A Couple of Classes Later

What does it mean to be an actor? What's driving a person so deeply that he decides to take acting up as a vocation? Why does one put oneself in a position of being a near-to-bare-naked in front of shitloads of people? What is Action? All these questions have been arising during these last couple of days - and we've tried real hard to answer them.

First of all. I just gotta say - the teachers we're having are excellent. They're inspiring people, with loads of experience, teaching us all about the vocation we're picking up from the bottom of their hearts. It's amazing to watch our "acting for film" teacher be all passionate about everything he's trying to teach us, it's fascinating to see a person who's dedicated his life to perfect the speech of others hold a class - it's amazing that they care enough about us to actually be in that room!

Most of our teachers are real professionals, you have actors in TV-series, films, plats, directors of off-broadway musical and plays - you pretty much got a professional of every sort of aspect of the thing we're dedicating to. And my class is loving it!

I've so far had Speech, Voice/Movement, Audition and Acting Techn., Meisner (which also is an acting technique), Text Analysis and Acting For Film. Seeing that I've only been in real class for 3 days, you might have guessed by now that the days get pretty intense. We always start at 9 and finish between 4-6 - sometimes earlier and one day next week we got a day that spans from 9 - 9. What about my classmates then? They're all good people! Many are very talented and many will definitely go places. Ages span from 18-36 with a middle age at almost 24, which is great! We're 2 from Sweden, 4 from the UK, 5 from the US and 1 girl from Russia. So a variety of people, all coming together to do what we all love!

We've introduced ourselves a million times, both on camera and off camera and all teachers have asked us to share different personal things. What made you want to become an actor, what makes you happy, have you had training before - and stuff like that. Even though we've just had 3 days together, it feels like we already have a great idea of who everybody is. Everyone's got great stories to tell and once everything starts to unfold for real, it's going to be amazing to watch everyone - not forgetting, watching myself.

I already feel, after a mere three days, that I am in my zone. I am where I need to be and I am loving every second of it. It's hard work, very hard work, but what you make of it is your choice. As drama teacher and technique developer Stella Adler so wisely said: Your choice is your talent.

I've taken a lot to read, completely on myself, on top of everything we have in school. Everything relates to everything we're doing, a part of the books I've borrowed are suggested but it's all personal. After three days of school, I've counted 5 MAJOR homework assignments that I'm going to get started on tomorrow, Wednesday, as I have "the day off". When I first heard about our schedule, I thought it was sort of lame with so many days off - but now I understand it's a great time to catch up on everything and a great day to, sort of, let you're body relax from the intensity that is school.

I'll write soon again!

Don't be a stranger! Loves