3 Things Actors Should Do Every Day: Diction, Breath and the Body

Here’s the question we hear most from students who are serious: “What easy things can I do at home, every day, so I stop getting critiqued on the exact same thing in every class, film and play?” Fair question. Three things. None of them take long, and all of them work better if you stop thinking of them as exercises and start thinking of them as who you are.

1) Diction

Work on your diction every single day. Take your script, slow everything down, and hit the consonants. Consonants are power. Then take it off the page: change the way you speak all day, every day. When you answer the phone. When you run a meeting or bag groceries or pull someone over. “Excuse me, sir, do you know how fast you were going?” Every consonant. It feels ridiculous for a week and then it’s just how you talk, and you’ll never get the diction note again.

2) Breathing and vocal work

If you’ve been in class, you know you get hit on your voice if you don’t work it. You have to fill the space you’re in, and the instrument has to be maintained daily. Five minutes minimum: breath, then a couple of the vocal warm ups on this page. The breath is where relaxation comes from. If you’re not breathing, you’re tense; if you’re tense and performing, you make choices you wish you hadn’t, because you’re acting from fear. Big belly breaths. Slow yourself down. It’s much easier to listen and react from there.

3) A physical life for your lines

Find creative, specific ways to put your lines in your body, so you’re not making the same gesture on every line for the rest of your career. A couple of masterclasses ago an actor went, in one scene, from pounding on the wall to pouring a drink to his knees on the floor hugging his partner’s leg, crying and pleading. The words didn’t change. The movement is what put the audience on the edge of their seats. Then notice it in your own life: what do you actually do with your hands when you’re asking for something you need?

All day, every day

The test for all three is the same. Am I doing this every day, all day, as a person? Not only for ten minutes at a music stand, but at dinner, in the car, on the phone with the bank. If you change who you are, slowly, the stage takes care of itself. That’s the secret nobody wants: the work isn’t in the rehearsal. It’s in the rest of the day.