Few things are as polarizing as award season. No matter who wins in a category, there is always disagreement, particularly among actors and industry people.
The SAG awards were no exception this year, and personally I’m still trying to wrap my head around some of the winners.
Some loved the winners and agreed with them pretty much across the board. Others...not so much.
I don’t want to get into the specifics of whether a particular actor and their performance deserved to win or not.
What’s more important than my opinion, is why any of it is relevant to you and your acting career.
You may not have recognized it until now, but awards season has a lot to do with your acting career, but not in the ways you might think.
Ignoring this could be one of the biggest mistakes of your acting career...
See, after everything is said and done, when you look at an award winner’s performance and their body of work, you are witnessing what industry decision makers consider to be greatness.
What so many actors don’t realize is that you can reverse engineer this.
As actors, we get so caught up in our own creative process, that we often ignore the creative expressions and processes of others.
This is kind of unique to the industry.
In almost anything else, people are very comfortable with drawing inspiration from others. But this almost seen as taboo when it comes to almost anything artistic, and we tend to shy away from it.
In fact, we are often even discouraged from doing this, as many acting coaches steer us away from using the performances of others as inspiration for our own.
Their explanation is usually that you shouldn’t try to emulate someone else.
While this is good and valid advice, emulating someone and getting inspiration from someone’s performance are completely different things.
When you study another actor, you can reverse engineer their success and create vivid, multidimensional characters that jump off the screen.
Don’t try to do what they do.
Instead pay attention to the choices they made. Why do they slightly squint while concentrating?
How and why did their speech patterns change when they were interacting with different characters?
Did their characters have any unique “quirks,” speech patterns, facial expressions, etc. Why did they make these character choices or why did the actor you are studying decide against it?
Go deep with this and way beyond the surface.
After you draw inspiration from a fellow actor, you then need to run what you have learned through your own character development model.
A word of caution: be discerning about who you choose to study. That’s why I mentioned the award winners earlier.
When you do this, you want to learn and gather inspiration from the best of the best.
Everyone has their favorite actors of all time, and while there is a lot you can learn from them, you should be focusing on what’s happening right now.
Production styles have changed dramatically and effective character choices are very different now, compared to the days of a single camera still shot set up.
Most actors will not take the time to do this. They simply show up on set and deliver their lines how they feel it in the moment.
With enough talent, that may be good enough, but even seasoned “one take” actors will do tons of preparation to get to that point. They don’t simply show up and hope for the best.
They prepare for it!
When he was building an alcoholic character, Nicolas Cage would get extremely drunk and film himself. He would then go back and watch what he did and why he did it. This made for an Oscar winning performance.
DeNiro drove a taxi 12 hours a day, for a month in preparation for his role in Taxi Driver.
There are countless examples of actors going above and beyond to build multidimensional, dynamic and memorable characters.
When you do this it becomes easy to turn 1 acting job into 2, then 3 and more as directors, producers, and even your fellow castmates will be dying to work with you over and over again.
You will always be at your best and be easy to direct.
Your costars will love doing scenes with you because the depth of your characters, will empower their performances as well.
I’ve seen screenwriters pulled onto a set just to expand a character that was played masterfully, because the director thought the character (and hence the actor) deserved more screen time.
That’s how you build a long and rewarding career as a professional actor.
This kind of preparation is why the votes went to some actors over others. In some cases they went to the “underdog.”
When someone wins an award, it’s because there was an industry consensus that their interpretation of a character and their ability to communicate that to the audience was spot on.
Recognizing their talent is important, but what precedes that is getting to a place where opportunities come to you.
That’s why making the industry aware of who you are is so important.
No matter how you create a character, you have to put consistent effort into marketing your talents and making sure that the industry knows about you. If they don’t know you, they can’t hire you.
Success as an actor comes in two parts. Sometimes you have to focus on the artistic side. Other times, you have to focus on doing the things that make the artistic side possible. Here’s how I can help with that.
There are plenty of actors that sizzle for a little while, then quickly fade. If you want to have long term success as a professional actor, you need to have real talent so you can tackle the opportunities that come your way.
But, it will always be a balancing act.
At times, you will have to choose between working on your craft or going out and shaking hands, making connections, and ensuring that you are visible to the industry decision makers.
Everyone’s path toward building a successful acting career will be a little bit different but the recipe for success in the industry will always remain the same.
Whatever path you are going down, this should be your next step.
So, do you have any characters you are working on, while waiting on your next big project to come around? Shoot me an email or tell me about it in the comments below. I always read and respond to every one because my ultimate goal is to...
See you at the top,
Scott