One of my teaching heroes is Siddhārtha Gautama, also known as the Buddha. I have such great respect for his sheer egoless-ness as a teacher and the responsibility he gave his students. At the end of almost every sutta (teaching), he says in some way or another, “Don’t believe me. Go out and try this for yourself and if it works apply it, if it doesn’t, find what does.” Wise man—great teacher.
Both students and teachers of acting, and really any creative art, could learn a lot from this approach to teaching and to learning.
When I hear teachers say that there are things that all actors have to do, or they’ll never work, or that there’s one secret to great acting that applies to every actor on the planet, it make me cringe. Absolutism and certainty have no place in creative learning. They shut you down and make you narrow, rigid and unreceptive when the job of the artist is to be flexible, expansive, and inclusive.
As a teacher, I do hold out that there are elements of auditioning that are crucial to learn about and to master—there are a number of things that an actor is expected to deliver in a room. However, to suggest that there is only one way to learn and incorporate these elements is to suggest that every actor is the same.
Teaching a creative discipline is about the cultivation of the individual artist’s abilities and strengths. Yes, having a technique is essential, but it must be a technique that works for each student in practice as opposed to just sounding good in theory. And while we teachers should be very passionate about what we teach, we should be equally passionate about tailoring our knowledge to the needs of the individual student.
Acting isn’t math and can’t be successfully taught as such. There are no finite answers in the arts: One plus one doesn’t always equal two, and that’s the joy of it. A good teacher knows this and also knows that the only “right” in art is what’s right for the artist.
The actor also has a great deal of responsibility in the creative learning process.
A teacher can convey the information they have and make that information clear and relevant. They can also inspire and motivate. They provide the tools. It’s the actor’s job to see if these tools are a useful and dynamic addition to their process. If they are, they should continue to learn how to apply them to their work. If they don’t resonate, they need to be put it in the back of the toolbox or discarded.
It can be difficult to do this and it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all of the information coming at you when you don’t have a strong enough sense of who you are and what you need as an artist. A skillful teacher can be a big help in getting you in touch with your artistic identity. This is crucial work to do because, until you have explored what your specific needs are, where you want to go, what kind of actor you want to be, and what success and an artistic life mean to you, you remain largely undefined as an artist. It’s not as if these questions ever really get fully answered, but exploring these questions increases your self knowledge, creating natural filters that all of the information coming at you can run through. In this way, you become a discerning actor who can hear and see everything that is offered, but take only what you need to grow and mature as an artist.
When you start to establish and develop your artistic identity, you’ll cease to need teachers who tell you what you have to do and purport to have the key to success as an actor. Instead, you’ll look for teachers who are guides, not gurus. Teachers who will take the time to get to know you and what you need to become a great auditioner-actor-artist, and who will also know when to let you go. They will be a guide who knows that deep learning and creative growth tend to happen most meaningfully in a state of groundlessness—that wonderful place where you’re up in the air and anything is possible—and who has the compassion and patience to lead you there so that you can do the life-changing work of discovering and cultivating your own artistic truth.
Creative learning is a two-way street between the actor and the teacher. It takes a student who can learn what is being taught absolutely, from a teacher who is not selling his or her teaching as the absolute truth.
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