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PODCAST

I Don"t Need an Acting Class

Become a Paid Subscriber: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe Academy Award winner and celebrated acting teacher Milton Justice invites you into his weekly acting class, based on his years of study with the legendary Stella Adler. I Don’t Need an Acting Class delves deep into the craft of acting, breaks down concepts, tools and techniques, explores endless possibilities and offers you a foundation on which to build a solid, dependable process. Produced by Walker

arts performing arts

All Episodes

00:11:13

Observing Human Behavior

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/12/09

As actors, it is our job, our responsibility to observe human behavior. We do this to understand what it reveals about people and relationships, because it gives us information that we can use, another frame of reference for an idea or character or relationship. Imitation may be where we start but it can’t be where we end up. To inhabit the character fully we need to scratch the surface of physicality and behavior to understand what is going on underneath it and thus build the full scope of a

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00:14:33

Have Relationship with Everything

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/12/01

WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe This week, Milton reminds us of the importance of having a specific relationship with everything and everyone around you. According to Stella Adler, the director’s job is to tell you where to enter, hit your marks and exit; your job is to fill in all the blanks, and we have limitless possibilities at our finger tips when it comes to choices. You are never in a place and time about which

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00:17:46

Staying in the Play

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/11/24

In this episode, we re-examine the concept of the given circumstances. Every play has its own set of given circumstances, from which all drama emerges. It’s helpful to look at your work from this perspective because it helps you understand what your character is fighting against. Milton’s objection to what is known as “substitution” or “emotional recall” is because these techniques exist in order to create an effect. And since they tap into our own lives, as opposed to the given circumstances, it

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00:08:34

The 2 Whys

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/11/17

Somewhere in the process of creating a character, it’s helpful to step back and ask ourselves: why are we doing this play? Why are the characters we’re playing important? Why bother in the first place? The answers will begin moving you in the direction of a theme, and remind you that big ideas about the human struggle are timeless and vitally relevant, right now. It's also helpful to ask your character "why questions" about who they are and what is important to them. Asking these questions helps to

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00:16:46

The Educated Imagination

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/11/10

Cultivating the imagination was one of Stella Adler's core tenets as an acting teacher. But the idea of the imagination is often misunderstood when actors assume that their imagination is limited to their experience. We must inform and enrich our imaginations in order to broaden it as an instrument. When educated, the imagination becomes a much more useful tool. This is why it’s so important to do research, immerse ourselves in the character’s timeline and the period in which they live. If you can

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00:16:11

Know Where You’re Going

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/11/03

It essential for us to step back and look at our character's timeline in the play, to know where he or she is going. One of the benefits of playing a role is that, unlike in life, we know what the future is. And so the actor, unlike your character, knows where your character is headed. This is important information to have because it informs what pieces of past we need to build in order to get there. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/message

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00:14:11

Going There, Wherever There Is

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/10/27

This week, Milton talks about what it means to “go there,” or commit 100% to giving ourselves over to the circumstances of the play. It’s an enormous emotional risk because by letting go completely, we make ourselves vulnerable, revealing our true selves through a character. “It’s like going off a high diving board. You know you won’t die because there’s water there, but it’s so far down. It’s not a comfortable place to go.” Have a question for Milton? Email him at: questionsformilton@gmail.com ---

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00:17:36

The Past in the Present and the Past

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/10/21

This week, Milton touches on a very tenuous aspect of building a character’s past. There is a difference between experiencing a past event from the perspective of the present, and experiencing the past in that moment, as if reliving the scene. It’s an important distinction because your relationship to the past event in the present is different than it was at the time it was happening. There are no hard and fast rules here. Often we move in and out of the past and present, as we do in life when

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00:13:08

Greasing the Gears

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/10/13

When building a craft, it’s important that we actively put to use the tools and techniques that we’ve learned. Otherwise we’ll keep “winging it”, hoping and praying that it lands. Also, kicking ass on an exercise doesn’t mean that we’ve mastered the concept. We must be disciplined, practicing the techniques over and over again in order to integrate them into our way of working, and eventually it becomes second nature. This is about understanding that “connecting” and “being believable” isn’t enough

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00:11:33

Events

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/10/06

There are many different aspects of acting technique. One of them is building a character’s past. A helpful way to approach this is to know what the major events are in this person’s life. We ‘build’ these events by talking them out in improvised monologues so the character’s past is in us. If an event is referred to in the text, then you know you have to build it. But there are other events that are not mentioned in the text that we choose to build imaginatively, because it helps us get specific

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00:13:23

Acting as an Artform

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/09/29

In this episode, Milton talks about the difference between acting as an art form and acting to “get a job,” and how one is much more fulfilling than the other. The Art of Acting is about the pursuit of uncovering the essence, or human spirit, of the role. But that cannot be found overnight— it’s a journey through the complexity of the human condition. Part of our job, as actors is to actively make an effort to connect to other human beings and our own human emotion, especially during a time when

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00:13:38

The Method is a Culture

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/09/21

We begin our second season with a reminder that acting is not a math equation. “The method,” said Stanislavsky, “is not a guide, it’s a culture.” This means that a creative process, like a culture, is meant to change and grow. There is no hard and fast, static rule book for acting; we require different things for different roles. But if we keep digging, exploring, trying new things, seeing what works and what doesn’t, we will find choices we love, choices that feed us and give us confidence. When we

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00:01:52

Coming Soon: Season 2

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/08/17

Don't panic. We'll be back with Season 2 of I Don't Need an Acting Class in September! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/message

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00:15:47

Finding What's Actable

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/08/11

WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! ⁠⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe⁠⁠⁠ As we continue making discoveries about all the dimensions that make up a character, we always want to look for what is actable or doable. For example, if your character is compulsive, the challenge is to translate that into something doable. One way to get there is by asking ourselves: what is the nature of being compulsive? And eventually we might come up with the need “to create

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00:10:08

Putting It Together

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/08/04

This week, Milton talks about how building different moments in your characters past reveals new information about them, and the importance of knowing exactly what that information is. We must ask the question: What does this moment I’m building tell me about my character? Your answer will clarify a new dimension of this human being. Then, we must integrate every character-discovery, so that you have a process where each piece builds on the next, or in the words of Stephen Sondheim: “the art of

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00:14:47

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/07/28

As we approach a play and begin letting the facts simmer in our imagination, we can begin to ask questions, as though we are interviewing our character. There are no right or wrong questions and no two actors will ask the same ones. Your own personal exploration becomes part of your signature on the role. But here’s the rub: we cannot answer these questions based on our own limited personal experience, or from the cliches we have absorbed from film and television. We need to do research. What does

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00:12:24

The Pitfall of Trying to Recreate a Performance

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/07/21

We often run into trouble when we try to recreate a performance. This is because the action “to do what I did yesterday” is different from the action that made you DO what you did yesterday. But there are ways to avoid falling into this trap. In this episode, Milton gives examples of adjustments you can make so that the circumstances keep feeding you and the performance stays alive. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/message

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00:11:40

Acting is Hard

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/07/14

WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! ⁠⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe⁠⁠⁠ It can often be overwhelming if you think about the massive responsibility we have as actors and all the many pieces we must fully own before it all comes together to create an illusion that looks and sounds like the truth. We can’t master everything at once and if we try to, we’ll become paralyzed like the centipede who forgot how to walk when he realized each leg was doing

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00:09:28

Play the Cause, Not the Effect

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/07/09

This week, Milton talks about resisting the urge to play an effect, or a result. Often if we receive an “effect direction” such as: “it’s too big” or “it’s too small,” we will then overcompensate in the opposite direction. By doing so, we’re playing an effect, focused on our behavior as opposed to what creates that behavior. Part of being an intelligent actor is having the ability to translate an “effect direction” into something actable or doable. For instance: can I get more specific so that this

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00:17:19

More Is More

I Don"t Need an Acting Class ·

2020/06/30

WANT MORE? Become a subscriber for bonus content! ⁠⁠⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe⁠⁠⁠ This episode is the third in our trilogy about making everything something. This week Milton gives us a strategy for this. Using his “Why I Love the Theater” exercise as an example, he discusses how to building one thing at a time by talking it out, making sure it feeds you and adding more, little by little. “We are after moments so that nothing sound pedestrian, so that every single

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