Pearls of wisdom that actors should be living by every day

Those tips are useful both in and out of the theatre.

LPT: Keep a digital sticky note around for those golden rules. I keep them for when I rip grand epiphanies clean off the Internet for my own reading purposes, and they have been lifesavers when I needed them most.

Around the acting community, people would usually ask questions that we've all heard before. What do you think of this headshot? Which drama schools do you recommend? What kind of acting class should I attend? Well. Make no mistake, those are all valid questions, and they are questions that I would gladly answer on any other day - perhaps in a separate article some time down the road.

And advice. We know lots of them, don't we? Make bolder choices. Play with your pace and rhythm. Bring all the dance shoes you have to a musical theatre audition. That said, once in a blue moon, we do hear of some truly rare gems that should absolutely be recorded in a philosophical anthology. Let's look at some of them.

1. Act against your lines.

This one had me confused at first. What does it mean, am I supposed to go in the opposite direction of what I'm saying? Does that even make sense? Well, absolutely, because your character is a real and complex person. No one has ever made a big decision without at least an iota of doubt unless they are truly one dimensional. When you act against your lines, you introduce a powerful kind of tension to every word you utter, creating depth and nuance in what might otherwise be just an okay scene. Don't just cry, fight against your tears. Cry, but be too proud or too numb to let it all out. Make that emotional scene uniquely yours.

2. Give your silence meaning.

The greatest actors I've had the pleasure of learning from would stress time and again: When you're not speaking, that is your time to shine. Actions speak louder than words. Truly listening and reacting in the moment is what makes a phenomenal performance a cut above the rest.

3. Slow down.

Sounds like common sense? As the saying goes, common sense is not that common - we all know it, but it takes plenty of consciousness to get over the urge to rush towards the finish line. I fall into the trap of rushing my delivery worryingly often, and I'm still learning to slow down. Rushing can cause you to forget and trip over your lines. And if you're belting an 11 O'clock number in musical theatre, rushing can be the fatal strike to prematurely ending the lifespan of your money note. Take your time. Just take it.

4. Your character is an onion.

I got this one from my sister, who is a big fan of psychology, and I realized that it was incredibly relevant to my work as an actor. An onion has layers upon layers upon layers. Characterization is an intriguing art form that requires us to delve deep into who our character is - do we really know what we want? Are we hiding something? Is that something so well-hidden in our layers of masks and onion peels that we ourselves have no idea what they are? How often do we hide our true selves from the people around us, and what does a slip of that mask look like? The concept of an onion and comparing it to the human psyche is a relatively simple one, but it can be a useful way to visualize our own inner worlds and to examine our characters closely.

5. Create sense bookmarks for your character.

Touch things, smell things and create a memory palace for yourself to walk through. The job of bringing lines on paper to life is hard enough, and you want to truly understand every line as if they were your own. If physical devices such as sounds and objects can jog something in your mind, by all means, mix that element into your performance by remembering it as some kind of signature checkpoint. By developing your emotional memory, you can then make better and more specific choices that is as real as they get.

Do you have some great acting tips of your own? Feel free to share them in the comments below!