#whatsanactor

[mielabong]

Want to be a good actor? Live.

I speak from experience when I say: don't make being an actor your entire personality and lifestyle.

While it's great to take note of your feelings and experiences, if every move you make is done with the intention of performing, your choices will become performative even if they're genuine.

I realized this when I was in rehearsal and our director told us not to bring our roles home. Contrary to what many acting coaches and directors do where they let you sit and marinate with the character well into your personal time, though it is necessary work sometimes, I really do believe we shouldn't bring our roles home all the time.

When we're in the business of being vulnerable, it's essential we understand how to de-role. It's part of a healthy acting practice. There's a very fine line between who we are and what we play because we do so much work trying to find ourselves in our characters so we can connect to them.

Don't let yourself get lost in your work.

From my perspective as a teacher, it's unhealthy, not admirable. It's irresponsible. Why would I want to work with or hire an actor who cannot distinguish reality from their work?

The industry has glorified role immersion so much that it's forgotten that actors are human.

No matter how high our emotional quotient is or how self-aware we are, if we get lost in our characters, coming back may become a challenge.

Each actor has their own method or process, and I respect that. But as your teacher, I would never throw you right into such immersive work.

The groundwork we have to lay, especially for beginner actors, is to know thyself...

Self-awareness

Self-mastery

Mindfulness

Emotional awareness; and

All the necessary personal inner work to understand the more complex inner world of the roles we have to play.

In fact, it's so essential that a lot of my students tell me our sessions sometimes feel like therapy. This is because that's where we have to go. How can you possibly access vulnerability at a healthy pace if your trauma and wounds are still fresh? Your system won't know the difference. And in acting classes I've taken, I've witnessed classmates who spiral into panic attacks mid-session.

In our sessions together, if we have to access pain, experience, and vulnerability, we simply borrow the feeling because we're not supposed to relive the trauma.

I completely disagree with stabbing our healed wounds with the same shards of glass.

Authentic work doesn't have to be unhealthy. Unhealthy work is cheating to me.

Unhealthy work is also a dead giveaway that the actor (or the director / acting coach who instructed the actor) doesn't know what they're doing. It's possible to have a healthy process.

You can be tired after a role. That's not unhealthy. But if you can't return to your every day life after that, that's when you know there's a glitch in the process.

It's like discussing a book. Let's say you join a book club that wants to discuss a book you've already read before. Surely, if you've read it, you already know the essence of it. But the book club meeting is in two days. There's no way you can reread the entire book. So, what do you do? You read the synopsis. You dip into notes of it online or notes that you made. And then you come to the meeting with an understanding of it, but you can still very much be involved in the discussion.

Borrowing your old experiences are like that. They're already archived and healed. Don't reopen the wounds, but remember, on a cerebral, sensory level what it was like so you understand how to raise the stakes of your current role.

I say live your life because actors are people.

People have lives. They fall in love, they get rejected, they learn new skills, they take care of their health, they build relationships, they do chores.

"I want to feel my life while I'm in it." -Meryl Streep

In my honest opinion, the best acting work comes from actors who have lives outside of acting even if they attend acting classes and constantly audition.

The actors with the most sustainable careers are the ones who can return to their life after a role or audition.

That in no way diminishes the work of actors whose immersion is very deep like Christian Bale, Marlon Brando, Charlize Theron, etc. Not at all. But as actors starting, it's best to understand who we are first before these roles that we have. The names I mentioned are people who work so regularly and for such a long time in a VARIETY of roles that with each project, they develop their own process. They're further along because of their experience.

So, my best advice for my students who are novices in the craft or those who have less experience in naturalism and exposure to specific acting methods, please invest in yourself and your life.

There is no rushing or expediting life lessons, so at the same time, there is no plowing through your growth as an actor as well.

Live.

And if you're serious about your career, keep taking class. But if there's anything that truly prepares you to be a good actor, it's having a life outside of this craft.

As someone whose main work is acting, teaching acting, writing, and working in the entertainment industry, it's very hard for me too to make sure I live my life. I'm addicted to this work. I'm obsessed with telling stories. But I welcome this challenge to remain in touch with my non-entertainment life because I understand it enriches my work.

So, for 2022, live your best life onwards.

Cheers!

Miel

If you want to train with me in 2022, I've created a new course designed for those who are serious about giving acting a real shot.

If you're ready, I'm prepared to give you a grounded, solid start at the necessary technical skills of a resonant, textured actor, even if you are just a beginner.

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is an online program that's both live & full of asynchronous material for aspiring actors.

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It's a 12-session program over a span of 3 months that covers everything from breathing to culminating in a mock audition. If you want to learn more about this intensive, I have 2 more 1:1 slots left and 2 Group Sessions have just been opened that can accommodate 4-8 students each. Group Sessions are required to have at least 4 paying students in order to open. For more details, click here.

Group Sessions begin on 04 February 2022.

1:1 sessions can start any time.