A professional actor’s take on confidence and connection with your audience
Let me share more with you about the thorny subject of confidence.
When you’re working in the Practise Room or Writers Room, these are the first places where you need to “get out of your own way” - you should leave aside all negative thoughts and feel ready to dive in and create fantastic content, free and unencumbered from any naysaying demons.
EASY!
Well no, not always…and that’s completely understandable.
On the other hand, if you believe in your message, then this idea of getting out of your own way is absolutely possible, because in fact the only thing that is causing you to lack confidence at this stage, and at all stages of content creation, is bad management of your Performance Ego!
When you look at our Performance Ego See Saw, you can see how second guessing what people might think of you, your work, your content, how you look and more besides, means you are absolutely getting in your own way.
Whenever I feel like I'm lacking in confidence, before a performance or when I go on set, it is usually because I've got a negative, derailing thought buzzing around my bonce…and i’m not dealing with it efficiently. Perhaps I've started to question my understanding of the role and how I'm playing it.
Am I timing that particular line correctly?
Do I feel this bit was always under rehearsed and therefor makes me a bit jumpy?
What will that famous actor who is in tonight think of me?
etc
etc
etc
All me! Me! ME!!!
You can find out more about this in our chapter on the Performance Ego See Saw but for me, I like to think of it in the following way.
Generally, the audience have come to see the play - and have spent a not inconsiderable amount of money in doing so. They have expectations of a great night out. They have not necessarily come to see me exclusively and are almost certainly uninterested in how I am feeling. This means my job is to tell my part of the story as well as I can and, in doing so, to serve the audience, writer, director, fellow actors, stage management, costume, all back stage crew and front of house. There are a lot of people involved in the evening, so why should I, and my poor Performance Ego Management be the sole focus of every person in the theatre? Well I'm being unreasonable in thinking and making it so.
If i have done the work and am happy, and feel that generally all aspects of my performance have been addressed satisfactorily during the rehearsal process, then my job is to get out there and move the story on… to serve the work. How the work will be received by the audience and critics and the like, thats out of my hands frankly. They get what they get. Live performance is exactly that…live…and should be “worked” every night, in order to seem spontaneous.
The more I overthink things and second guess other people’s reactions, the less confident I will be. Most of the time the audience won't even notice. If i had a pound for every time something went wrong in a play I’ve been doing, and afterwards, (in the bar ) when I've apologised for it someone will always say “Oh we didn't notice that”. Sometimes the actor on stage won't even notice… even when you are “OFF” (late for your entrance).
So the work, the message, if you like, is the star of the show and you are there to deliver it.
Thats the whole point, The Purpose which we will revisit again and again, and so should you.
It will serve you well.
Try saying this to yourself
I'm here to deliver this message and people really need to hear it. So I'm going to breathe in, feel centred, have fun, and get on with it
….trust me if you do this, and keep reminding yourself to do it, it will become easier and you will start to fly.