another, but we can feel it. This is true of real life as well. Some people come across as disingenuous or super awkward in our daily interactions. This could be considered “bad” acting – they are someone who seems to not understand how to “act” well in the circumstance. But the truth is, there is hope for everyone. We can all learn to become a better actor, and as a result, grow in our storytelling through acting.
Storytelling Through Acting: The External
First impressions really are everything. We judge a person immediately by how the present themselves. It’s part of human nature. And how a person present themselves says a lot about them. Actors understand this. So they take great time and care cultivating the external attributes of their characters.
Wardrobe is a good place to start. How a person dresses themself says a lot about who they are. Do they always wear suit, or do they wear tattered jeans. Are their clothes stained or wrinkled? Do they prefer bold colors? Do they wear a coat? Maybe they are always wearing boots. Each clothing item has to be intentional for a character, because every aspect reveals a part about them. It’s subtext for the character. We see them and immediately have an impression.
Physicality is the next way we judge a person – how someone carries themselves, the shape of their body, and the gesture they make. Are they in-shape or “skinny-fat?” Maybe they hardly gesture with their hands at all. Do they walk in a straight line or wobble all over the place? How do they sit down? Once again, these add subtext to your character. It all stems from who they are and what has happened to them and even where they are from. Maybe even what they think of themselves. They are external clues to a history we cannot see and a world that lies beneath the surface.
A character’s voice plays a huge role as well. No finer example can be see than in the film: My Fair Lady.Professor Henry Higgins is a man of the posh, British society with a clear, forceful British accent. Then we have Eliza Doolittle. And if you know anything about the premise of the story, you can see where this is going. She still sounds British, but compared to Professor Higgins, she sounds like she grew up in the sewer. Her words slur together and she makes guttural shrieks when she can’t find the words to use. One can tell that she is not the educated sort and lives in squalor. Both people are British, but completely different upbringings. Accents, pronunciations, slang, tone, etc – this says a lot about where a character reigns from regionally and what sort of life they have come from.
Storytelling Through Acting: The Internal
The external attributes can all hint at the internal word of the character, but not so much as behaviors.
Building off of voice, how a character delivers a line says a lot about their mental state. Are they angry? Sleep-Deprived? Depressed? Over-Joyed about life? What is going on in the character’s life that is influencing how they feel. How does that affect how they say “I beg your pardon?” It can mean very many different things depending on how it said. This helps the audience see into the mental and emotional state of the character.
Building off of the previous point – how does the character interact with other characters? Are they welcoming and receptive? Do they get frustrated by other characters? Maybe they’re avoiding the other character at all costs. Another clue that indicates the state of the character’s inner world. These additional layers contribute to the story of your character – who they are, where they came from… if you’r character has a history, they have good reason to behave and talk the way they do.
Perhaps the block that most foundational but most subtle is the character’s belief system. How does their belief system form and how does it dictate their actions? The audience may never know what the character’s exact beliefs are verbatim; but they can certainly infer it based on the decisions the character makes and the way they present themselves. Understanding your character’s belief system is very important to help navigate how you will portray them. It ranges from the small behaviors to the large decisions. They have to be influenced by something that is at the core of the character and interacts with the world around them.
Personal Benefits to Acting
There are multiple benefits you can gain from learning to act and act well. One of them is over-all confidence. This confidence is gained by a number of things. You gain confidence by putting yourself out there – in front of your fellow actors, in front of a live audience, or the camera. This opens yourself up for constructive criticism from your director and team. You also gain an ability to control yourself and present yourself in a specific way before others. Acting gives you the chance to learn new skills and experience life in a fuller capacity, lending itself to more confidence from experience.
Emotional Intelligence can improve from acting. By taking on different characters, you are expanding your ability to empathize and sympathize. You learn new perspectives, different ways of thinking, how a character’s upbringing can shape who they are, how circumstances can drive a character to make a desperate decision… by getting into the headspace of these characters, you learn that people are not so different after all. You may even see how you could become like any of these characters. This gives you a broader picture of the human experience and wide range of emotions humans have. Not to mention, it helps you become in touch with your own emotions better by helping you tap into emotions more easily.
Improved Communication is another benefit. You are exposed to how very minute changes to body language, tone of voice, and clothing affects how people perceive you. If you want to convey a specific idea or message, all you have to do is tweak how you present yourself. You also have more control over your voice and a wider understanding of how to articulate your words clearly (especially for theatre actors.) People will be able to understand what you are saying better and you’ll know how to project and speak in a way for everyone to hear you clearly.
Conclusion
It’s important to remember that acting is a skill that must be built. It may come more naturally to some people than others, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement even for them. We’re all individuals trying to fit and figure out the social game, and you can think of acting as an expansion to this idea, only, it uses imagination. But most of the rules apply to acting as they do real-life interactions. You must practice and become better at both. And you only become better after some trial and error.
If storytelling as a whole is meant to help us connect to other people and resonate with each other, then acting fits the bill. It helps those acting to understand people better and different ways of thinking. It helps the audience connect to a story because they can relate to the character. They can see the humanity in them. A good actor is willing to step into different world views and perspectives so they can present the character well. If they don’t commit to fully understanding the character’s way of thinking, they will do a poor job, and we, the audience, will be able to tell.
All storytelling should encourage imagination, and acting certainly does. Acting at its fundamental core is imagination – it’s pretending to be someone or something you are not. There is always some truth to imagination, but acting requires you to be something that you are not. This will open your mind to thinking outside the box and thinking outside of your own framework to see the world through other frameworks. It should get you in touch with the child-like part of yourself that used to pretend and create stories about the world in their heads. And we could all stand to be in touch with our child-like side a bit more. Life can become pretty mundane, but acting as the potential to add some color back into it.
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