Over the last decade

there has been a real change in acting. With the growing popularity of the American TV series with movie production values, acting in particular has had to change and become more and more realistic. Audiences want to be effected by performances as well as entertained. This change has filtered to the stage as well so the days of “learn your lines and don’t bump into the furniture” have disappeared (thankfully!). With that in mind surely the way actors are trained should move with the times to reflect this need for more truthful and realistic actors. Recently I found myself observing a class at a well known Drama School and it struck me how what they were being taught was the same as I was taught 25 years ago! I’m not just talking about understanding the technical elements of performing for camera, but more how to create truthful emotions and be real believable characters as opposed to just creating a facsimile of a character and pretending to feel. When you watch a great actor you feel what they feel and are taken on an emotional journey that makes you empathise with the character. Thankfully these actors are instinctive and have found a way to connect with the truth of the character despite the way they have been trained. It’s time to shake things up and move on and take a fresh look at the likes of Stanislavski, Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, Hagen et al. The tools they gave us are still important but there is a much easier way to create truthful emotions consistently…use yourself! I’m not referring to Emotional Memory, even Stanislavski stop using this as he came to realise how dangerous and unreliable this method is. I’m talking about using your imagination, creating your own truth and superimposing that onto your character thereby eliciting real emotions from yourself and creating a truthful performance. This can be easier said than done but thankfully there is a systematic approach that is easy and produces great results. The Process is a set of tools that have been simplified to stop you thinking when you act and allowing you to JustBE. The Process helps you become a more truthful and consistent actor. The Dorset School of Acting is the only school to employ this unique approach and the results are fantastic. To find out more about The Process check out bit.ly/theprocessbook and to find out more about The Dorset School of Acting go to http://dorsetschoolofacting.co.uk