We have found 19,978 posts across 4 actor forums:
„Please don't draw attention to yourself“ by Angelika Heeg • last post Jan 27th
Knowing everything doesn’t make you feel safe.. it needs your inner strength.
Acting Through Contrast: What Makes Ensemble Performances Come Alive? by Ashley Renee Smith • last post Jan 26th
I wanted to share this video because it offers a fantastic acting breakdown of how performances truly come alive through contrast, especially in ensemble work.
Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyIIAXb2Xd8
Using One Battle After Another as a case study, the video digs into how Paul Thomas Anderson gives actors the space to collaborate, improvise, and build characters that don’t align perfectly, even when they’re technically on the same side. What stood out to me most is how much of the storytelling happens physically rather than verbally.
Some great takeaways for actors:
Contrast fuels conflict. Characters don’t need opposing goals to clash, they just need different energies, fears, rhythms, or worldviews.
Small physical choices matter. Eye movement, jaw tension, posture, breath, stillness, or the lack of it can communicate volumes.
Confidence vs uncertainty is often shown in how someone moves through space, not what they say.
Fear, hesitation, control, and power are frequently revealed in micro-behaviors, not big moments.
PTA’s close, lingering camera rewards actors who can think on screen and let emotions land without dialogue.
Imperfection, stuttering, nervous ticks, and inconsistency often feel more truthful than polished delivery.
It’s also a great reminder that: You don’t shine by matching your scene partner. You shine by being different from them.
I’d love to open this up to the Acting Lounge: For auditions, how do you balance specificity with flexibility when the other characters aren’t fully defined?
You just have to act confident, and then you'll feel calm—really? by Angelika Heeg • last post Jan 26th
External impact is not the starting point. It is the result.
Actors: This Revolutionary $Billion Filming Format Hires Union And Non-Union Actors by Aaron Marcus • last post Jan 26th
Actors: This Revolutionary $Billion Filming Format Hires Union And Non-Union Actors
https://youtu.be/vfoxkH-iOfI
Have you ever worked on a Vertical/Micro Drama? If so, share your experience here.
Is it's possible by Damaa Grace • last post Jan 26th
Just wondering how it would be, to write your own screenplay, takes part in the directing and playing a role in the movie. Hope you understand me?
Are you speaking from a place of presence or pressure? by Angelika Heeg • last post Jan 25th
How is it with you?
Worst Audition Experience by Suzanne Bronson • last post Jan 24th
I would love to hear from those of you who have had a lot of auditions. I know this answer will be helpful to those just starting out, and the lurkers. I, personally, would also love to know. I haven't had as many auditions as I used to, and with it being self submission now, the times have changed. Nevertheless, please share what is the worst audition you ever had and what did it teach you?
Are you extremely conscientious? by Angelika Heeg • last post Jan 23rd
What would you choose?
Life Experience - Acting Experience by Natalie Diorio • last post Jan 23rd
I just shared this on my page and thought it might resonate here as well. It’s a piece of advice that stuck with me early on and continues to influence me in all areas of filmmaking.
Early in my acting career, someone told me: don’t sit idle in the holding area—educate yourself. Observe quietly, don’t interfere, and ask questions when appropriate. I took that advice seriously and started using my time on set as an opportunity to learn.
By watching directors, cinematographers, and the crew work in real time, I gained an education that can’t be found in a classroom—only on set. It taught me how stories are built collaboratively and how every department contributes to the final result. I’m still grateful for that advice today, as it continues to inform my work and helps me see the bigger picture when acting, writing, and creating.
What was the best advice you received while working on set?
Shifting from Fear to Gratitude: Our Headspace Before the Audition Matters by Juliana Philippi • last post Jan 22nd
Good evening, friends and comrades : )
Late night post, as the year kicks off officially, and time zooms by, my days flowing full of work, challenges, and much joy!
And because of this momentum, I've realized something, that has changed the way I begin an audition, before I get into position, set up the tripod, and press record on my phone, or when I am in the virtual callback room, or on Zoom, waiting to meet the casting directors, producers, or directors...
When you get busy, usually, the standard response of people, generally, is stress. Nerves, anxiety, and "perfection thoughts" running amuck in our heads. Particularly, as actors. And, I've experienced this, so many, many times. We start getting upset we have a few auditions in one day, we resent it even, we worry about how we are going to do it, what to wear, who will help me, etc...etc...etc...
But, this year, my now self, my wise, and centered self, endeavors every time I have the privilege to act, to allow myself one feeling:
Gratitude.
I'm so thankful for this audition, I'm so grateful I get to do this, I'm so happy I have three auditions back to back, I am grateful for this moment and this work...I can do this, because I am doing it...Wow, I'm awesome. Look at me go...thank you tripod! Thank you phone! Lol...
It changes your perception, and you become relaxed, and stop overthinking what you think you have to do to deliver the perfect audition, or how to impress the casting director with your acting skills. The fear is washed away by this gentle wave of love, and joy for the moment, and instead of stressing out and futurizing, and self-sabotaging, you realize you deserve this, you've already been chose, so you simply play.
If you got the audition,, if you got ten auditions in one week, they already think you can do them! And...this was just your headshot, or reel, or both...amazing, right?
Gratitude : ) The magical medicine for the stressed-out player. Available to you in your nearest hear-based feeling counter ( heart area of your chest ).
The first stone – a manifesto for momentum by Dan Martin Roesch • last post Jan 21st
THE FIRST STONE – A MANIFESTO FOR MOMENTUM
Why mastery begins the moment we stop waiting.
Over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern — not only in my own journey, but in countless conversations with actors, writers, directors, and producers across different countries and markets. Most of us don’t get stuck because we lack talent. We get stuck because we were trained to wait. We wait for permission, we wait for representation, we wait for the one role that is supposed to “change everything.” Waiting feels reasonable. It even feels professional. And yet, while we wait, nothing really moves.
I’ve seen incredibly gifted artists spend years in this quiet loop: hoping circumstances will shift, hoping the system will notice, hoping someone else will finally open the door. What makes this especially frustrating is that the external world often does change — new platforms emerge, formats evolve, opportunities multiply — but the internal pattern stays exactly the same. At some point, a difficult realization sets in: hope alone is passive. Not useless, but insufficient. Momentum is not granted. It is created.
I think of a career as a chain of dominoes. The industry teaches us to see ourselves as one stone somewhere in the middle — motionless, waiting to be pushed by a casting director, an agent, or a producer. But real agency begins when we understand something fundamental: we have to be the first stone. A single domino has the physical ability to knock over another that is significantly larger than itself. Its power is not in its size, but in the decision to move. Progress rarely starts with a dramatic leap. It starts with one conscious, deliberate step.
That step is uncomfortable. There is no applause for it. No guarantee. No immediate validation. But once it happens, something shifts internally — not because the industry suddenly becomes fair, but because you are no longer frozen inside it. From that moment on, you’re no longer waiting to be chosen. You are choosing to move.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that success is not an accident. You don’t arrive where you want to be by chance — not in your career, not in your relationships, not in your life. Without intention and planning, you drift. And drift always has a direction, even if you didn’t choose it. Actorpreneurship isn’t about fear, control, or turning art into a sales pitch. It’s about conscious design: knowing where you are, knowing where you want to go, and being willing to take the next step — not all steps at once, just the one that’s required now.
Trying to change everything at once overwhelms most people. Momentum grows differently. Step by step. With clarity. With patience. With respect for your own capacity. When action aligns with intention, doors don’t need to be forced. They open because direction and timing finally match. Responsibility often gets mistaken for pressure. In reality, responsibility is freedom. It allows you to stop begging and start collaborating, to listen instead of chasing, and to enter rooms without needing to prove anything — because you are already in motion. From that place, conversations change. And relationships do too.
I’ll be in Los Angeles between March 31 and April 5, and it would genuinely be meaningful to continue this conversation beyond the screen — quietly, colleague to colleague. There’s a place in Hollywood, the Formosa Café, with a long history of exactly these kinds of exchanges: writers, actors, directors, producers sitting together without an agenda, simply talking craft, reality, and the work. If you’re around during that window and feel like continuing this dialogue over a coffee, I’d welcome the exchange.
Which brings me to something I’d genuinely love to hear from this community: At what point did you realize that taking full responsibility for your own momentum was unavoidable — even when it felt uncomfortable? And maybe even more important: what was your first stone this week?
Dan Martin Roesch
https://imdb.me/danmartin.imdb
In search of the PERFECT audition take by Matthew Cornwell • last post Jan 21st
As an actor, I used to fall victim to this all the time. Namely, "what does casting want?" or "what does the director want?"
In all honesty, I still can go down that rabbit hole. But what I've come to learn from experience (including running a taping service for 15+ years) is that it's a fool's errand to approach your work this way.
This video I put out Monday expounds on this important topic.
https://youtu.be/dsOLHj2vrvM
Jennifer Lawrence & Martin Scorsese In Conversation | DIE MY LOVE by Pat Alexander • last post Jan 20th
3 Steps to Getting An Agent by Aaron Marcus • last post Jan 20th
3 Steps to Getting An Agent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WD5jCqZPjA
How did you get your agent? Let us know by sharing your thoughts here.
Fun Networking/Performance opportunity by Jasmin Haugstuen Please • last post Jan 19th
Hello Actors of Los Angeles! This Thursday is the first SCRIPT SHUFFLE of the year. It's a great time, and we hope you can make it!
https://www.fakeidproductions.com/event-details/script-shuffle-january
When Criticism Almost Made Me Quit — and How I Found My Focus Again - Wendy Alane Wright by Florin Şumălan • last post Jan 17th
https://youtu.be/fSKvmXRAVLg
Shake if Off! : Right after the final "cut" by Juliana Philippi • last post Jan 16th
Cut!
There's so much flowing within our emotional, energetic, and psychological systems.
We work diligently to be open and ready to embrace the story of someone else, and embody another's reality, but...what do you do, when it's done? How do you shake it off? The experience, realness, still vibrates within us, sometimes more powerful than when in the scenes themselves.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Directors re-hire actors who bring love to what they do by Jacqueline Rosenthal • last post Jan 15th
I have been lucky enough to work with the same actors over and over again in my projects. And a notice a similar theme. Just like Wes Anderson and too many other directors to count, there's a reason we directors go back to working with the same teams. And I WANT TO HELP ACTORS KNOW WHY - ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I STARTED AS AN ACTOR AND HAVE A DEEP APPRECIATION FOR THE CRAFT.
1. SYNERGY
When you (an actor) is authentically yourself in an audition and on set, you end up having a hive mind and almost friendship with the Director and creative team before you ever step foot on set.
**When I'm auditioning actors: I always feel a sense of familiarity -
People think the familiarity is based on what I want in the role, but usually its because I've written these roles and brought them to life, so I can tell when you're bringing a real experience from your own life to the audition --- and then to me, it's like we're there together. It's a sense of familiarity. LIKE WE TOGETHER HAVE LIVED THIS MOMENT BEFORE.
**The actress I've worked with 7-8 times is Madeleine Masson. She is a master at slipping into a role better than most people I know. And this leads me to the #2 reason.
2. SHORT-HAND
When you work with someone enough, you develop a short hand. And the more times you work together, if the collaboration is right, the more magic you can create in a shorter period of time.
**that's why theres only a few takes. Trust = strong synergy and shorthand.
Exclusive Audition Container for Auditioning Actors! by Treisa Gary • last post Jan 15th
I’d like to invite Actors to experience a one-month audition coaching container for actors who are actively auditioning or preparing to return to the audition process, running February 4th through 25th. This is a professional-level, small-group environment designed as a recalibration-based space for trained actors to restore clarity, neutrality, and trust before auditioning.
I have been coaching actors professionally since 2009 from my published framework, “8 Steps to Working Actor”. This container is for actors seeking clarity, precision, and honest feedback — no fluff. If you’d like to see if we’re a fit, check it out in the link below. Spaces are limited. Hope to see ya! https://www.treisagary.com/audition-class
Inspiring Role by Suzanne Bronson • last post Jan 15th
As actors, we bring ourselves to the characters we play. We find what resonates and go all in. Some parts are easier than others. Some really stretch us, some parts we are tempted to phone in. Then, there is the really wonderful occasion where we put our blood, sweat and tears into a role, thinking we had this character all figured out, only to find this character is teaching us something.
That is my question for you. Has there been a role that has inspired you in your real life? What is the most surprising thing you have learned from a role?