An Acting Success Formula
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Transcription of podcast: An Acting Success Formula Brian Timoney with Joe Ferrera June 2016 Acting Success Formula: Insights and advice on getting it right Brian and Joe delve into what it really takes to make it in the acting industry, with a look at the behind- the-scenes effort, investment and approaches needed to succeed. With tips and guidance based on their own personal experiences and examples from some of today’s acting greats, they present an Acting Success Formula that really works. 10 things you will learn about: • Acting success: The vital role of your belief system • Making it big: Why it’s all about approach & attitude • A winning audition: The importance of mindset • Building your acting muscle: Learning from failures • Analysing your achievements: Finding the winning trend • Why you need to invest – And how to do it right • Honing your approach: Getting advice • Starting from scratch: Cutting your losses & doing it again • When “putting your eggs in one basket” is a good thing • Examples from Acting Greats: Bradley Cooper and Sacha Baron Cohen Page 2 Full Transcript One man – One mission: To rid the world of low-standard and mediocre acting, once and for all. Brian Timoney, the world’s leading authority on Method Acting, brings you powerful, impactful, volcanic acting and ‘business of acting’ techniques in his special Acting Podcasts. It’s Brian Timoney’s World of Acting – unplugged and unleashed. Brian: Hi, it’s Brian Timoney here – and welcome onto today’s podcast. And I’ve got Joe with me – welcome, Joe. Joe: Thank you very much for having me. Hello everybody out there. Brian: Right, so, what we’re going to be talking about today is self-belief – and the reason being what is it that actually has to happen for people to become successful in the acting industry, or indeed anything else? Joe: Yes. Brian: Because there is a certain sort of belief system that people have that allows them to persevere and get there in the long run, and there’s also a reason why people don’t realise something that they want. Joe: Yes. Brian: I’ve seen this a lot actually over the years in the acting industry. I’ve seen some actors who are really, really talented that haven’t really got to the level that they should have realised – and it wasn’t to do with their talent, it was to do with how they thought about their talent and how they thought about the acting industry. And, you know, the acting industry’s tough, you know. Joe: It’s so tough, yes! Brian: So there’s no point in making it worse. Joe: Look; we just want you guys to know – we keep saying – it’s so tough. It is so tough. It’s the toughest industry/business probably on the planet – for a reason. Brian: Yes; if it was that easy, everybody would be a movie star, right? Joe: Right! Brian: And it’s not that easy and you do have to have a certain perseverance and attitude towards it. Joe: That's right. Brian: What I’ve seen is, from my experience of teaching people, is that often it comes down to the attitude in that person that will dictate the level of success. Joe: Yes. Brian: Because, you know, we can even point to really famous actors that are not so great but are major stars – and why is that? Why them and not somebody else? It comes down to the fact that they’ve got a certain way of thinking about it and going after it. Joe: Yes. Brian: Because there’s other actors I’ve come across that just “self-flagellate” for one reason or another: ‘I’m not good enough. Other people are better than me. It’s so tough – I’m never going to be Page 3 able to do it.’ And if you come into it with that attitude, that leads to a certain set of actions and a certain energy as well that people give off. You know, it’s like a self-defeating energy. Here’s the thing, Joe: when you go into a casting, when you go into an audition, if you don’t believe you can do it, if you don’t believe you deserve that part, well, why should anybody else? It’s like you are actually in the process of trying to convince those people watching you that you are actually able to do it – and their mortgages depend upon it, their life income depends on it. So, if somebody walks in the room and they kind of have a feel for this person that they don’t believe in themselves so they’re not really that sure, then you can be sure that they are picking that up. Joe: Yes. And let’s define that a little bit more for people out there. It’s not about you going in and you’re just like steamrollering everybody – that you’re going to be like so determined that you’re not going to listen or be able to take direction. No. it’s not about that. It’s about you going in the room and saying, ‘Look’ – this is how I kind of see it sometimes, Brian, so just bear with me: I go into the room and I go into a casting situation or an audition and I do – I’m with you guys, at the forefront of it – and I go in and I say to myself, ‘Hey, for this 10 minutes, I get a chance to act today, to create something, to be artistic – and that’s part of the business.’ I get a chance to play, to do something and get paid to do something I love – right? That’s the core belief. And then from that, how can I lose? You know what I mean? I spend 10 minutes doing something that I love to do! So if that then translates into getting the job, then even better – then I get paid and I can continue my life as I’ve chosen, right? If I don’t get that opportunity, then I enjoyed that moment that I was given to hone my skills in terms of like I maybe needed to create and prepare something really powerful so I got the opportunity to do that. I got the opportunity to meet a really good casting director or director – and this, let me tell you, guys, out there, it’s happened time and time again. I may not have gotten that role that I went up for, but I got called back for something else and it was even a better role or it was equally on par because they thought, ‘Maybe he could do this instead.” So it always seems to work out. But to begin with, I always feel like you’ve got to go in with the preparation and expectation that you’re going to win this; you’re going to take the job. You’re not just going to be given it. You know, it’s a big difference in that sentence: are you going in and taking the job, or is it being given to you? You know, if it’s being given to you, it’s like they gave it to you – but if you went in and took it, you know, they can’t think of anybody else to play this role other than you now because you took it – that’s a whole other way of thinking and working. And it’s not just about believing something just for the sake of self-belief; it’s about putting things in your life that actually mean something to you and that you can use as a foundation. Brian: Yes. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, Joe, and I think it’s going back to this thing about authenticity as well… Joe: Absolutely. Yes, Brian. Brian: …because I think that what can, when people are going into audition rooms, the thing that it can be is I’m trying to be something I’m not, or I’m trying to push or I’m trying to prove – and you are there to kind of prove that you can do the role. There’s no getting away from that. But pushing to do it or going too far with it, or being too overly confident or cocky, that is not going to help you either. I know what you’re talking about: it’s an inner confidence about you know who you are and… Joe: Yes – and within that, Brian, you might have a bad day. You know, you might have a day where it’s not going well or something in the moment in that room hasn’t gone well. And it’s about saying to yourself, ‘This isn’t my only chance. I’m going to learn from this. What did I learn from the successes Page 4 that I got? What did I learn from the failures that I got?’ So, what have you learned from that – and building within yourself a career, because no career is born overnight. Stop being delusional – that you’re going to go in and walk in and somebody’s going to give you that role because you’re perfect. You are going to walk in to that job and you’re going to be perfect – after you’ve done all these other things. But, you know, you’ve built muscles up, you’ve built an understanding, you’ve investigated and invested time in yourself and in the craft.