Do You Need Acting Classes to be an Actor?
If you have dreams of a career on stage or in film, the good news is that there are no educational barriers in place to prevent you from pursuing this. Where a lawyer or doctor has no choice but to attend university and complete an arduous degree, an actor is not required to train at all.
Having said that, however, there are many reasons why any aspiring or seasoned actor should attend and continue to attend acting classes throughout their lives. It can take years to develop the skills needed to succeed in this field and in reality, successful actors never stop learning or honing their craft.
If being an actor is your life’s dream, read on, in this article, we will look at why acting classes are so important.
What Makes A Great Actor?
While charisma and talent are undoubtedly important, the best actors also have good technique and technical skills alongside these. Acting is so much more than a winning onscreen or onstage presence. A truly outstanding actor also needs:
Physical Stamina
Actors must learn how to pace themselves for long days of filming. This involves not only keeping physically fit and getting enough rest but learning how not to over-exert yourself while performing.
Reading Skills
Actors need to be able to read a script and accurately interpret what the writer’s intentions were before performing. You will also need to be able to confidently read large volumes of scripts and notes without getting lost in the details.
Memorisation Skills
Alongside reading scripts, actors must learn the skills necessary to memorise swathes of dialogue. Scripts are often only delivered at the last minute or subject to sudden changes, so you’ll need to be a master at memorising on short notice.
Speaking Skills
Your audience needs to be able to hear you and clearly make out what you are saying, whether on stage or on screen, learning how to enunciate and project your voice properly is essential. Relying on simply raising your voice and speaking slower just won’t cut it and can see you are quickly worn out and failing to impress.
Collaborative Skills
Acting is all about working together with other actors and the crew, you need to learn how to be a good team player and how to follow directions. Actors that struggle to work alongside others or take direction positively are likely to develop a bad reputation and can be quickly out of work.
Technical Skills
Being able to speak in various accents, engage in life-like combat scenes, play instruments, ride horses and more are all added technical skills that can benefit you as an actor. As with most skills, these are all things that are learned through dedication and persistence.
Why Take Acting Classes
As well as helping you gain or refine the above-mentioned skills, acting classes serve to support you in several other ways.
Confidence
Continued learning through acting classes helps you to retain that all-important confidence throughout your career. A difficult audition can quickly dent even the most experienced actors’ confidence, but with the support of an experienced acting coach, you can dissect these experiences and learn from them.
Knowing you have an outlet where you can set a bad experience aside and work on improving yourself for the next audition through professional help is a huge confidence boost.
Versatility
Don’t want to be typecast for the entirety of your career? Acting classes help you more easily transition between dramatic or comedic acting and as a result, can support you to diversify your roles.
Through method acting, you are able to master your emotions so you can more accurately and believably express your character’s feelings and personality. The more believable you are as an actor and the more versatile you are, the broader your career opportunities.
Break Bad Habits
From speaking too loudly, moving awkwardly or poorly delivered accents, bad habits picked up along the way can certainly be a negative when it comes to auditioning. Attending acting classes can help you ditch bad habits while honing other ones for the best possible performance
Learn New Skills
Need some tricks to help you remember lines? What about an effective warm-up routine so you don’t run out of energy or injure your voice over a long day of filming? Acting classes give you the opportunity to learn so much and can help you develop a more serious attitude to your chosen career path.
Industry Knowledge
Did you know that every director works differently and has different approaches? Without acting classes, it can be harder to understand these approaches and more difficult to work with a variety of directors.
Just as equally, attending acting classes can help to introduce you to directors, other actors and industry experts which can help you get a foot in the door or learn valuable insider information.
Join An Acting Class Today!
Ultimately, even those individuals who seem born to act on stage or screen will have little chance of achieving their acting dreams without a solid foundation of learning. Directors value actors that can demonstrate their dedication to their field through continued learning. It shows they are open to direction and have a good attitude towards being corrected and guided.
At The Actors Pulse, we work on developing an actor’s instincts while trimming away unnecessary things for a truly genuine performance. Through our teaching based on the Meisner technique, you can learn how to focus on the other actors and your immediate environment rather than yourself for a more organic, truthful performance.
As the leading school for the Meisner technique in the Southern Hemisphere, we focus on teaching screen acting and audition techniques for those pursuing careers in film, television and theatre. We offer both in-person and online classes to meet your needs and on a part-time or full-time basis depending on your preference.
Work with dedicated and passionate teachers that can help you achieve your dreams as an actor. Call us on 0414 475 515 to get started.
Billy Milionis is one of the few Australians to have ever studied under the legendary master teacher, the late Sanford Meisner. Billy has also studied story structure and scene analysis techniques with John Truby and later at UCLA. He has also spent several years doing improvisation in Hollywood with the L.A. Connection. In addition, he trained in the technique of Stella Adler, Practical Aesthetics and Lee Strasberg’s method.