I Don't Need an Acting Class – Details, episodes & analysis

This week’s episode calls to mind the Steve Martin quote: “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” You want to make choices that are so inventive that they have no choice but to hire you.

WANT MORE? Become a subscriber on Spotify for bonus content!

⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe⁠

Have a question for Milton? Send us a voice note below or email us at: ⁠[email protected]⁠ Also, check out our website: ⁠www.idontneedanactingclass.com⁠ 

In this longer-than-usual episode, Milton coaches the class through Jed’s audition for a TV series in which an out-of-control robot is stealing children. You’ll hear how Milton talks out the entire scene several times. This includes his dialogue, the dialogue of the others in the scene and his response to the others in the scene, as if telling someone a story of what happened. In doing so, he finds choices he loves, which makes the scene more than being a mere plot device. He finds a clear action, gives himself obstacles which help him play that action, and starts getting a sense of who this person is.
WANT MORE? Become a subscriber on Spotify for bonus content!

⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe⁠

Have a question for Milton? Send us a voice note below or email us at: ⁠[email protected]⁠ Also, check out our website: ⁠www.idontneedanactingclass.com⁠ 

Whether it’s stage or screen, you have to be able to analyze the text to figure out what world you’re in, what’s going on with your character and how you fit into the bigger picture. This way, you can come up with a choice that gives you something, moves you, makes you excited. So that by the time you *say it,* you’ve earned it.

WANT MORE? Become a subscriber on Spotify for bonus content!

⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe⁠

Have a question for Milton? Send us a voice note below or email us at: ⁠[email protected]⁠ Also, check out our website: ⁠www.idontneedanactingclass.com⁠ 

Learning to act is not something you do in one year. It takes a lifetime. In the same way, doing a play isn’t something you can take on in one night. It’s a process. Stella told a student once that if she could learn one new thing a year, she’d be on the right path. Stanislavsky likened doing a play to going on a journey and making many unexpected stops along the way that added to the overall journey. These lessons remind us that the creative process is never linear or finite. With each project and with our craft, we take on as much as we can, knowing that there are always more stops on the way to our destination, always more to revisit and explore. Have a question for Milton? Email him at [email protected]

The lineage of this podcast is derived from the teaching of Stanislavsky and Milton’s teacher Stella Adler, who, among other things, taught her students to aspire towards the big ideas we communicate as actors, (ideas which are far bigger than us.) This is the thrill of acting— entering a different universe, a different skin. It is always a chance for growth. “Your attitude shouldn’t be: oh, I have to build that,” says Milton, “but rather I get to build that. Every fact of a play affords you a fabulous opportunity.” Have a question for Milton? Email him at [email protected]

Very few directors speak the language of acting or have any real idea about what we do. So most of them give us “effect directions,” such as: “play it angrier,” or…”the scene needs to be more intense.” But if we play “anger” or “intensity” or any result, we’ll end up playing a cliche, an idea of an experience that we’ve absorbed from watching film and television. Therefore, we have to be able to translate a performance note into something doable. Have a question for Milton? Email him at [email protected]

When breaking down a script, a profoundly important question to consider is: how does the time period in which this play takes place affect my character? It’s not just something you want to understand intellectually; it has to affect you experientially. The time frame is an enormous part of the given circumstances and we must take the time to consider how it influences our characters’ behavior. In this episode, Milton applies this concept to Bernie Dodd in The Country Girl, and how the 1950’s attitude towards the arts affects his mentality and gives him something to play against. “A play exists in a world,” Milton says. “And we need to figure out how my character does or does not fit into this world.” Have a question for Milton? Email him at [email protected]

This week’s episode is an excerpt from Milton’s current script analysis class which gives us insight into how we might begin to approach a play, or any piece of text. Using one of his favorite examples, Clifford Odet’s The Country Girl, Milton introduces some fundamental principals of script analysis: the playwright writes out of his social circumstances; the playwright has something to say that is a reflection of the times in which he’s living; It’s our job to figure out: what is that reflection? What is that big idea that the playwright is trying to impart? What does he want us to consider? “Our job is to interpret the play, not play the part,” says Milton, “And you have to really think of it that way.” Have a question for Milton? Email him at [email protected]

This week’s episode begins with an analysis of Aunjanue Ellis’ performance in the film King Richard and why it’s an example of great acting. Her interior life is so complete and rich that we, as an audience, are able to see (and more importantly, feel) the character’s struggle without any dialogue to reveal plot or exposition. How do we bring this level of depth to our work? One way is to talk out. Talk out your character’s past, talk out their unconscious struggle. This makes our work go beyond a kind of surface performance that is just clear or believable. “It turns the dial,” says Milton. “It gives us more to play and it brings the dialogue to life.” Have a question for Milton? Email him at [email protected]

This week, Milton continues the conversation of expanding the characters we play far beyond ourselves. While it’s true that our choices must feed us as actors, our choices must also feed our characters (who don’t know they are living out our choices— they’re just living their lives— and will respond to our choices differently than we will.) In this episode Milton uses the example of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, and how even though he may instinctively understand different aspects Willy’s circumstances because of his own life experience, he also instinctively doesn’t start with himself and explores the choices that feed both him and Willy. Have a question for Milton? Email him at [email protected]