There are only four kinds of conscience thoughts you should be thinking when you’re acting. Everything else should be ignored. If you’re driving a car with people in it yelling at you (including that jerk telling you what a lousy driver you are), don’t entertain a conversation with them, concentrate on the traffic. Let those extraneous thoughts chatter away and take care of business. What you don’t relate to will not create behavior detectable by the audience. Having the confidence to do this, of course, is helped by having done the right kind of homework beforehand. You want to prepare the scene as a kind of tunnel for yourself, maybe filled with twists and turns, then, when it’s time to perform, you can go wild in the tunnel.
A good preparation would include digesting the language, getting your lines down cold, presetting your emotional connections (creating vivid, conditioned responses to the events in the scene), and visualizing your objectives. You should also make second nature as much of the staging as possible. If you’re doing character work, rehearse and habituate those special behaviors (the accent, the way your character carries themselves, the way they handle props and
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