Andrew Scott June 2020 Interview

[Music] [Music] hello welcome to master cast on digital theater plus with me Simon students when I write plays and I'm imagining characters in my mind I never think of imaginary people or people from real-life people I know I always think of actors actors I want to write for who inspire and spark my thinking the actor who I think of more than any other is the Irish actor Andrew Scott one of the great joys of my working life has been to work with under two plays I wrote them on Roxie wall for here in 2008 and then he played the lead role in my play burn and in 2014 but he has appeared in the imaginary cast of about six other plays while I'm in the throes of writing them he's best known perhaps for his television work Moriarty in Sherlock or the hot priest in Freiburg but I know invest as a stage actor of astonishing poise and musicality and grace his work with Christopher shin at the rural Court is welcome Sarah Cain's crave broke my heart he's thinking major roles on post by Brian Friel David Hare Eugene O'Neill Henrik Ibsen is Darius and I'm in no cars present laughter but the Old Vic was a feat of wit and sadness and his hamlet in Rob Ike's brilliant production quite obliterating me I'm grateful to think of him as a friend and honored to think of him as a collaborator and to welcome him to master gas as we saw how are you at those times now you doing I'm alright alright a bit of exercise I'm feeling good like everything's great so you've exercised your body and now you're ready to exercise your mind exactly the I always start these conversations by just asking people how they're getting on with Locke how's it going for you it's going well I think a little bit like everybody you have sometimes you have four seasons in one day but I'm really determined in 25 years when you they say remember that time I don't what to be like I turned to dust I want to I do think this is a sort of extraordinary opportunity I've definitely learned two loads of things but both practically and sort of emotionally and in a way being an actor it's sometimes isn't really enough different for actors as in lockdown as is for actors outside the box because you've just spent so much of your time as an actor when you're unemployed thinking how am I going to structure my day I'm gonna do this we're gonna do today what am I gonna do to exercise to keep myself and because the big problem with being an actor sometimes is not getting to getting to act yeah they do periods of unemployment so I think we used to be in your home on Tuesday morning at 11 o'clock more or less and we it's it's it's it's all the things we need I was gonna ask you about that because you know as you know football phone and there's a lot of talking football that footballers and knock down doing all kinds of training regimes and kind of you know keeping keeping themselves maps fit and ready in case the season comes back but what the Hector's do what are you doing you're not actually in rehearsal do you do you think about kind of staying you know match fit to use that metaphor other things which are the routines or rituals you have to try and stay in practice yeah there definitely are I feel like it's something I talk about a lot but it's playfulness faithfulness is the most important thing I don't think you need to be an actor you play a part you don't and I think sometimes we forget as actors that are our work is place is to be playful and with children we play all the time you go okay right you be the you be the nurse and I'm going to be a monster that comes in you don't think okay nurse monster you know what's his backstory you just go okay cool we were so and the further we go into adulthood the more were discouraged from being kind of playful and so having a sort of formal plan about being playful every day I don't think it's necessarily beneficial for me and but the idea of performing so to speak is something I think that we do really every day and there are friends that we have where you can have a very playful relationship with them where you're you just sort of I don't know you just you're kind of totally little nonsense but it feels very playful I think sometimes you can have a great performance in your head when you're listening to music sometimes I've noticed beginning of lot to him when people like stay connected you must FaceTime your zoom you must blah blah blah and I was thinking after the first week or so I'm really I kind of find myself in this and I realize it's because I hadn't had much time for myself to go imaginatively into the thing that I like to do to keep my creativity going which is a lot of the time for me like listening to you you know could be a musical something out of a Stephen Sondheim song or something where your imagination goes you think about a part that you might like to play and you go and you might be going on the street crying or you know just imagine to be going on being creative it doesn't necessarily be formal I'm doing I'm doing something every day this is so fascinating and so weirdly akin to I think like my own imaginary life my own capacity I think I think I've had this since I was a small child to really engage with the imaginary world like to pretend to be in conversations that I'm not actually in yet you still have the capacity to make myself cry on the streets thinking about sad stuff I've never said that out loud to anybody before our inner world which is like what they say stay connected and you know be you know as which is very important when we put into isolation but like you have to stay connected with that part that part of yourself if I were to think I'm going to lock him in that room over there and I'm just going to just focus on it there is a thing that you need to do I think that um that that is the fertilizer for when you actually are being formally creative because you can you can conceive of things kind of all these different walks particularly when walking is and then later you go yes awesome I've been with this feeling before I think it's one of the great shames of our lives which is so defined by social media is that we can lose the capacity to daydream yeah or to wonder about things when I was using Twitter a lot whenever I kind of found myself daydreaming or wondering I would go onto Twitter rather than just allow myself to explore what was going on in my mind I think it's that exploration stories come from characters come from it's incredibly creative because acting is the only art form I think one of the only art forms anyway where you don't see your own work you own it so we're in the theatre you your imagination goes and what you don't actually have to look at it you know so if you're a writer you there's something to Tonto or a painter you see your stuff or even as a film actor you know when actors are self taking so if you have to look at it and I think sometimes those things and in form and being formally created with an eye to it can be um you take oh my god I'm very self-conscious look at my big face or whatever is wrong with my voice I don't really like where isn't those kind of things to keep yourself going and to to be playful to go I'm imaginative we going to kind of go somewhere I do it's something I've always believed which is the are our ability to be able to laugh and have a good laugh at somebody it's a real to my mind and a real arbiter of or what our level of humanity is because to be able to laugh and to be able to think this is ridiculous is as much those comedians on Instagram or people have make me laugh during this kind of isolated time are the people I think I've helped me survive as much as anything yeah I could talk to you about this for about three hours a question for you which is a really strange question so forgive me bike and I wouldn't necessarily ask it to most actors but I think you might enjoy it yeah what would you say your job is as an actor for charting the journey from Willy Russell talking to us about where ideas come from there's Kelly Antony could got to talking about how they were right we've got Marian Elliot around the Cromwell talking about how their stage ideas and the designers talking about how they design what does an actor to do that it could be as stupid a question as it sounds I don't know what you say the job of an actor is well it's an interpretive art for a start and it's no less of an art form because it's interpretive so for a lot of time you're interpreting something that you might conceived over my job is to interpret your voice and in some way to sort of get into the to sort of learn your choreography in some way and I'm not matching with mine and in some way create something newer so that if your play doesn't fully exist as a play until it's performed and my performance can't exist without your play and I like the idea that you're kind of getting into it into a sort of dozens each other that's what I think that's what I think it is I think that the purpose the purpose of any art form and I include kind of all of them in that is to is to help people live a better life let's make people's lives a little bit better that's really improved you know has improved my my life so simply absolutely right yeah I mean I really really believe this in relation to stories and what are what you know what you call essential or we're talking a lot during lockdown but what are that's what what's essential in our lives and the idea of storytelling and it's so important it's we need it people need to watch television or listen to music or you know what in the movie and just so that we can escape some of the of the the heaviness that we feel but even storytelling in relation to what have you heard oh well I've heard that we're gonna be in lockdown for four weeks and I'm I've heard this and apparently this is a person who works in the hospital we sort of meet we sort of lean into stories as human being so and when stories are and not reliable as we sort of fight find in the news and something like that and then ever were going to believe that because it's not a fake news source or whatever so the lie the tales of the truth which is drama and acting all that kind of stuff is one that you go okay well this is this is all made up anyway tells the truth yeah that's really beautiful the I'm fascinated a lot of the people watching this will be people who are 16 maybe 17 some of them perhaps thinking about acting and I think you'd be an inspiring person for anybody to hear talk about acting I'm interested in how got started what you would do in your 1617 and how you went from being that position to started working as an actor did you train you train I'm not formally I went to drama drama classes when I was a kid I was very very very shy and I had a left when I was a kid I sort of you know all my efforts were wrong and so I started off go to elocution lessons when I was so like she sells seashells on the seashore really really shiny like didn't speak a lot in public it was quite Charlie John so I went to these drama classes and I used to be like nervous terrified these drama classes for like 4 o'clock on a Saturday not professional like you Theater so to speak and something happened in those classes were even though I was terrified I just felt like when I was up there I felt like okay and then I continued to do that and he put on little plays and stuff and then when I was about 16 or so he started I started to do kind of these kind of more these drama competitions I was introduced to Shakespeare a little bit by a very good drama teacher and I didn't feel like it was it sort of serious boring subject and I kind of love this but it was the way I was taught and then sometimes the way we're taught about acting and Shakespearean things that that can be a little stiff too woodland and then when I was 17 a film director in Ireland came to this these drama class to look for a young person to be in his film and it was a smaller independent film and I went to my mate that was late great partly as a result together on a job in the Abbey Theatre in German when I was 18 13 so I and then I worked at the Abbey for a couple years and did a bit of films I got an agent and that kinda stuff and then when I was 22 I came over to the world course where we met and and so sort of been going there so I've never had any professional training I learnt it all really just by you know making mistakes and you ever think that did you ever consider that to be like a loss or general wish that you trained in any way were you happy - why should I can say that I really really consider it a great thing that I didn't I didn't train and I know that it can really work for people but it's I think it goes Bucks that playful thing I'll ever talk about boys I feel like all the other stuff you can learn you can you can learn other stuff you come in a big theater no oh god I'm not I am NOT supporting my my my breath because there are techniques that I can employ to hit the back of the theater or certain technical things I do think that you can learn but that idea of playfulness and that idea I've not been competitive with other actors it being just a great joy to do I feel quite grateful that I didn't I didn't train and so for the people who are who are watching I think it's just sort of to develop a real strong sense I think what people really want from actors is there one of them who is this person and sometimes the worst kind of acting that we we just don't like seeing it's why it's a bit nearly bad acting is nearly better than acting I suppose that I mean that there is a I think kind of bad luck to use where you have no idea who this person is and they don't really either so sometimes we think that acting is pretending to be somebody else and I think that acting is about revealing who you are through through somebody through somebody else's writing so might get a character that you've written and I think how would I be if I was a rock star I would I be coupled with the sort of rhythms of this person but it's still me because of course the characters that you write don't actually know the best way they don't say who is Hamlet know how modest disinvited well has never existed uh I so in order to make him sort of properly manifested I have to go well I have to it has to come from me it has to come for me and so I attempted to do to do something that somebody else has done it can be it can be effective but I don't think it has a unique autograph to it which I think all arches I'm interested because I'm trying to follow an imaginary play that together Willy Russell Tanika got two antennae Scalia writing in Marianna and Miranda got a direct and poorly and paulien and their concern and and Bonnie Agnes design and then I'm interested in what you do when you get sent of scripts do you have a process which repeats itself or does it is it entirely arbitrary do you do give us a kind of just saw where you go to read for example you have like a room your house where you like readable or a time of day like reading you have the kind of routine for reading why don't I have to tell you the truth not I'm not good at reading scripts because I'm terrified that they're gonna be bad a lot of scripts are bad don't tell me what you have which is at a complete authorial voice and that's what you want and that is in any script what I would look if I were to answer your question saying what what I look for is something that usually you can see in the first three pages we think not whoa this is this is just got its own musicality or just something that I haven't really seen before or haven't that voice is just sort of like a unique piece of music you go I've never um I've never heard that music before know that from the beginning and that's I think one of the things that I would they say there was a great way of putting it somebody put it at that choosing the Porsche it's like listen to loads of songs in the radio and then just one comes on it makes me want to dance you don't you just go this song just makes me do something and I've different scripts do that for different and different people exactly it's almost involuntary and I really you know for the people who are watching this I think I've become a bit more trusting of what my own instinct is I think what happens a lot of the time with acting is is people tell you oh this is a good a person that you are this is what you're gonna be this is so the kind of work that I think you're probably going to is people have a lot of opinions and so to be able to learn to trust your own instinct about things what you're good at and to more than anything be willing to make a fool out of yourself to really make mistakes there's a there's a slight tyranny at the moment I believe which is goes against the idea of which is about surety that you must know things and I actually think in order to have any sort of artistic breakthrough you have to start the idea of I don't know and if you don't know you have to be able to go into this know unlike I know a lot of actors will rehearse and everything oh you know there is stuff that you do is embarrassing but that means you go okay it's not but if you don't if you don't if you're not willing to make a fool out of yourself and I don't think you can discover something new I believe that more slowly than I believe most things when I talk to young people between young writers or people who want to act or make art one of the things that I repeat all the time is in life we learn nothing from success a generation of young people to fear failure than to hanker for success when success teaches is nothing and the only way we learn is by failing if we run afraid of failure and we can look it in the face because hard to say that sometimes success is dangerous yeah and so you know like that I'll tell you what happens when you've achieved a certain modicum of success I think the reason it's dangerous is that youth life to me is about learning once you stop if you start learning something to me and start living so if you're successful one could go I love you dude they're my god that's amazing and you made a bit of money out of that and that people maybe you're more successful so scream has bacteria the biggest challenge I think they have to be quite ferocious of it that I find now at the mode is going no I don't know that don't assume that I don't assume that I know everything because what I want to do is to now once you're good at something is to obscure what else can't I do yeah I hope that I can continue to do that until I'm 80 - I worked with Antony Hopkins last year I think I told you this and we're he was so exciting and you stir because he was such a huge influence on me what was so exciting to see about him was that he was I don't know what is it what is it is this with this sort of childlike enthusiasm which I suppose I'm talking about in relation to a training and playfulness and all that kind of stuff that's what you've got to kind of hold on to which success can kind of take you can sort of sneakily steal from you and it's like the Picasso thing What did he say I've waited my whole life to paint like a child you know why this whole like to play like a child and I think there's something about even if it's really serious work even if it's really serious worse actually it's pretty soon please do you um once you've made your choice on a row once you've committed to work with us various Edina or in Birdland or amber or and any of those roles before rehearsal starts are the things that you'd like to do or the routines that you enjoy or preparation that you have that you would return to before before the first day of rehearsal yeah and I think I for me the script is sacred I don't think you can make a great film or a great production of a play without great writing I think writing is really important and then sometimes they talk about not knowing the script particularly well as a kind of virtue in some sense mmm you go well if you learn this too much before you start rehearsing you might learn a particular rhythm and I don't really agree with that I think sometimes we mistake memory exercising something for rehearsal and if you know it pretty pretty well it actually allows you to be much more playful because you can take much more risks like when you know something you can be you can be just incredibly playful again sometimes when actors are doing line runs when you go come on we'll just run the lines for EM for memory exercise often not square it's that it's most licensed it sort of soars because you're not disguise that by thinking I'm searching for and I can get you more stressed but actually what it is is learning the lines so that really and only that is my preparation don't other I feel like then once you have that as a baseline and then I kind of feel like did your jobs jump blindfold off a cliff and then what the view if there's a young director watching this was young kind of 19 year old aspiring director what would you advise or him would be the most important characteristics for a good rehearsal room what makes the Rosewood view was a great question I think it's to be enabling and a great director Rob Mike said to me once he said it's okay to argue but argue in a rehearsal room as allies not as enemies and I think that's a beautiful way of saying it which is you know that you can be you can you can argue but try and remember that you're on the same team and you're both wondering the same thing rather than it being sort of properly and comforted I think it's to remember as well that to be enabling and to give people everybody a chance to speak to know that everybody is nervous and that people certain actors may need something and another person may need completely the opposite in order to get get where they are but I but more than anything it goes back to that playfulness it's to keep it keep us and light the light in as much as you can and I don't mean not in them in the sense that you because sometimes you're dealing with very heavy subjects but sometimes too overly over-talking a subject over talking about the play I think can make it a little heavy and actually doing the play acting it out doing really different ways and then talking a little bit and then taking that energy I think is a very good use of the time and so often rehearsal rooms are about time management yeah for sure one of those let's talk a little bit about Rob who is pretty Rob Mike is I think one of the great directors in Britain at the moment yeah and his production of Hamlet yeah she directs it in which she played on earth do you bring a quality of play to a role of complex and dark and destructive and self-destructive errs because I don't watch that that what struck me was the lights of no performance and the humanity of it but what did you know we frightened of active playing Hamlet Oh so frightened I really genuinely for years as you know I worked at the Royal Court for lots of other other other place in most of my work not exclusively but mostly was a mute by doing like I'm not really Shakespeare kind of actor because I don't have Terry to some way we sort of have have inherited Shakespeare's is sort of acting for posh people I don't really know much people were extremely good at planning I just thought that wasn't for me because I didn't see very many people like that and the be playing for playing though with those parts but I always thought oh yeah I'd really like to play that part because I think it's sort of I speaks to meet someone but so Rob and I were talking about a couple of different place that we might do when we started talking like that and he's so brilliant on Shakespeare and actually his I think to give you an example at the beginning I thought I have to say when something is written yeah ye a ye aah I think I would my instant would do I have to say yay and he'd say noises yet thank you used to say was like in order to way we say it isn't there instead of it is not there he we used to say okay he'd say aunt instead of honest cousin that in the time he was living that was a way of colloquial izing the work the word to say instantly I should say aunt but what's happened is that that's been taken and there are 250 books written on how you should speak it and so now people say on and slowly you think you have to speak it in some extraordinary sort of way which you really don't and when I realized it actually you could you still had to to adhere to the language in the rhythm but you have to try it's much more moderate than you think I'm often thinking Sam I usually an example it I said if there were 250 books written on how to speak your plays I feel like your plays would suffocate you think 250 there so why is the most active writer nearly of all time why why aren't we so burdened by the way it should be - it's been it's been taken I think petitioners by academics so to speak and so I found is the most active part I've ever played and just to say about the lightness of it that there is no tragedy and homeless if there isn't look if there isn't whiteness there's no real tragedy to him dying if he was miserable in his life anyway if useless was gonna really thinking and actually he'd be delighted if he died so actually this is somebody this is somebody who loves life he's incredibly funny it's such a funny play Hamlet this is he's in love is what his mother has married his uncle two months after his dad's died it's not particularly I'd be Moody as well once the play is so famous you can go it's yours are playing the moody day and I see and you have to work dark clouds and goodbye and you so it's just sort of trying on the famous the play it's the other thing I'm Marissa called the famous play Mozart which is like you don't know that the ghost he's a goat the ghost of his dad isn't gonna come back and be a main character for the whole play we don't know so you have to I have to understand the I don't known as ring goes back to the I don't notice again of of the story and to be or not to be is what his dilemma is but I don't know I don't know and acting to me is the art of pretending that you you you don't know what you're gonna say next when you do don't say so but in yeah completely writing as well it's the same thing in writing to be able to write the line which somehow electorally leads from the last line but you kind of both knew that he was going to and could never have anticipated it's gorgeous so when you're writing then do you who is your first audience I mean who do you who do you think about I might I think what I'm I'm right because I was at entity Commission's I tend to write for specific theaters yeah and I tend to write the play but I wish somebody else had written for that theater so that I could go and watch it yeah yeah I miss the Assembly of people I miss kind of sitting next to somebody I might not even like yeah and then something makes us both laugh yeah and we've bonded in that moment or something makes us both crying we cry unapologetically in front of you know I I'm kind of like I write for myself but not myself in isolation from the theatre I write for myself in a specific and particular theater I can't be possible for an actor because actors can't see themselves watching their own performance I mean act for it's such a good question it's such a good question and I'm not really but you know it's interesting that you could but the people when you when you every night I think what what people don't realize even as an audience member you forget it even being in the theatre is how much the actors backstage are obsessed with the audience did you see their listeners we're like they're all people are always talking about every single night because it's so fascinating that exactly the same words and exactly the same sort of prototype of play of experience can change immeasurably between a matinee at 2:30 and 7:00 no evening its history and it's because of this community of energies that come in to come into a room and that's a life you know particularly when you know something like SeaWorld where we were where the audience almost which is this play that you United together which was almost kind of communion with the audience because it was just one man talking and so in that one we actually went further as we had the lights up didn't we yeah so I was talking directly to the audience so in fact not only did I have a sense of the audience I actually knew what they were wearing who was there if I knew them or whatever and so I'm very interested in not breaking down at the the kind of foreigner formalities of of what a live experience is I'm talking to a lot of drama students at the moment during the lockdown period and I keep talking about the idea of playfulness and the idea of when somebody forgets their lines in the theatre where do you go and there's that moment that we've all ready to go there is no as we know more pure the sense of silence and attention then the then when somebody forgets their lines it's like please remember please and become and that's because it's completely live the people are like oh this is happening now this didn't happen last night this isn't happen at the money this is looking at the performance stuff I am now at and I hope as editor and it's a completely thing so actually it's to try and engage with that sense of oh my god this is it's just really like I'm put the imagination of the audience so much they feel that they are there and that is a bad one it's kind of unlearning and that's about it starts with the ROI then it's like just pretending pretending when hours okay it's a term that's not a very articulate way of saying I think there's a great articulate eaters you'll one of the things that I love working one of the many reasons that I love working with you is of all the actors I know you seem to cherish the rhythm of language yeah you know and my favorite actors seem to get I love the idea of you dancing with the play I think that singing and music seems so important to you assume is not trendy what voice trained presumably didn't have you know lecture after lecture on ambient ammeter are you able to be cognitive to talk about how you use language or is it just two hours no but like the idea of so often and our speed of thought is immense and art the way we talk is so quick and I think sometimes a real death of I think sometimes acting performing can be greatly improved a lot of the totem by speeding up we really do by just going just being a little little head of it means that you earn the pauses so that when we just talking like oh god I have to listen to this or is everything is weighed with the same import and I think you start to sort of lose the story and that's why I act I do think that what sometimes bad acting is is when you think I can't hear this anymore because I don't it's like rap it's like rap music yeah I always equate with Shakespeare you can't don't sometimes you don't necessarily catch all the words but you catch the rhythm of what you're studying the things so actually I think it's more grinding sisters that you hear a play and I think that's a really I think that's a a nice way to think about if you think oh if I'm not looking at that what does it say look it's the English I think it's very specifically English out there and I think English is the only language where the word for the collect the assembly of people who gathered today together to experience the theatre is an audience so it comes from audio so comes from listening every other language is a spectator is a view of a in English with listen to plays we're an audience great yeah Kingdom I went I love making Sewall with you and every iteration of that productions one of the highlights of my working life I saw it one night with the choreographer Wayne McGregor who's who's a brilliant you know the chief choreographer the world ballet weirdly I was at school with him which is kind of surprising but can I was quite lost that right the but a remarkable man incredible brain and he said he talked about your performance and he said you were dancing all the time and this is a performance of people haven't seen it fundamentally it's one person who we recognize from the street that the thing about Alex is he could be anybody he doesn't look particularly kind of startling or extreme or remarkable he's not like pull from Birdland who is rock star alex is of working photographer he's a normal guy but when said every moment you were dancing with a button so if I could ask the same question not about your language but about your body are you are you are you and you have cognitive control of what you're doing with your body I think that'd be the reason why I couldn't act anybody watching these conversations will just see me kind of did all this much stuff with my hands hoping I'm saying well yeah but you are you you know what your body is doing when you're acting no and I'm very very glad that I don't they put cameras on television and I have to physically leave the house I watched the first 10 minutes of her okay not only could I not just turn off the television and to stain just do something else I literally had to go walk for three hours until it was over because I was so devastated by what I was doing with my hands and my face and weights was everything so I do think there's something about that I mean of course that's that was an extreme that's an extreme thing I do think and who physicality yeah I do feel I see the physicality of words a lot and adore as you say I adore words I like idea the words or some words are just funny and somewhere it's just I don't know they just land in a particular way and I kind of think not that I would ever consciously do you can think that requires a sort of this punching or something interestingly in another play that we did and Birdland I actually had to actually dance yeah but which was such an an extraordinary experience for me because when I was 16 or 17 and lanes to be two in you know put ups of grease or [Music] never we know we had to find it to play at Barnard on the side story just casting but anyway whatever and so we did this and my ability to embody choreography is absolutely slow I could do it eventually but like oh my god so I assume then that I wasn't able to dance and whatever the teacher was confirmed that for me float said oh you can't dance so for ages I'd thought that's not something on his part within my gift a little bit like what I sort of thought within about Shakespeare and so the opportunity to dance I remember talking with courier director and I knew who's the choreographer on it but I was like oh that's not something so then we went into a room the curio Fred we did some freestyle dancing to music about how we challenge was how do you play a rock star um and give a sense of what his peacock nature and how it is likely the stadium without singing songs and it sort of reductive so how do you make him like a rock star and when I took taking over the player over balance in the plane so we did this thing and I was able to it's for freestyle and she was incredibly encouraging to me she was like that's really really really and I found it one of the most thrilling things that has ever happened to me because when I say I have no confidence I think I'm sure you remember we're talking about I was terrified because it was not something that I was able to do it was literally something that I don't know how to do again I don't know then to be able to go out and sort of freestyle and dance in front of a ton of people was incredible so it's genuinely since then I feel much more comfortable on stage with my with my body and the idea of being physically I suppose confident but be confident physically invited and I do think that's got something to do with journey what are you starting acting I think one's comfort with oneself it is a very important attribute that you can develop I think just going people want to see you they don't want to see you disappearing all together that's a great myth about acting so the more comfortable you are at the difference I love the expression that we contain multitudes and if we contain multitudes it means that you can play multitude but ago well maybe I am a dancer even though I don't feel like one maybe I am a prince maybe I am I'll have to in some way audacious to and to to be vulnerable enough to say I'm gonna we're going to do this yeah and that audacity is best kindled from that spirit of play I think I think it has to be and you have to be in order to be playful you've got a you've got to be your own parent in some way go on you do it it just doesn't matter and then you rob them oh don't mess this up don't mess this up because you never miss anything up you will never genuinely get great at something you might pass I read this there was this brilliant thing on a podcast and I just want to talk to you talk about because I think it's such a brilliant beautiful thing that I only heard the other week I was by this man called Mo gore - who was talking about he's written a book on happy mrs. Orr and he was talking about anxiety during the corona virus and how we survived it and he was talking with the brilliant Elizabeth Day on her podcast how to fail I strongly recommend this and he was talking with his son and it was an excellent video gamer and I'd never really thought about video gaming very much and his son was an expert his son was very tragically killed in a bet 20 20 years ago I think and so his legacy for his father has has been to take what his attitude towards many things but one of them being video gaming and he used to play video games with his son and to try know themself used to try and get to the end as safely as he could and then he would win the game and he used to say - son are you going into that level it's crazy it's quickly because dad in order to be a really good gamer you have to go into the places that are actually going to be really hard to get through that level game over and you gotta go back to you but actually to live a brilliant life the idea is not to get there safely as possible the idea is to play the video game to go well I went there oh my god now we are in lockdown you have to be in the lockdown fate you can't go or I wish I was in the different level of the video game you have to get really good at the lockdown level was such a beautiful way of describing life but also our artistic life that actually you got to make the mistakes you got to go oh I wasn't good at that and you know what now I'm a little bit better you can see my friend I hope to see you in the sunshine with a little beer enhancing so - so I thought this week I try and give you an acting exercise based on my conversation with Andrew I hope you found it as inspiring as I have to say I really did and I developed this thinking about what he was talking about when he talked about speed and the energy and the musicality of speed and performance and this is something that I suggest you try yourselves take a speech in a play that you know a new love and learn the speech that seek water I was really surprised actually and rather taken by his insistence that actors should learn their lines before they start work so take a space in you know the speech that you love and learn it and they get your timer on your phone and start the speech with a five minute time so that you go as slow as you need to in order to the last word of the speech is set as the timer runs out and then do it again for four minutes and then do it again for three minutes and then do it again for two minutes and then do it again for one minute and then do it again for thirty seconds and see what you learn about the musicality and the energy of the speech from doing that and if you're enjoying yourself and you want to carry on why don't you do this why did you take two pieces of music that you loved it could be like undred talked about it could be a piece of rap music or it could be a better than sonata it could be any piece of music from any form and play the music and do the speech to coincide absolutely with the rhythms of the music and then do it with the second contrasting piece of music see what you learn it could be embarrassing it could be a total failure and I can't help thinking that if it is then you're acting like Andrew Scott be fearless have a great deal of fun

Channel: ValeRose

Views: 17,069

Rating: 4.9555554 out of 5

Keywords: Andrew Scott, Sherlock, Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes, James Moriarty, Jim Moriarty, John Watson, BBC, Netflix, Hot Priest, Fleabag

Id: anl00P7oC3k

Length: 50min 20sec (3020 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020