Essays

The fundamentals of Not Acting are actually very simple. Leave out Da-mental and bring in the fun. Be open to your imagination, ALL of your feelings, without editing any of your responses, and go with whatever IS happening.

Gene Wilder is a shining example of the joy of Not Acting. Watch him.

There is something almost childlike about his aliveness. His eyes, his face, his body, his timing. You can feel him receiving what is happening and being changed by it.

He doesn’t seem to be trying to be funny. He is funny because he is alive.

He can be innocent one second, mischievous the next, frightened, delighted, bewildered, explosive, tender, completely ridiculous. And it all feels like it’s happening to him.

That’s the joy of Not Acting. When the actor isn’t trying to produce the result, the result can surprise everyone, including the actor.

One of the greatest obstacles to great acting is, since early childhood, we’ve been conditioned not to trust our animal instincts and intelligence. We were domesticated. Acting offers you the opportunity to be wildly alive again.

Watch Jennifer Lawrence. There is something wonderfully alive about her. She can be funny one moment, vulnerable the next, sexual, awkward, angry, playful, dangerous, heartbreaking. And there is often a sense that she is discovering herself as she goes.

She doesn’t appear to be protecting the image of what a “good performance” should look like. She can allow herself to be messy. Unexpected. Contradictory. Human.

That’s part of what makes her so watchable. You don’t feel like you’re watching someone execute an idea of a character. You feel like you’re watching a person being affected by circumstances. And because she’s willing to be affected, you can’t completely predict what will happen next. That’s aliveness.

One of the biggest things that blocks a talented actor from being fully alive in a scene is falling into performance mode. The moment you start performing, something changes. The truth of the moment is sacrificed for the possibility of approval. You begin managing yourself. You begin watching yourself. You begin trying to get it right. And the more you perform, the further you move from what is actually happening.

Marlon Brando, the greatest actor I’ve ever seen who stays with WHAT IS. Watch him in this scene. Watch his nuances, his truthfulness, his NOT ACTING.

Notice how little he’s doing. Yet how much is happening. He’s not making the moment happen. The moment is making him happen.

Actors hit false notes when they don’t trust what IS… IS enough.

Robert Colt

One of the most difficult things for an actor to do is something that sounds almost ridiculously simple: not know.

Most actors spend enormous amounts of time trying to know. They want to know what their character is feeling. They want to know what they’re going to do. They want to know where the scene is going. They want to know what the audience will see.

They prepare. They rehearse. They make choices. They find the emotional beats. They decide where the moment should build, where it should peak, and where it should land.

And now they’re obligated to make their ideas, choices and preparation happen as planned. Good luck because that’s the perfect recipe for “acting,” and not being alive to what really IS happening.

Watch Frances McDormand. There is something almost impossible to predict about her. She can be doing almost nothing and suddenly something happens. A look. A breath. A pause. A shift in her body. A thought that seems to arrive from somewhere she couldn’t have planned.

She doesn’t appear to be showing us what a character is feeling. She appears to be having the experience.

That is why her work can feel so raw. So specific. So alive. And so unpredictable. You don’t know what she’s going to do next. More importantly, she doesn’t seem to know either.

There is something strange about acting that almost everyone accepts as normal. You’re being watched. I often joke that actors love being watched. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be actors.

But being watched can still freak out even the most talented actor. The moment you become aware of yourself being watched, you can leave the very thing you’re trying to do. You go into your head. You begin watching yourself. You begin thinking about what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, whether it’s working, whether you’re getting it right.

Jimmy Stewart’s performance in It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the rawest and most emotionally powerful moments in American film. In this scene, he enters the bar. Just watch his greatness in not acting.

His wife and daughter later said of his performance, “That’s him in real life.” What you just watched was him in “reel” life. For the great Not Actor, there is no difference. Only the circumstances change, and they change you.

There is a paradox at the heart of acting. You can train for years to become a great actor. And then discover that the ultimate technique is no technique.

When I first realized how simple Not Acting actually is, I couldn’t believe it. I was in a coaching session with the late, brilliant acting coach Harold Guskin. Something happened in the work. I saw it. And when I saw it, I looked at Harold and said: “It can’t be this easy.”

He looked at me and said: “It is this fucking easy and nobody wants to believe it.”

I simply said: “I believe it.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but that moment would become the foundation of what I do today in my classes and in my private coaching. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Watch Jessica Lange. There is something extraordinary about her work that becomes difficult to explain if you’re looking for technique.

It doesn’t look like technique because it isn’t. It’s raw and instinctive, the very thing that’s set Jessica Lange, a great actress, apart from great technicians of acting.

Show me a great actor, and I’ll show you a great listener.

The Art of Listening is the foundation of the Art of Not Acting. Truly listening as an actor requires being open, receptive, and spontaneous. It requires the courage to not know what is going to happen next. Because real listening can only happen in what is happening now.

Watch Morgan Freeman in this scene from The Shawshank Redemption. Don’t watch for acting. Watch his listening. Watch how little he needs to do.

Watch the subtle shifts. The eyes. The breath. The timing. The way something happens to him before he responds.

This is the Art of Listening and the Art of Not Acting working together. His listening isn’t passive. He’s receiving. He’s being affected. And because he’s being affected, something real can happen. That’s Isness.