Homework is boring. That’s why you went into the arts! But you’ll soon find out—if you haven’t already—that as a professional working actor, homework will follow you for your entire life courtesy of memorizing lines. Luckily, you can learn your lines without ever struggling through memorization again. Here are three tricks that will help you avoid actor homework for the rest of your life.
1. Stop memorizing. Never do it again…seriously. When you pile all that information into your head like you’re cramming for a test, you develop a boring cadence. Line reading becomes a stale melody, an unbreakable rhythm you chant your lines to as if reading from a teleprompter in your mind. It makes for a snooze of a performance and is also the one thing casting directors will always check for by asking, “Can you do it another way?”
If you are learning your lines rote, you’ll be locked into that tune you made up, only remembering the dialogue by recalling what note you are on in this sad little song. We all know this tune; it’s the battle hymn of the crap actor. You’ll also forget where you are in the music if anything changes. Ever go off on your lines when a
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