Your very survival as a human depends on it. You’ve been doing it pretty much like clockwork since you were born. So, why does eating in a scene feel like such a challenge?
You’re not alone. When you go looking for scenes with actual eating—and not just the props of Chinese food containers or ice cream pints—you might even realize that chewing and swallowing are hard to come by. “It stresses a lot of actors out,” says acting coach and teacher Shannon Sturges. “Even on ‘The Bear,’ there isn’t a ton of eating. It’s more about preparing the food.”
Still, for the scenes that do involve fork and knife skills, Sturges points out that “with rare exceptions, everything you are going to do in your acting life you already do perfectly in your real life. You walk into a room like a normal person. You use your hands like a normal person. And you eat like a normal person.”
Chew on some of her tips for harnessing your onscreen gustatory skills:
Keep it real
Only Bugs Bunny levitates to the aroma of a hot meal. Non-cartoon characters, on the other hand, can play it natural. “If you’re enjoying the smell of something, you don’t stick your nose in the lobster bisque, right?” says Sturges. “That’s just overacting.”
Even if you’re on a food commercial, stick to the script—and credulity. “If you’re in a commercial and you’re saying, ‘It’s delicious,’ there’s not much more you have to do,” she says. “You don’t have to Tony-the-Tiger it up.”
Fall in love with the food
On food commercials, you have one job: Enjoy what you’re eating. “You have to act like you really like it,” Sturges says. Unfortunately, she points out, that food isn’t always going to be piping hot (the stacked burger that was the food stylist’s Sistine Chapel) or especially tasty. “If they’re dipping apple slices in lemon to keep them from turning brown, you still have to bite into it like it’s a delicious apple.”
Pace yourself
When a scene calls for eating, bear in mind that it may require several takes, so there’s no need to be in the clean-plate club. “I appreciate that you want it to look real, but you’re going to be repeating this [scene] for every angle,” says Sturges, who herself got her SAG card 40 years ago with a Skittles commercial—and she hasn’t tasted a single drop of that rainbow since. “The technique that I talk about is called endowment—giving physical properties to something that it doesn’t have,” she says. “For instance, taking a small bite but endowing it like it’s a larger bite. It’s in the chewing, you chew a little longer.”
Take a bite
“If there’s food on your fork, either take the bite or put the fork down,” Sturges says. Don’t just hold the fork next to your face in the frame like it’s your new spouse in a “New York Times” wedding announcement. Again, “think about the things you do in real life. Sometimes people tell me, ‘Shannon, I do that,’ and I’m like, ‘You do not stand there with a fork-full of pasta while you’re having a conversation,’ ” she says. “You might eat and talk with your mouth full, it depends on the situation.” But the fork-full sidekick? Nope.
Remember, the scene is about more than the food
Except for ad spots, a scene is very rarely about the food itself. “You’re getting into a fight with your family. Somebody says something offensive. Somebody says something that leads to a surprising discovery,” Sturges says. “The food is just the realistic backdrop for all that.” As such, she says, “you can get away with other activities, like dishing out the food, clearing plates.” She also recommends advocating for yourself with the prop master if you’ve been given a particularly difficult food to eat casually. “If it’s a talkative scene, does it make sense for you to be eating angel hair pasta?” she asks. Ask for something easier to eat—mashed potatoes are always a good one—”because, you know, it’s not about the angel hair.”
Acting coach and actor Shannon Sturges owns Speiser/Sturges Acting Studio in Los Angeles, California.