How to build a career in TV acting

 

Everything you need to know to become a professional actor or actress

These days, there is a growing personal, social, and cultural benefit to working in theater. Here are the secrets to being a successful actor or actress if you've ever wondered what it takes. Whether in theater, cinema, or television, an actress's main responsibility is to portray a character in a way that the general public considers convincing. 

This statement leads us to an interesting question. In this sense, if being a professional actor or actress consists of building characters, one of the questions we ask ourselves is “how to be an actor/actress or how are characters built?”

Below, we would like to invite you to answer this and other frequently asked questions related to how you can become a good actor or actress, whether or not you have experience and studies, as well as other related questions to help you find out if you really want to become one.

How to become an actor or actress? We answer the most frequently asked questions

The first thing we want to tell you is that the art of acting is learned. With good training, you will be able to acquire a series of technical tools that will unleash your talent and make you feel like the protagonist of your creative process. And this is precisely the objective of our Theatre School in Madrid .

Our extensive experience at the school allows us to affirm that anyone who sets out to undertake this wonderful artistic task can become an actor or actress.

To become a good actor or actress, you need to discover your artistic abilities during your training process. 

What is it like to be an actor or actress?

Being an actress or actor does not consist of memorizing a line and moving more or less easily on stage. In order for the character to be credible to the audience, the artist must embody the characters with his or her body and words.

When we build a character from a text, the first thing we have to do is prepare the body to be able to reach the word. 

This is what we aim to do at the school. To train actors and actresses who are alive on stage and construct an artistic truth, different from that of life, to be represented. In this sense, the technical principles of interpretation are:

• Objective: What does the character want?
• Conflict: what opposes it?
• Setting: Where does the action take place?
• Text: What does the character say?

These technical principles will allow you, through improvisation, to discover actions that will lead you to construct the character's behavior. The place to discover these actions is in the rehearsal, since the characters do not exist before you construct them.

How do I know if I really want to be an actor or actress?

It's normal to have doubts about this question. Some people who really want to be actors or actresses go to castings thinking that they will find the answer there and that it will be where they will see if they are really worthy of this profession.

This is a bad start, because in a test you are going to be asked for an immediate result. If you do not have enough training to face that test, you are going to feel frustrated…

You will only be able to know if you really want to be an actor or actress by learning a technique that allows you to discover and strengthen your qualities. This learning is not done alone; the figure of the teacher is fundamental, as is the support of colleagues who have the same desires and difficulties as you.

In order to avoid falling into competitiveness or excessive egos, it is necessary that the creative space be based on trust, solidarity and mutual care.

How to become a young actor or actress? When should you start?

Age is not a determining factor in becoming a good actor or actress. There are actors whom we admire and if we look at their history we see that not all of them began their training and professional career at the same age. At our school we work with students from 18 years of age onwards with no upper age limit.

How to become a famous actor?

Being famous without proper training does not guarantee that you will be able to fully develop your profession. We cannot imagine a sculptor, painter, musician, etc., without proper training. So why deny this possibility to an actor?

Building a character is an artistic task that requires the right tools to achieve it. It is not about copying the behavior of life, but about achieving a higher creative level.

There are actors or actresses who have had their moment of fame playing a character on television or in film and, later, have not been able to develop a professional career because they have not been able to build other characters.

Being famous is all about chance. Being a good actor or actress depends on whether you decide to train yourself.

Juan Echanove, who is a famous actor, says: “When I have doubts about how to do things and why to do theatre, I go to Jorge Eines and his technique and I feel renewed .”

So… How to become a professional actor or actress?

A good professional is not the one who earns the most money, or the most famous. A good professional is the one who does his job well.

And what do you have to study to be an actor or actress? Where do you start?

The first thing to do when studying theatre is to choose the school where you are going to study. And how do you know which one is the best with so many options available? There are some basic things to keep in mind when choosing a school:

• It must offer a good training program that enables students to learn acting techniques with rigor and clarity. The training program we offer at the school will allow you to become a good professional actor or actress in theater, film and television.
• The teaching team must have a pedagogical background . Jorge Eines, director and teacher at the school, says: “I am a man who is interested in the work of the actor. From my practice as an acting teacher, from my work in rehearsals as a theatre director and from my books on interpretive theory, I have had the priority of promoting a better understanding of the creative processes from a technical perspective.”
• It must address specific needs . In a good school, the specific needs of each student are met, without going through processes of psychological exhaustion.

 

If you want to become a good professional with a solid education, we invite you to visit our Theatre School in Madrid .

Our school offers a three to four year training period, depending on whether the student already has some experience. During this time, the student goes through three levels of difficulty in building the character.

• Naturalism: Characters closer to life. Tito Cossa, Ernesto Caballero, Egon Woolf, etc…
• Realism: More complex characters. Tennessee Williams, Chekhov, Arthur Miller, etc.
• Style: Characters who do not speak as in real life. Shakespeare, Lorca, Goldoni, etc…

 

In this sense, a scene with two characters is worked on per quarter and, based on improvisation, a technical structure is built that allows you to create the character's behavior.

Conclusions on how to be a good actor or actress

What we wanted to convey to you in this article is that to become a professional actor or actress, it is essential to acquire good training that allows you to develop the interpretive skills necessary to embody characters in a credible manner.

Choosing a school that meets your needs, a good team of teachers, technical preparation, teamwork, dedication and your desire to be an acting artist are fundamental aspects to take into account if you are wondering how to become a professional actor or actress.