Joey slept through an afternoon and decided I was mad at him. I had decided to let him sleep. Two stories, one true. Why the first story your head writes about someone is usually wrong, the highlight reel that decides your worth, and why honesty is attractive.
Asher Angel trained here as a kid, and the week Shazam came out we went to see it at 10 in the morning. Brian and Joey Sweeney join Jason, John Luke and me on what Asher was doing in the early scenes, why the lead in the biggest movie in the country was still pushing himself, the 4 a.m. wrestling match in your own head, taking your goals as seriously as a plane ticket, and Will Smith’s brick wall.
Frank Caliendo walked into the studio already famous and asked to be treated like a beginner who knows nothing. An hour with Frank, John Luke and Jason on what three weeks of memorization taught him, why repetition in acting is not doing the same thing twice, the moment acting became listening, and a Jack Nicholson improv on a boat that breaks down what point of view does for a scene.
Phoebe and Bebe grew up in our program, interned their last year, and were about to leave for Columbia College Chicago and USC. Shea and Joey sat them down: why go, what the degree does and doesn’t buy you, what an editor really wants from an actor, and the only thing in this business you control.
The Monday after Valleywood, with Shea and Joey at the table and Brian on the phone, on the mindset behind all of it. Kids love discipline and so do adults, the difference between get to and have to, how the three of us talked each other through a rough morning, Brené Brown on vulnerability, why Monday is no different from Saturday, and the routine you fall back on when the day goes sideways.
What the first night of an acting class is really like: the phone goes in a box, you’re on your feet in minutes, nobody gets the same note, and the parking lot is the hardest part. For the person who has been meaning to do this for years.
Five rules for a rehearsal that gets somewhere, and a one hour template you can set a timer to: warm up, speed memorize, run it at half speed, pick the problem, work it, run it for real. From twenty years of watching partners waste three hours.
One of our teachers stopped me at the door with a question about the improv curriculum, and the conversation that followed was the lesson. Why every improv scene needs a want, why life already works this way, and how a want creates subtext.
A scripted character doesn’t know what’s coming; the character is improvising. An exercise from our masterclass that takes two actors from a cold read of a great play, through improvising as the playwright, and back to the script with the spontaneity intact.
Not the paycheck, not the review, not the reel. An actor’s purpose is to get better, and to choose every piece of work by whether it will. Three words I’ve used for twenty years, and the night a French accent caught me short.
How to set acting goals that can’t fail you: begin with ten years, refuse any goal you don’t control, work backwards to today, and start smaller than you want to. With a twelve month plan built on skills instead of bookings.
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