Physicality: Let Me Hear Your Body Talk

By Pam

 Acting is hard.  It looks easy, but it's not.  That's why professional actors study for years to achieve the ability to make their acting not look like acting.  Some of them continue to study and work with teachers and coaches all their lives.  Acting is an art and a craft, and the techniques and skills to combine voice, body, gestures, facial expressions and thought and emotion to create a full, complex, multi-layered character take time to learn.

Most actors have trouble figuring out what to do with their bodies on screen.  Part of the problem is that they see "vocal acting" and "physical acting" as two different things.  An actor doesn't just act with his voice and face (unless they are doing just readings, radio, voice-overs or only close ups).  Acting is the ability to create a "real" person from dialogue on a page, from voice to body language, to gestures, to relationship with the other characters, to real emotions that express the essence of the person they are portraying.  

 Take Alex O’Loughlin, as Steve McGarrett.  We know the character is a Navy SEAL.  I’m sure Alex did his homework on what and who a SEAL is; stoic, fearless, physically fit.  There is a real SEAL on the set of Hawaii Five-0 to keep Steve McGarrett genuine in his demeanor and actions.  We know Steve lost his mother at an early age, got shipped off to school and never spent quality time with his father and sister after that.  Alex draws a great deal of emotion from that dynamic.  Also from the murder of Steve’s father.  These life circumstances stay with Steve every day of his life.  Consider how you might feel and interact with co-workers, family or friends.  This is how Alex becomes Steve.  Now he needs to find the “truth” of the character.  Good acting often implies enhancing a role with emotional truth. Method acting is all about stimulating that truth.  Alex is a method actor.

Simply, when a good actor is working on a character, he doesn’t worry about the physicality.  Most actors get caught up in the artificiality of acting.  They try to plan every little thing they are going to do - where to put their hands, what gesture to make, how to step, etc.  They are thinking too hard, focusing on the physical and not on the character.  Do you think about what to do with your hands in "real life"?  Probably not.  You just do what you do.  That's because you are simply being yourself and acting in response to the situations you find yourself in.  The same should be true of the character.  If the actor studies his character, really creates him, knows him like he knows himself, understands  him and is acting "in character" when he is doing a scene, then his body will move naturally as the character.  When he is listening to what the other characters are saying, reacting and answering them as the character, "living truthfully in the imaginary circumstances" of the scene, then he won't be thinking about what to do with his hands.  Just like in real life, his hands will move naturally and freely as the character.  But, before he uses physicality, he must ALWAYS remember to use characterization. The character demands the body, not the other way around. 

Alex studied at the prestigious NIDA in Sydney, Australia, and came out with a Bachelor Degree in acting. Three years of non-stop studying his craft.  He has mastered the physicality of acting…and that’s the truth. 

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