AN ACTOR PREPARES NOTES Chapters 1-4

Mistake 1: “I had read the text of the role by itself, I had played the character by itself, without
relating the one to the other”

Mistake 2: “Why is my acting of yesterday so exactly like today’s and tomorrow’s?”

Mistake 3: “I did not control my methods; rather they controlled me”

Lesson 1: When the subconscious, when intuition, enters into our work we must know how not to
interfere.

The more you have of conscious creative meoments in your role the more chance you will have of a
flow of inspiration.

“You may play well or you may play baldy; the important thing is that you should play truly”
Shehepkin

“…to play truly means to be right, logical, cojherent, to stirve, feel and act in unison with your role.”

“If you take all these internal processes, and adapt them to the spiritual and physical life of the
person you are representing, we call that living the part.”

“…His job is not to present merely the external life of his character. He must fit his own human
qualitities to the life of this person, and pour into it all of his own soul.”

That is why we begin by thinking about the inner side of a role, and how to create its spiritual life
through the help of the internal process of living the part. You must live it by actually experiencing
feleings that are analogous to it, each and every time you repeat the process of creating it.”

It is only when an actor feels that his inner and outer life on the stage is flowing naturally and
normally, in the circumstances that surround him, that the deeper sources of his subconscious gently
open, and from them come feelings we cannot always analyse.

Plan your role consciously at first, then play it truthfully. At this point realism and even naturalism in
the inner preparation of a aprt is essential, because it causes your subconscious to word and induces
outnurst of inspiration. (pg15)