Constantin Stanislavski was a Russian actor and director. He had reputation for remaining in character when not performing, probably to rehearse for the role. This trait has been attributed to modern Method actors like James Woods. He co-founded what was to become the Moscow Art Theatre in 1897. This theatre and troupe gained acclaim performing the works of Checkov, who deliberately provided little insight to the characters. This allowed applications Stanislavski for his psychological techniques and flesh out the roles. The Moscow Art Theatre is where he taught and refined the “System”. In 1906, the first formal version of his System began to take shape. An Actor Prepares was first published in 1936.

The book itself is an imaginary diary of fictional student Kostya training under the director Tortsov. Tortsov is a stand in for Stanislavski, as he teaches the System. Kostya records the daily rehearsals and exercises Tortsov has the students in his class perform. The book indirectly teaches through these examples. For example, early on the students perform Othello and when finished Tortsov offers instruction on what they did incorrectly.

The System is what Stanislavski called his collective teachings. Within the System, you will find concepts such as emotion memory, substitution and replace if magic. These concepts are related to psychology, which at the time was a area largely unknown. Actors are encouraged to produce real emotions on stage by either recalling the personal experiences the actor has had or by using imagination to elicit the appropriate response. The actor remains in character but is himself experiencing the real emotion, thus being truthful.

Method Acting is modern, American derivative of the System. Lee Strasberg created the Method, but others such as Stella Adler have made contributions. Emotional memory, substitution and the magic if remain the main focus of Method Acting. Both Method Acting and the System incorporate exercises for the actors to complete in order to practice the necessary mental skills. The Breakfast Drink is an example of one such exercise.

First is the dream, or the desire to become an actor. Then comes the faith, you should believe in yourself whatever hardships you may encounter in the process. It is very rare to become an instant actor unless your family is in the business for a long time already. Then you have to survive. Survive all the hardships in trainings, all the late night and weekend workshops and endless lining up in auditions.

Look for an inspiration, one that is an actor already. Learn his style in acting and try to imitate him, then learn to act. Acting is first and foremost a craft. The best of the actors understand this and no matter how far they have come in their careers, they are constantly looking to improve upon their craft. They take classes, work with acting and dialogue workshop trainers, study life experiences, and other great actors in the field. They are very aware that learning to act is a continuous process.

The skills that actors must master include speech rate, oral projection, voice clarity, physical and vocal expression, vocal pitch, physical stance and eye contact. Many performers have worked for years to perfect a technique. Some are good at one and not another.

Others have a natural gift for all. Whether they intend to perform in TV drama, movie or film drama, voice acting, musicals or theater productions, knowledge of each is necessary to meet the requirements of an acting career. These techniques will enable an actor to portray him/herself as being confident and ready to do the job.

Rate of speech is a skill that one can use in acting. A character actor could speak very slowly when portraying the part of someone with physical or mental handicaps. If portraying the part of an excited or agitated character, an actor might speak very fast. This is an effective way of getting the emotions and feelings of a character across to the audience.

However, many inexperienced actors and actresses have no sense of timing and speak either too slowly or too quickly. Vocal projection and clarity are two more skills that can be signs of experience, or lack of, on the part of an actor or actress. Vocal projection and clarity, especially in theater productions are necessary to ensure that the entire audience can both hear and understand what the actor is saying.

The character actor must master the arts of both vocal and physical expression. Body language is a major factor in physical expression as it is used to portray the attitude and emotion of a character at any given time. Vocal expression does the same thing, but in a different way. It uses other things like pitch ranges to show emotions and feelings.

Pitch is the range of an actor’s tone of voice. Pitch ranges can be from very high to very low, depending on the emotion being portrayed. Physical stance is important because poor posture and fidgeting indicates nervousness and a lack of confidence. The actor must always be concerned with eye contact as well, not only with the audience but also with the other cast members too.

Being a actor is difficult, becoming a professional actor is more difficult. It maybe depend a part on your aptitude or expericence from your life, your feeling and your training process. But loving your career which you have chosen, is very important. It will promote you to do everything better.