Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman, Johnny Depp, Uma Thurman, Christian Bale, Robert De Niro— what do these stars have in common?
They all became masters of their craft without receiving a professional acting education.
Today, Daria GZ, a talented actress known for her work in the Ukraine, Turkey, The UAE, Russia, India, Australia and China, will tell you what acting tricks you can learn on your own in order to master the profession without a specialized education. Daria is a two-time nominee of the Chinese National Film Award.
Daria, tell us why, in your opinion, an actor does not need education?
I want to correct you a little, education is crucial! But it does not necessarily need to come from a university setting.
Our profession requires us to learn and grow every day. An actor must never stop developing, both in the classroom and out of it.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just attend university to be taught everything there?
No one can teach you how to experience emotion. Secret number one—you yourself must learn to understand yourself and remember your emotions. Can a professor teach us to feel the desire to take care of a loved one? An actor must strive to put real emotions onscreen. You can learn to analyze, but not to implement, or you can study yourself and reproduce the right emotion at any moment.
Can you break down for me exactly how this happens? How can you reproduce an emotion at any moment?
The person you love left you. You’re in pain; your heart is broken. You feel incredible resentment towards him, towards yourself, towards the whole world. Where does this feeling originate? I have resentment in my throat. I remember, and then I call this feeling into my body. I feel a lump on the physical level. And then the body gives a signal to the brain, which remembers the algorithm of actions and then lives this emotion again. An actor is a psychologist and a physiologist at the same time. When I need to cry, I trick my brain. I remember my fear and I squeeze my muscles until this fear rises from the lower abdomen to the chest. The memory connects to the breathing and, voila, tears appear in my eyes.
Incredible! I remembered a joke in a film where a girl cries and looks in the mirror to see if she cries beautifully. Does this self-reflexivity also work?
Yes exactly! This is not a joke, but the unusual reality of the actor. After all, it is important to understand what emotion you’re communicating. Therefore, it is quite normal to use a mirror to see how you look in that moment.
Of course, many people use eyeliner or special “sticks” that produce tears artificially. But this isn’t genuine. I am against artificial tears in the frame. The viewer is smart, they cannot be deceived by some simple water in the eyes. When tears flow, but true emotion is not read in the eyes, whether it be pain, resentment, fear, hatred or love, we pick up on that. The most difficult thing in our profession is to do something when you don’t feel like doing it. For example, you need to pretend to be cheerful when you’re morose. Or you need to cry on the best day of your life. But this is our profession and such moments demonstrate how professional you are in your work.
What resources do you to use to keep learning? Is there literature which helps map out the intricacies of the profession?
My favorite book is 12 Steps to Hollywood by Ivana Chubbuck. Ivana’s technique teaches actors to view their emotions not as an end result, but as a way to solve a problem. In this way, the actor can learn to use their own pain to achieve a character’s goals. Human psychology is such that our injuries are not a reason to give in to our suffering, but an additional incentive that inspires new professional victories. I also highly recommend Declan Donnellan’s The Actor and the Target. How to reveal your talent on stage” and a useful instruction book for those who are just at the beginning of the journey “A Survival Guide for an aspiring actor. From preparing a portfolio to filming a movie” by Jenna Fischer.
Excellent advice for beginners.
Any other advice for those who are just trying to build their career in the film industry?
The basis of our concentration is breathing! If you feel panic before entering the court, breathe. I love “square breathing” for example. Inhale for six counts, then pause for six, exhale for six and again pause for six. The number six here can be replaced by any other convenient number depending on the size of your lungs. Even when it is very difficult emotionally, it helps.
What difficulties do you personally face in your work?
I can’t do everything myself. I’m now in search of an agent who will nurture me and pursue my interests. My last agent was from London, but I realized that he wasn’t passionate about me as an actress, so we parted ways. It’s very important that an agent admires his clients or they’re simply a business shark.
For example, if I was auditioning in China and a director turned to another actress at a casting, then my ideal agent would come up to him, turn his face in my direction and say: “you only need to look here.” To imagine what a professional in this business should look like, I can cite the heroes of my favorite TV series, Entourage, as an example. Manager Eric Murphy and agent Ari Gold are just my ideals. Now I am looking for a specialist of this level.
