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The Emperor’s New Clothes

Remember last week, when talking about how things change? Well, I have to say that they’re slow to change. Paradigm shifts are almost always achingly slow.

How do we get from one place to another, how do we have one acting style and then another? Is it drop by drop? Does that drip drop turn into a trickle that becomes a flood?

I think one of the reasons that people have struggled to get past the hegemony of the Stanislavski system/Strasberg Method is that to criticise or change is it, is to challenge the status quo. And people have really bought into the status quo!

I honestly feel like so much of acting practice is laughably useless, a huge pile of nonsense and yet so many people carry on regardless, even if, under the surface they know that it’s a load of crap.

So why is that? It started me thinking…

Let me tell you a story… Perhaps you know it, it’s a children’s favourite from Hans Christian Anderson.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Once upon a time, an Emperor ruled over the whole kingdom. No one could remember a day that the wise, knowledgeable and talented Emperor hadn’t ruled the Kingdom. Everyone admired the Emperor, his commitment to rule always went beyond that required of him. He was lauded for his achievements and abilities, and all the people of the kingdom loved to celebrate the Emperor’s greatness, they emulated him whenever they could, his philosophy was even taught in the schools.

The Emperor prided himself on his sartorial elegance. Of all the Emperors in all the kingdoms, he was renown for his exquisite clothing.

One day two con artists came to the kingdom, they saw how everyone admired and looked up to the Emperor, they thought that if they could con the Emperor, maybe they could con the kingdom and grow rich.

They described themselves as tailors and started to put the word about that they were tailors of such high quality and the material they used had very special qualities.

They used their skills to make themselves known across the Kingdom, you could barely cross the street or open a webpage without someone whispering about them.

Of course, no one knew if they were any good or not, but that didn’t matter once the rumours started.

When the Emperor heard of these two tailors, he summoned them to the kingdom.

He quizzed and he questioned them about their skills and they dazzled him with fancy words and clever lies. They convinced him that the clothes they made were so special, that only the cleverest and most talented people could actually see them.

The Emperor immediately commissioned these ‘tailors’ to make him a new suit of clothes, and they set about ‘making them’.

After a few days, the Emperor was tired of waiting and ordered his First Minister (his most trusted advisor) to go and check on the progress. As he left, the Emperor joked to his other Ministers that he hoped the First Minister ‘could’ see them. The First Minister heard this but scoffed to himself. Of course he would see them!

When the First Minister found the tailors, they were on their way to the Emperor’s Palace. The First Minister demanded to see the clothes, but the tailors warned him that only the talented and the clever could see them.

They opened the box where the clothes were kept and the First Minister peered inside.

He saw nothing and was just about to have them thrown in jail when the Emperor’s joke came back to him. Then the words of the tailors, that only the most talented and the cleverest COULD see them, came back to him.

The First Minister quickly exclaimed that these were the most beautiful clothes he had ever seen. He accompanied the tailors straight to the Palace.

When the First Minister and tailors got back to the Palace, the Emperor was very excited.  He went into the fitting room and waited for the clothes to be put on him.

The First Minister and the tailors appeared and the box was presented to the Emperor.  The First Minister reassured the Emperor, telling him that these were the finest clothes ever seen.   But when the Emperor looked into the box, he saw nothing.  He was about to respond angrily when he suddenly realised, if he admitted that he didn’t see anything in the box, he would appear to be stupid and talentless.   So a huge smile crept across his mouth into a broad smile and exclaiming to the tailors and the First Minister that yes they were indeed the finest clothes he’d ever seen.  He remarked how stupid it would be if someone couldn’t see these remarkable clothes.

He ordered everyone out of his dressing room and he looked into the box.  There weren’t any clothes in there.  But he knew he didn’t want to appear stupid.  He couldn’t go out of room in his current clothes, he needed to keep up the charade, so he took off his clothes, and proudly strolled out of the dressing room in his ‘new clothes’.

The gathering of Ministers was shocked to see the Emperor standing naked in the great hall, but the First Minister stepped in quickly to save everyone’s embarrassment exclaiming to all what a wonderful set of new clothes it was and how only the stupid and the talentless wouldn’t see that.  Despite being completely shocked that Emperor was naked, the Ministers didn’t want to seem stupid and talentless, so they all agreed loudly and enthusiastically that these were finest

The Emperor knew he was naked, he also knew that he couldn’t see the clothes, but he thought that being naked was better than being considered stupid and talentless by his people, his public.  Then he thought, well, maybe I can’t see it, but… the First Minister said he could see it, the Ministers say they can see my new clothes, I can’t let anyone know that I can’t see them, I’ll just play along and then no one will find out.

Quickly the word spread that the Emperor’s new clothes were the most magnificent in all the land, and Emperor gave a large public event and strolled around the event in his new clothes.  While all the people of the kingdom saw that he was naked, not one of them dared to say anything because they didn’t want to displease the Emperor and they didn’t want to look stupid and talentless.  So they all lied to themself, and they lied to their familes and friends and they lied to everyone they met.  But inside, they knew it was a lie.

As the Emperor strode around the event, he heard the people tell him how wonderful his clothes were, but he still couldn’t see them and thought himself stupid and talentless that everyone in the kingdom could see the new clothes but him.  So he wore these clothes to ever special event for the next few weeks.  Visitors from overseas remarked on the beauty of the clothes, senators from other kingdoms remarked on how special they were, the Emperor’s closest friends told him how wonderful the clothes were.  And with everyone that told him about the clothes, he knew more and more that he couldn’t tell anyone that he didn’t see the clothes himself.

Meanwhile the tailors/con artists  had grown very rich and scarpered from the land.  Laughing at the naked Emperor at they left!

One day, he was strolling around a public fete with his Ministers, all the people there commented on his clothes.  He wanted to be proud, but he felt like such a fraud.  But he wouldn’t admit it.  That would be too terrible.  When finally he came to a collection of villagers at the fete, he greeted them and although they each interally sniggered that the Emperor was naked, they didn’t want to seem stupid and talentless, so they lied.  But one little boy, he didn’t understand it.  To him, the Emperor was standing there naked, and the only people that were stupid, were those that thought he had on clothes.

As he passed, the Emperor asked the little boy, what he thought of the new clothes, the boy remained tight lipped.  The Emperor asked again, but the boy remained mute.  The Emperor grew angry and the boy’s parents chided him for failing to answer, until the point when finally the boy could hold it inside no more.  “The Emperor is NAKED!” The boy erupted.  And quickly his parents tried to shut him up.   “But the Emperor is NAKED!” the boy shouted.  And the Ministers all tried to hush the child and threatened the parents, instructing them of the error they were making.  “But the Emperor is NAKED” the boy said honestly and the soldiers that surrounded the Ministers threatened the boy.  But the boy was not afraid, he smiled, he laughed, he pointed “The Emperor is NAKED, it’s so stupid that you can’t see it!”

And suddenly the Emperor realised.  If the boy could see he was naked.  And he could see he was naked.  Perhaps everyone was just pretending to see the clothes because they didn’t want to seem STUPID or TALENTLESS.  The Emperor looked at the boy, looked at the parents, looked at the soldiers, looked at the Ministers, looked at the First Minister, looked around all the gathered villagers.  He asked once “Who sees my clothes”.  And everyone replied loudly.   “Who sees my clothes?” he said again..  And no one wanted to look stupid.   “Who sees my clothes?” he asked again.  And no one would admit it.  Finally he looked to the boy.  “Do you see any clothes little boy?” the Emperor said.  “No sir” the boy replied.  “You’re naked, sir”, the boy answered.  “I’m naked” the Emperor muttered and someone in the crowd muttered it too, the mutter grew, and grew, until “He’s naked! He’s naked, the Emperor is naked! Was heard all around the Kingdom.”

Desperate to prevent the Emperor looking like a fool, his First Minister began stripping off, and then the Ministers and then the soldiers and finally the villagers, the parents but not the boy.  “Do I look stupid to you?” The little boy said.  And the Emperor laughed and laughed and laughed, because finally, he’d found the only one in the whole kingdom, the only person he knew, that saw beyond all the bullshit.    (Well, okay, the story doesn’t actually end like that usually, but I prefer everyone behaving like sheep…)

* * *

Do you hear what I’m saying?  The Emperor’s Naked.  But who dares to say something?

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Don’t Squeeze Your Arsehole

The Step 3 Auditions were on Wednesday night at Acting Coach Scotland. Former students and staff head the panel making the difficult decisions about whether people will head into the very challenging Step 4 Scene Study class.

During the night, after the scenes, we give feedback and my assistant, acting coach Ian said a hilarious comment which I believe was actually a piece of gold advice.

He said: “Don’t squeeze your arsehole.”

The class fell about laughing but let me tell you what he meant:

There are lines, in plays, in scripts that are really great lines.  One of these lines is a line from the play/film Closer about the character Larry looking up Alice’s arsehole for meaning/the answer.

The trouble is, it’s such a GOOD line.  And the GOOD lines are the trickiest to deal with.  And unfortunately, the actress (we’ll call her Canada) couldn’t help but make something out of the line each time

She’s not alone by any means.  Most of us cannot help ourselves, when there are KILLER lines (not just GOOD ones) but KILLER lines, we can’t leave them alone, we have to push, we have to SQUEEZE them for their value and worth.  And so we take a good line, or a killer line and some how we take all the truth out of it, we wring worth out of it, when it was good by itself.

So, the actress found herself squeezing the arsehole line.  It’s something we all do.  Hopefully we can all learning from this humorous lesson.

Leave the killer lines alone.  Let them do their own work.  You must let your TASK and the associated tactics and the moment, and your partner be the source for how to say the line.

So when you find one of those lines, a special line, a good line, a KILLER line.  Don’t squeeze it.  Let it be.  Follow the task, and don’t squeeze your arsehole.

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Tags: dealing with tricky lines, kill your babies (writing(

10 Types of Acting Teacher/Acting Coach

There are many types of acting teacher or acting coach.  Often when we experience problems with our acting teachers, we blame ourselves.  Well, I’m an acting coach, and I can tell you sometimes, it’s not your fault, sometimes the type of acting teacher/acting coach that you have is preventing you from getting the most out of it.  Your acting teacher may be a combination of any of these:

ONE: The Enthusiastic Amateur
Probably a friend of a friend, sometimes a failed actor turned high school drama teacher turned amateur acting coach.  It’s lovely that they want to help, but they’ll probably end up confusing you and giving you bad advice.  How can they help it? They’re not a professional, they mean well, but in the end they’ll probably fail you due to a lack of vocational knowledge in application.  They won’t know how to teach you to act, they’ll talk about feelings and space and emotions and whatever clever things pop into their heads, but they are not an acting coach.
TWO: The Unemployed (Fill in the Blank)
There are lots of unemployed actors or directors or something else that set themselves up as acting teachers.  I’ll be honest, learning to act does not equip you to teach acting, it’s a very different skills.  Teaching people to act requires the ability to break it down into learnable chunks.  I’d say 99% of the time, they weren’t taught in a way that they could learn from, so they will struggle to patch it together into something that they can teach you.  They’re only there to make a bit of cash on the side while they wait for their next gig – even worse, if they’re a famous face – trading on their name.

THREE: The Dinosaur
Old fashioned, has no real technique, lots of focus on speech and elocution.  They’ve been around since the dawn of time and they may have some great things to say about acting, some wonderful stories, but they’re completely hopeless when it comes to help you prepare for anything in this century.  “When I was at the Royal Academy…”

FOUR: The Academic
A university lecturer that has to teach acting courses, can be a frustrated actor, director, writer – even worse, a true academic, someone that never touched the stage in his life and now because of their position believes they can teach acting because they understand it in theory.

FIVE: The Brutaliser
Claims to be honest and sincere.  Claims to seeking the truth, telling the truth, but rarely is.  Claims to break you down with the truth and build you back up again.  Really, they’re just a bully, they have no idea how to apply their methodologies to you, so when you don’t comply with them, you get viciously brutalised. They call these brutalisations ‘honesty’ and they try to make you believe that you needed it.  Bullshit! They’re an abusive

SIX: The Fanatic
So deeply ingrained in their approach that they cannot see any other way of working.  Fallen for their own ranting and ravings.  A disciple of the cult of whatever Method they’ve convinced themselves works.  Treats acting like a religion, and the price for failing to be faithful to their religion, is severe.  Zealots rarely analyse their own beliefs, only look for ways to reinforce the beliefs they have.

SEVEN:  The Well-Meaning Hippy Twat
Somewhere lost in the Sixties, bare footed and deeply empathic.  Shares a lot of positive qualities with the Empowerer, but only in theory, they can’t put it into practice.  A lot of their approaches are fun games, whacky shenanigans and out there ‘Post Grotowski-esque’ performance art which really makes it fun to be with them, but at the end of the session, you’ve taken away nothing tangible.  Unfortunately, drama and performance art and professional actor training in the UK, are as far apart as Hello and Goodbye.  They’re well meaning but…

EIGHT:  The Remarkable Self Publicist
Everywhere you look his face is there.  You can’t get away from him.  His marketing budget is huge because he charges high fees, promising whole potatoes but barely even delivering fries.  But behind the glossy promotional material and the clever words, he’s simply a charlatan in disguise.  Sorry, did I say he? I meant HE.

NINE: The Director
Can’t tell you how to help yourself, so they basically just direct you.  This direction may be stunningly brilliant in that moment and in that situation, but it doesn’t empower you to help yourself next time.  So rather than learning to act, you’re simply learning to take direction – but at the same time they are teaching you to become dependent on the director.  This person is hindering you for the basic reason that they are taking away your ability to work by yourself.

TEN: The Empowerer
Honest, but never brutal.  Friendly, approachable but not interested in pleasing people.  They’re never interested in breaking you down, because they know that without a doctorate in psychology, that’s a dangerous place to be, and anyway, you don’t need breaking down, the person you are is fascinating and can act their socks off without expensive pseudo-psychology bullshit.  Their only aim is to make you better, doesn’t throw stuff at you and hope it sticks.  Is obsessed with their vocation as a professional acting coach and their eager is rarely part of the equation. For this person, it’s about you, and not them.
The Empowerer is someone I aspire to be.  They don’t give their students false promises, they don’t ever brutalise them for misunderstanding, they always try to find new ways to explain things better so that more people understand.  They don’t show off about past triumphs, they don’t hide behind flashy marketing and big prices.  They’re often humble, sincere and perhaps even that the principles that they personally live by, are somewhat akin to those of their approach to acting.

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Tags: types of acting coach, types of acting teacher

Happy Birthday Acting Coach Scotland

It was three years ago today that we rented a wee gallery space in a rough area of Glasgow and a small group of people gathered together to attend a basic six week acting course under the auspices of Acting Coach Scotland. One of those people, Ian Watt, is still with us, now teaching Step 1 and with my greatest respect – a growing embodiment of Practical Aesthetics.

Since then we’ve worked with some wonderful people, we’ve moved to our own space, developed plays, had triumph and disaster and pushed onwards to forge a part-time professional equivalent to conservatory training in a city over-run with ‘drama training’.

So our little studio is three years old. I’m so happy with what we’ve accomplished in that time. If you’re one of our students, or even if you’re not yet – we’ll be having a party in August, I can’t wait to celebrate properly with all of you.

To all of our students past and present, you continue to inspire us, thank you and Happy Birthday ACS!

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Tags: happy birthday acting coach scotland

The Actor’s Task

We have all heard of the acting term ‘objective’. We have also heard actors derided as ‘luvvies’ for wanting to understand their character’s motivation.

But intention is very important. Understanding not only what the character’s intention is, but how to translate that into action is very important for the actor. It’s essential.

Action and intention meet together in The Task. This is the better interpretation of the Russian word zadacha, which gave us the horribly clinical term ‘objective’ when translated by Hapgood, Staniskavski’s original translator.

These terms are uses freely along with want, desire, intention, goal and action. However let me be clear about what I mean by Task. I mean what the actor will do, to fully occupy them during each moment of the scene. This is where the character’s goal is translated into something simply do-able by the actor, the doing provides the action and when added to the intention we get a task. Character’s intention translated into something do-able by the actor.

The task must not be ‘performed’. That’s the death of your acting. The task must be lived truthfully. In other words, actually make the real attempt to achieve it.

Action is what you do. But sometimes that is made up of simple kittle activities. Activities are little bits of doing, but never confuse the two, action infused with intention is always psychophysical. However, you can just walk down a corridor to get to someone’s office, which is just an activity.

As actors on stage or screen, we cannot actually let anything we do be a plain activity, because it creates a stilted moment when the actor gives too much attention to the mechanics of handing their co-star a glass and they become clumsy instead of focusing on the larger task and allowing the moment with the glass to be influenced by it.

If you like the blogs, consider moving to Scotland, it’s beautiful! Lol.

Tags: zadacha

On Thought and Action.

I do not enjoy plays.  I do enjoy the theatre.  I enjoy cinema and television.  The main reason is the distinct lack of movement that most stage plays have.  I don’t mean physical action, I don’t mean car chases, I’d be equally repulsed by Spiderman the Musical.  The problem with most plays that I see these days is that they lack that element that I find most compelling: story.  Somewhere along the way, British theatre particularly seems to have gotten lost and turned away from action and towards a sort of intellectualism and ended up taking a shortcut to shit via it’s own arsehole.

I don’t come to the theatre to hear the playwright think through ideas of philosophy.  That’s not why I bought my ticket. I came to enjoy the story, to sit and enjoy the moments of drama that we all enjoy in life and fiction.  When thinking takes over from my enjoyment, I stop enjoying and start getting bored.  How many times have I sat in the theatre wishing it would end soon.  And yet, I adore the theatre and am inspired by it.  But so often I sit there and go crazy with boredom.  I don’t want to be taught, I don’t want to be lectured to, I don’t want your philosophy of life or your vague political discourse, what I want is dramatic action.  I want to be constantly wondering what will happen next and I don’t want to get ahead of the story unless it benefits my enjoyment of the story.  And yet so often, dramatic literature is something other than I just described, it’s only words.  Again, I don’t need explosions or fights, I just need to be kept interested.

In drama as in life, thought without action is stasis.  Action without thought is dangerous.

In acting, I want my actors to act without thinking, but this spontaneous capacity occurs after thought, when we know what we’re doing, when thought has been exhausted, and then we act.  This is the same in life.  A life spent in thought is a good one.  But without adding action to thought, we only have a life half lived.  Acting requires us to leave thought alone once the moment for action arrives.  The same for our career, thinking about education, thinking of being an actor, thinking of writing, they’re all static.  Until you marry your thought with action, and then it transforms into potential and from there… well.. anything can happen.

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Tags: thought and action

You are NOT a Creative Artist

You are an actor, you give a performance, this performance requires creative decision making and the end result is a kind of art work.  You are not however, a creative artist in the same way as the sculptor, the poet or composer.  Your fearlessness, your intuition, your spontaneity and your capacity to live truthfully the actions of a character from prescribed fictional situations is your capacity, is your ability.  It may be a creative skill, an artistic capacity, but you are not a creator, you do not generate in the same way as the writer, the painter or the choreographer.

You are the dancer and you may be part of the dance, but unless you are also the choreographer – in our art form, the director, the designer and the writer, then you are are not a creative artist in the same form.  You may be creative, you may consider yourself a

Where did this misconception come from?  I would say, the mistake is Stanislavski’s.  Heresy, I know, how dare I say such a thing?

Well, simply put, I believe he tried to bring the actor to the ‘creative’ table with the actor and the writer.  The actor’s job is a difficult one and the parity of esteem is not always present.  So, if one makes the actor a co-creator, it brings them alongside in esteem.

I realise that this will have some of your blood boiling, so let me pre-empt your usual tirades by writing out your usual objections:

• I don’t understand the REAL (that is your version of) Stanislavski
• I’m un (or under) educated in the field
• I had bad teachers
• I haven’t read the latest book on Stanislavski which reveals the ‘truth’
• I misunderstand or I just. don’t. get. it.
• I have an arrogant disrepect for actors or acting
• I’m misguided or deluded
• I’m an idiot

My belief does not stem from my ignorance, perhaps my arrogance, but not my ignorance.  Instead, it stems from careful study of Stanislavski’s system of acting for over 15 years.  It has resulted in this opinion, you are not a creative artist, you are a creative interpreter.  Now, is this a form of art? Yes, it is.  Do you create something? Yes, you create performance, but you do not do it on purpose and often your best moments are completely accidental and occur in the beautiful, daunting, terrifying unknown of the moment.  But as you are not the conscious originator of something, I do not believe you can be classed as a creative artist.  You are something else.  And you’re wonderful for it.  It’s a skill I greatly respect you for it.  You’re just not a creative artist.

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Tags: Actor as Creative Artist, the actor is not a creative artist

Momentum

We learn by habit.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s Spanish, Cooking or the Guitar, we learn through practice that forms habit.  The item necessary for habit to form is forward motion, continued effort, we could call this Momentum.

The best students I’ve ever had were not necessarily the smartest or the most talented, but those that attended class with an open, keen mind, and let the momentum of forward motion turn into habit, and when something is habit, it becomes natural.  I’m not saying that it’s effortless, I’m saying that they develop a sense of ease.

For students that come to a few classes and expect miracles, we don’t have any.  Actually, you’ve come to the wrong studio for that.  You need to come and you need to be prepared to build habit by momentum, because only momentum, will help.

This week some students missed some vital classes, they will REALLY struggle to know what’s being talked about next week.  They will struggle because their physical absence has no broken their rhythm and destroyed their momentum.

I understand that people have reasons to stop training or miss classes, but in my view, they have to really struggle to recover.

Many good students leave just as they are on the verge of something special, just as their practice is starting to become habit, but they need a guiding hand still, someone to help them to get the best out of themselves.  Like a personal trainer.

You might think of it like fitness, you can train with a PT to lose weight and become healthier, but if you stop training and go back to junk food when you become fit and healthy, soon enough the bad habits will return and you will go back to the beginning.

I swear to you, it doesn’t take talent or gift or even luck to be a good actor, it takes MOMENTUM.

 

 

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Introduction to Stanislavski

And after all that, some of my newer students asked me to give them a little introduction to Stanislavski, to give them some background and history to this debate and I’ve agreed to do that here.

Konstantin Alexeyev or ‘Stanislavski’ as he is known by his stage name is remembered as the father of modern acting.  He was the first to systemize the actor’s process into logical steps and pursued the truth in acting at all costs.

His work was first derided, as anyone who tries to change the status quo, but eventually has become the backbone of much of the Western tradition of acting. His work appears for us in several poorly translated volumes known as the ‘ABC’ of  acting – An Actor Prepares, Building a Character and Creating a Role.  He also published an autobiography called My Life in Art.  There are many excellent biographies written about Stanislavski and because people cannot agree entirely on his intentions for his ‘system’ of acting, there are hundreds of books, each interpreting Stanislavski’s work for themselves.

Recent translations of the first two books are more accessible and successful, most notably Jean Benedetti An Actor’s Work. He founded the highly successful Moscow Art People’s Theatre in Moscow with his collaborator Nemirovich-Danchenko and premiered the works of Anton Chekhov.  The acting style shocked and captivated the Russian audiences and delivered a whole new perspective on acting.  The company toured America many times leading to actors emigrating to the USA and teaching Stanislavski’s ideas there.

Stanislavski’s work centred on creating the inner life of the role and he dedicated his life to discovering how to stimulate the creative state of mind so that the actor could find inspiration at a moment’s notice.  Although many focus on Stanislavski’s assertion that the actor should ‘live the part’, he also believed that the actor was a far more interesting person than any character could ever be.  His early work focused on the truthful production of emotion, which gave rise to his renowned ‘Affective’ or ‘Emotion’ Memory exercises, later to become the fulcrum of American ‘Method’ acting.  His later work focused on the relationship between the physical and the psychological and was called the method of physical action.   Acting terms such as ‘Objective’, ‘Beat’, ‘Stage Direction’, ‘Motivation’ and ‘Action’ were coined by Stanislavski in his pursuit of a systematic approach to acting.

Stanislavski never stopped experimenting for his entire life.  He was tireless in his quest for the root of truthful acting.  Since his death, revisionists across the world have attempted to claim ownership of his true intention.  Most recently certain experts have attempted to ‘revise’ the historical record and tell us all what Stanislavski intended.   No one really knows, but that doesn’t stop these ‘experts’ attempting to claim that they are in possession of the truth.   Unfortunately, they only reflect their own prejudices in what they choose to highlight or hide.

Macy once said that Practical Aesthetics is the next evolution of the Stanislavski system, but this is not true, it is only small components of it – the ones that work in practice.   The rest has been left to the side.  I believe that with Stanislavski’s love of experimentation, he would have approved of this approach.

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Tags: intro to Stanislavski, intro to Stanislavsky

Tongue Twisters for Actors

This is as much for me as it is for you. It’s a list of some tongue twisters in English that I use. I hope they’re useful to you, they’re useful to me for having them in one place!

Here we go:

A cricket critic (repeated)

A cricket critic, a critic of the criket

A cricket critic cricked his neck, at a critical cricket crisis

A wicked cricket critic

If you’re fond of cunning stunts from stunning kites, get a stunning cunning stunt kite!

Three-Tree-Dwellers (repeated)

I shot three shy thrushes, he threw three free throws

Topeka, Bodega, Topeka, Bodega, Topeka, Bodega

I thought a thought, but the thought I thought was not the thought I thought I thought

The Leith Police Dismisseth Us

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry (Repeated)

Red Lolly Yellow Lolly (Repeated)

Red Leather, Yellow Leather (Repeated)

Did you, would you, could you? (without saying JEW)

Can’t you, won’t you, don’t you (without saying CHEW)

Mommala Poppala Mommala Poppala

Peggy Babcock

I carried the married character over the barrier

Honorificabilitudinatibus (From Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost)

A regal rural ruler

Green glass grass gleams

A proper pot of coffee in a proper pot of coffee pot

You Know New York, You Need New York, You Know You Need Unique New York (This was hard just to type out)

Wrist Watch Wrist Watch

Get Grandma Great Greek Grapes

Cinnamon Synonym

Good Luck with these!

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Tags: Tongue Twisters for Actors

Hot Seating & Other Wastes of Time

If you’ve been involved in acting, you cannot have escaped this exercise. It is part of a plethora of tools used by the well meaning, to help to explore ‘character’. It’s aim is to help you learn more but in truth, it is a time wasting exercise, which prevents us from facing the real challenge, the script.

The game is essentially ‘in character’ Q&A, people ask the ‘character’ questions and they reply.

The trouble is that just like writing out your character’s fictional history, it does very little to help you do your job which is reveal the play to the audience, tell the story, act out the parts.

This exercise is one of improvisational cleverness and ad-hoc creativity, it does not help you ‘understand’ the character because that is not a requirement of your role.

Your role isn’t to come up with bright new fictions, but to thoroughly understand the fiction set out before you by the writer. And that’s usually quite hard and that’s why ‘doing a bit of hot seating’ is so popular, along with all the other work avoidance tactics that make up a rehearsal period.

When Antony Sher was rehearsing Primo, his one man show about Primo Levi, the director arranged for him to be driven around London in the back of a dirty van, while men shouted at him. This was somehow meant to help him understand what Primo Levi went through at the hands of the Nazis. Poppycock! And an insult to the Jews and masochistic self-pleasuring at it’s worst.

These exercises and character history and hot seating are fun things that feel like work, but they are not helpful and they are not real work, they are fake work and an insult to the actor’s intelligence

Do the play. Learn the lines, answer certain rudimentary questions that unlock the do-able in the script, act upon these answers and make good use of your precious kittle rehearsal time!

Notes from A.R Gurney

I was re-reading A.R Gurney’s terrific piece ‘Love Letters’ and found myself at the back of the play, reading his Do’s and Dont’s for Producing Love Letters.

I won’t reproduce the whole list, but the last two are worth repeating and considering for all actors:

7. Avoid crying. Let the audience do the crying, if it feels like it.

8. Don’t mess around with the text. No embellishments, insertions, cuts, or silent mouthings, please. Trust what I wrote, perform it as written, and all will be well.

Think on these pieces if advice from Gurney whenever you work on a new script.

Really Doing Stuff – Part 1 – Tactics

I’m moving house again today for the…21st time in my life, so today’s a guest blog from my assistant, acting coach Ian Watt:

I’m an old guy. They say you can’t teach me new tricks. My attention span grows shorter day by… And truthfully – little startles or ignites my sense of wonder anymore.

I’ve done workshops – all sorts. Some enjoyable – some I’d rather forget. All cost me time and money but only a few helped me make any tangible progress. I didn’t know what I was doing. I got by with a daring mix of ignorance and stupidity. I envied those with traditional training – without really knowing why. I was looking for something real to steer me, a compass to guide me – or even just a helping hand from some friendly soul.

I was suspicious about signing up for Mark Westbrook and “his” Practical Aesthetic classes.

After a couple of chats with Mark – I committed to doing the very first Intro Class he was about to run. During these chats Mark flattered me, coaxed me and assured me. His classes turned out to be exactly what I’d been looking for. I didn’t learn any tricks – but had a good common sense approach drummed into me. Practical tools I understand but like all of us – struggle to use.

I’ve had a lot of Mark’s little “chats” since then and I’ve noticed they usually end with me committing to do something – performing in a play of his or assisting him teach at the ACS studio. This isn’t a complaint – but take a look at the words in BOLD. They’re TACTICS – the way we do things or how we go about getting what we want from someone.

I’ve watched many of our students struggle DOING tactics for real. When called to do them to order -they start thinking about them. There’s a tendency to “act” out how they think it should be done in an awkward self-conscious approximation of really doing it. They need to be pushed to DO it because you can’t think out a TACTIC – you have to commit to doing it. Find the impulse to do it and learn what doing it is like by doing it. Some TACTICS will come to you easier than others but work at them. Really commit to DOING the TACTIC and you’ll witness things happening to your scene partner. You will affect them.

Recently an Intro class a student forgot their lines because they weren’t expecting to on the receiving end of a TACTIC done for real. They were ready for an “acted” version of it. They could’ve coped with that because I’ve no doubt the student had learned their lines well. The magnetic quality of watching a real reaction was pure magic.

TACTICS are powerful things. When we really DO them – they have a real affect on people.

Mark got me to do this Blog by using them!

Confidence Tricks

A while back I had a student drop out of class. This in itself is not worrying, there are a range of reasons why people cannot commit to a regular class. But this time, I was really intrigued by it. When people say that they come to class to gain or grow in confidence, I think they might mistake the purpose of an acting class. An acting class teaches acting, just as a Spanish class teaches Spanish, and just as taking a Spanish class will not necessary make you a better listener, then acting might not make you more confident. Except, it probably will as a result of the training that we deliver at the ACS Studio.

And here’s the problem. If you want to know the trick to growing in confidence, it’s right here. One cannot attend classes for ten weeks and expect to grow in confidence as if by magic. It is through struggle that one learns and changes and grows. So, by committing to a ten week acting class, and by taking on the games and exercises of that class, fully invested, regardless of fear, or failure or fear of failure, in front of others, who will also fail in front of you, by overcoming the obstacles placed in your way, you will grow in confidence. By tackling those things head on, although you might fail and make a fool of yourself in front of others, you will gain the confidence that you sought. But this could pretty much be said of any kind of class that challenges you personally. It isn’t necessary acting classes you need. This person might believe they chose the wrong class, I would disagree, they don’t understand the nature of confidence.

I’m not one that believes that everyone should take acting or drama, because it makes one a better person, that’s some well-meaning hippie crap that was invented to sell drama to schools and get funding for the arts. But, I am sure that acting classes are personally challenging and that if you face the struggle, deal with your discomfort, don’t back down and don’t give in, you will grow, as an actor, or a person, or possibly both. And if you back down, give in and go home, you will learn nothing about acting, and nothing about yourself as a person.

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Tags: can i get confidence through acting classes?

Historical Portaiture

I’m thinking about Christian Bale, an untrained actor you might have heard of… apparently he spent two months with the real guy he was meant to be portraying in the film The Fighter, and he is commended by the acting fraternity for ‘dedication’ and ‘commitment’ and other platitudes.

But I was thinking about this, is that attention to detail required? It would seem so, but this is a film and not real life and the character in the script is not a real person, it is a fictional entity, a character based on a person.

So what do we want? Do we need the actor to live with and study the real person? Is that acting or simply impersonation? I’ve no doubt he does a good job in the film, although it is a frenetic, caricature in my eyes that threatens to overshadow Mark Wahlberg’s performance.

But then what if the real person is dead? Should we watch videos and read biographies? My answer is only if facsimile is important to the film.

Bale specialises in extreme characters, and like Daniel Day Lewis, plays them, inhabits them with a frightening level of commitment. But unlike Day Lewis, Bale is entirely untrained, not a Method Man as portrayed in the media, but a guy who has sought out his own method, from being in front of the camera, and that’s his way, to suggest that commitment and dedication make him a Method actor is to suggest that the kid that tries hard at soccer is a professional.

It is my belief that Bale’s decision to ‘create’ character from real life examples comes from insecurity, because he has no method, no technique to use.

And perhaps his performances are laudable, but they’re also larger than life, extreme beings, which he is allowed to fill extremely.

Sometimes I admire the performance, sometimes it seems more than is necessary but if his method of work works for him, I can respect that. But then who is going to argue with him.

To suggest that there is perhaps another way seems unappreciative, perhaps it even undermines his dedication and commitment, but my suggestion is to start and end with the script. The fictional character on the page and the scene that you the actor must play.

To my mind, to begin with the real person is ultimately inauthentic, it does not serve the script, it serves the actor and their ego. The real person and the script are not the same thing and to insist upon it and call it ‘artistic’ or ‘method’ or ‘commitment’ is to force your view onto the script. This is the closest Bale gets to Method acting, the placement of the actor and their performance ahead of the script.

In The Fighter, it is not Bale but Wahlberg who moves me. Why? Because Marky Mark hasn’t gotten in the way of the story, he’s there and I’m allowed to enjoy it without his help, he’s no need to convince me of his authenticity, I believe him because I paid my seven quid to do just that.

Bale will remain a great actor, and one cannot argue that he is accomplished and there are perhaps many great performances still left in his tank, but whether the ends justify the means, I’m still not entirely sure.  Oscar will almost certainly hand Bale a statuette this year, because it likes to believe that hard working actors deserve it, and he sure did his homework.

To You, The Best!

Mark Westbrook
Senior Acting Coach
ACTING COACH SCOTLAND


Like What You Read? Want to Read More? Mark's eBook is available here
Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2011

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Guest Blog: My Story so Far

My journey so far, through Practical Aesthetics:

I call it my journey so far, because I don’t believe we can ever reach a point where we know enough about our craft. There is always room to grow, and improve and that is one of the things that make the job so exciting.

When I first came across Mark’s classes, I knew I didn’t know much. I was craving something I could really grip onto, get stuck into, sink my teeth into… whatever image works for you. I was looking for something that worked each and every time. A process I could use when I was approaching any script that I knew would get me into the scene without the hours of intellectualising. I don’t like spending time intellectualizing, and to prove it, spell check is going to town on this document!

I found Mark’s classes through Scotnits, and realized rather quickly that I had been approaching new scripts with a sense of fear and dread rather than excitement. All I wanted initially when I found Practical Aesthetics, was a way I could practice my craft every week and hopefully get a bit better and more confident. What I got was so much more than that.

In my first class we were introduced to the repetition exercise – or the PA version of the repetition exercise. I had done some repetition previously, but only to a very basic level, and without any explanation of why we were doing it. My first thought when the exercise was explained was, ‘Great, I feel slightly ahead, I’ve got this.’ My basic knowledge got me through the first 2 minutes of class. Not only did the exercise levels move along considerably faster than I had experienced, but I actually became aware of WHY we were doing it. It’s amazing how that knowledge ignites you to get better at what, in theory, should be a basic human skill. I had the typical response of anyone new to the repetition exercise: ‘I don’t have the vocabulary’, ‘ He’s not doing anything’, ‘I just cant see what you see..’ etc etc etc. I have come to realize there are no new ‘excuses’.

I was very lucky when I first started training because we had a group of only 5 of us who were at the same level and moved through together. We were improving in different areas at different times, but were comfortable enough to allow our own mistakes to happen so we, and others, could learn from them.
I found a breakthrough in repetition in the form of a little breakdown. (Not of the diva kind.) It was during repetition when I felt the pressure mounting and exploded into fits of giggles, the giggles wouldn’t stop. I found myself desperately trying to control laughter, tears and hyperventilation while still trying to do the exercise. At the time it felt like absolute torture, and I was wondering why the hell Mark wouldn’t take pity and stop the exercise. What I ended up getting from pushing through though, was far more valuable than had I stopped and gathered myself. Had I stopped, I would have felt more stupid, and had a sense of failure rather than triumph. I pushed through however, and beat it, with the aid of my wonderful partner. She was very nurturing and it was obvious she desperately wanted me to get through it. The acknowledgement of her sympathy gave me something to say: ‘You’re nurturing.’ From there I could get my attention back on her, and therefore get myself back on track. The lesson was obvious. If that happened on stage, I had a way to get back into the scene- focus on the other person. It can be said in theory a thousand times, but nothing is as powerful as experiencing it.

During the first set of classes we were introduced to our first ‘As if’. The first time I experienced moving from ‘As if’ into a scene without re-setting was when I fell in love with the technique. The freedom to not have to think about how you were going to say the next line seemed to click everything we had done up until that point into line. I was excited. But like any good episode drama, that was the last class, so I had to wait until next term to explore.

I have found, as many have, that the more difficult you are finding something, the more you are learning. It unfortunately, doesn’t occur to you at the time, and certainly doesn’t make the struggle any easier, but I found the PA monologue class a particular struggle. It highlighted all of my bad habits. This, at the time, was torture, but in the long run, so beneficial. If you get the bad habits out in the open, so people can criticize (helpfully of course), then it’s kind of like sweeping the cobwebs out of the attic. It takes time, but you know what you are working with, and being aware of them means you have something solid to work on. A focus in PA is the desire to create a common vocabulary. This proved so helpful when trying to get rid of those bad habits we have when we’re self- conscience. It helped me personally, be aware that my habits were not exclusively mine. Others had the same problems, and they were fixable. Although I had to (and still have to) work hard to get rid of them, I never felt I was in it alone. This was invaluable.

I was so inspired through my time with ACS that when I had to leave the country to go back to Australia for a short time (Visa issues), I wanted to keep my training going. I took nine plays with me to read, and worked with Mark over email, analyzing them. My time at ACS has proven to me, how valuable regular practice is. I cant emphasise enough how helpful it was to just focus on analysis solely for 5 weeks. Or working with one particular class mate, we would sit in my lounge room for hours doing just repetition, then sit for a few more just doing lines on a 2 page script. If you have the time, nothing can replace it.

Our work on ‘Lovely Creature’ is an example of how much faster you can move along in understanding and skill when you totally immerse yourself in the technique. In one week we learnt, rehearsed and performed the play using Practical Aesthetics technique. The fact that we all had the same process, the same vocabulary and the same commitment, meant that every session we moved significantly further along. Everything we had done in class we could apply, in a professional situation, under pressure, and in front of a non- PA audience.

My time assistant teaching and teaching was a form of continual practice, and then some. During my time assisting, I heard the same information, process and examples that I had heard during my training, but every time I heard it, it just reinforced what I knew. When I had to explain these processes to other students, it was incredible how quickly my own understanding deepened. That, and watching other students struggle in the same ways I did, ask the same questions I did, and come across so many familiar hurdles, and new ones of course, just made my belief in the technique stronger. Noticing when people went wrong, how they went wrong, and knowing that it was fixable, reinforced my confidence in my own knowledge of PA and my belief that failure is the best way to success.

I guess I never really noticed improvements in my own performance as I was going, but I did realize that the notes after my scenes were becoming more positive and I watched others around me improve greatly. The most obvious and pleasurable change I did notice though, was a sense of freedom when on stage. When I had got the analysis right, done a good amount of preparation – repetition with my partner, as if, repetition with action etc, I had successfully exchanged my familiar feeling of fear and dread with excitement and freedom.

I am now looking forward to what awaits for me here in sunny Oz!

Karli Evans

Anticipation

Congratulating ourselves a little bit today, this is our 401st blog, more thank a book! Go us!

And now that’s over…

Today’s blog is on the topic of Anticipation, a deadly lurking trap that many actors fall into and fore-warned is fore-armed and all that.

The problem of anticipation is a simple one, you pretty much know what’s coming next because you’ve read the script. If you’re a good actor, you have no clue how you’ll handle what happens next until the moment, but since you do know logically what will come next, you meet the problem of anticipation.

You anticipate what will happen, so you act that way. Instead of doing what you’re meant to be doing, you mentally brace yourself for it and it shows.

You know the actor playing opposite you is going to come in and demand your attention, so you either ignore it, because you know it’s coming or you’re too ready for it. If you don’t want to have to practice your surprised face, you have to do something about it.

The trick to dealing with this is very simple, it’s to involve yourself and live as fully as possible in THIS moment and allow that other moment to creep up on you unawares. If you do that, and your focus of attention is entirely given to this moment and not a future moment, you can rid yourself of the mind’s rather cursed trick of anticipating.

To live fully in this moment, involves ensuring that the mind has something to keep its attention attended.

Being in the moment isn’t some hippy phrase, it’s about taking each moment as it comes.

If you play like you know what’s coming, you’re anticipating. Live fully and completely in this moment. The past is gone and the future must remain unknown, regardless how many times you practised it.

Tags: being in the moment

Compromising Our Ideals

The actor’s got to eat, that’s the bottom line in the end, isn’t it?

How many compromises of character has this good but flawed philosophy caused? The advert for the ambulance chaser? The less-than-equity job that should have put the actor’s first, the educational show which insulted your intelligence and the kids? The show/film with just a bit of artistic nudity.

The question is not where does it stop but where does it end?

I think it ends in shoddy work, group denial of standards of excellence and professionalism. The old Pro’ has a chuckle at the actor with ideals, like the senior lawyer smiling at the neophyte lawyer’s ideals of ‘helping others’. How quickly this lawyer learns that it’s all in the billing – perhaps the same as the actor!

I have my ideals and I won’t compromise or surrender them, students may feel they have to, to get what they want, but I honestly view this as one more test.

This business is the ultimate test of character, because it constantly tempts you to compromise yourself in order to achieve your goals. Thus only the powerful can hold ideals, by which time, they have long since been compromised.

I do not posit an easy solution to this paradox, but a challenge, you must eat, but do not compromise yourself in doing so.

What is Good Writing?

There are plays that I love and plays that I hate.

The plays that I love engage me with their storytelling and affect me in a personal way. The plays that I hate have little story, and are best described as ‘intellectual’. I don’t mean intelligent, I mean intellectual.

Actors have to deal with all sorts of writing, ranging from the sublime perfection of contemporary writers such as Aaron Sorkin, Neil Labute, or Alan Ball to classical writers like Shakespeare, Fletcher or Moliere.

What do these writers have in common, aside from unfortunately just being men? They write compelling intelligent drama. They don’t write drama that originates from the anus and only rises from there.

But more and more, the drama that I see written, staged and reviewed is solely for the consumption via the arse hole. It gets lauded and applauded, but it fails to touch the heart. It complies with the Literati’s narrow view of plays.

And this is my problem, no matter the writer, I want a good solid story and I want to be affected by it. Isn’t that what good writing is? Or is it ‘literature’ which is meant to have a more abstract effect upon the audience?

Am I alone? Did Sophocles not write to purge the audience of emotion? Did Shakespeare not revel in a good story? What went wrong? Why must I sit through two hours of intellectual drivel?

I know that many writers feel the same way, their work is exciting, moving, thought-provoking without being ponderously literary.

Do actors prefer this stuff? Do they like it because it gives them a feeling of seriousness? Or is it more challenging? I don’t know, this is a sincere question.

I have a feeling this stuff leaves the actor and audience both feeling empty but potentially congratulating themselves for their interaction with serious ‘art’.

Tags: writing for theatre

A wee bit of criticism

Never let it be said that I don’t give my critics a voice, I thought I would have some fun and publish some of the flak I’ve received over the past two years from internet critics:

“you know nothing about acting man, nothing” – Anonymous.

“this guy is an idiot, you have to feel real emotion to portray real emotion. I can’t believe how stupid he is” – Kisa.

“Wrong” Jonestube

“My dear Mr Westbrook, you are quite wrong and you and the likes are endangering the soul of the artists” -Anderson457

“I would be embarrassed for you if you were my teacher…” – MasterPetrov

“You are one of the WORST acting coaches. Period.” – Gant

“you hate method because you can’t do it” – 3hytsd

“you’re a fool.” – herminkai

“you talk bollocks, please give up” – Ponce

“I could tell you were European… In America we do not intellectualize about what the character is thinking, feeling or doing. We just believe, we believe we are the character…” – AtLastontheGround

“I can’t be bothered to argue with this pretentious fool” – soulofbass.

“what an arrogant little fool” – anon.

“Mark Westbrook is what I call an intelligent moron”. – gc1282.

“a bunch of baloney” acd232

“how can you call yourself an acting teacher? You are wrong, wrong, wrong!” – Hashgat

“I worry that young actors will actually pay attention to your bullshit, instead of living the soul of the character through proper technique, you are dangerous”. – UnitedAAP4

“if you had ever spent time learning about acting, you would not think these things, you have no respect for tradition” – Mitchel4s

“Where do you get those stupid ideas? A proper acting teacher would always teach that the portrayal of emotion is the heart of the actor” – Biebgirl99

“idiot, your students must really waste their money” – angryburrrd

“you talk crap, try to read a book” anon

“Mr Westbrook, do you have ever taught acting? I think not, I think you are just man with too big opinions” – Tupg

“acting is becoming, believing and becoming, your way is easy, empty, and meaningless, how dare you teach acting!” – The1Overton

“well done, you have undone years of good work, you are rebel without a clue” micdicon

“I showd my acting teacher your blog, he says you know nothing about real AmericAn acting, only stupid English faking acting” – forwardsooo

“how can you write this stuff? you know noething about directing” – last15

“you are a fraud, you didn’t go to those places you say to train, if you did, you would not say these things” -crawdad

“Mr Westbrook, I teach acting at a good school and you are so incorrect in all your ramblings” Anon.

“very stupid” papagaga

“you are a stupid man, I read your blogs and you are so ignorant, I cannot belief you have a single student.” Anon.

“what u say is bogus. Real actors will not listen to you”. – Anon.

“f**k you and your wiseass blog” – Anon

“man, you’re not even good at blogging” – tyk

“if you study with this ‘acting’ coach, you will pay money for nothing” – farrowj

So I guess that’s enough of that.

Hope you enjoyed that, I did!