Do you have any experience in acting?

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I was wondering if any of you guys here have acted in school or in college at any point. If so you can share your stories here.

I myself played Decius Brutus in the second act of Julius Caeser at high school. Basically it was a part of our high school English project and Julius Caesar by Shakespeare was the play that was a part of our course. Our class consisting of 50 guys were divided into 5 groups. Each group had to put up one act of the play and the acts were decided on by a lottery.

As I have rotten luck whenever such things are concerned, I drew Act #2. Now Act #2 and Act #4 are possibly two of the most boring acts in the play. The best acts are #3 and #5 as Caesar gets killed in Act #3 and Mark Anthony and Octavious Caesar go on war against Brutus and Cassius in Act #5. So basically there is a lot of room to improvise in those acts. Act #2 is the act where the conspiracy to murder Caesar is planned, and it really requires a lot of stellar acting, which is really a hard job for first timers. Also I studied in a boys school and the act featured both the wives of Brutus as well as Caesar, namely Portia and Calphurnia. It's really a tough job to get teenaged boys to play the roles of a woman, as I found out the hard way.

In the end I'd say we gave a solid if a rather unspectacular performance, though my teacher was kind enough to say that she liked the scene where I goaded Caesar to come to the Capitol inspite of being forewarned by his wife. Act #5 was the showstealer though, but it was not without it's blemishes. In a scene Octavious Caesar had to draw a sword on Brutus and Cassius, the dude's sword got stuck in the sheath and he yelled out "FUCK" much to our amusement.

I think that it was a good experience and I did get to learn about an art which I had not appreciated much previously. For example I learned that when you are on stage you have to express more with your body than with your face and other such intricacies of the art.

Please do recount about your own acting experiences in this thread!

 

[Dagger Dias]

I took theater for three years in high school. For the most part I enjoyed it. We did The Cherry Orchard, Our Town, Charlie Brown's Christmas, a few random short one acts, and even an original script we wrote together as a class about a gas station being robbed. Improvs were fun. It was an enjoyable experience, although I'd never go into acting as a career because it was at times very frustrating and stressful. Goofing off backstage at performances more than made up for that, but I knew that acting was not something I'd want to do in college or as a job.

 

[Deexter Jorgan]

acted for six yeas, had spots in a few television shows...

decided to go to uni and work on my ability because the jobs i got were mostly on look, I honed my craft and acted in a few plays that drew a big crowd.

now gonna start my MA in september then get an agent.

a few notable roles:

A Long time gone, played the lead and co wrote the script.

The Blue room, played the character the aristocrat

Three Birds Alighting on a field played the character Georgios andreas

Mostly played killers, rapists and terrorists in my six year career.

still pursuing my carrer agressivly and will keep working its a huge part of my life.

my life was going nowhere before i started acting, i would never had thought about university or even my MA before i started acting, i have a new appreciation for the art and anyone that has worked within it.

 

[BreenBluh]

I stumbled into it in college and have done some local theater, improv and sketch. Trying to expand it a little bit by doing student films and the like, hoping to build a reel that can land me an agent.

 

[muzz-rocks]

Yeah, acting is one if my jobs. My main passion in life is stand up comedy. I have been doing it for about 10 years and professionally for nearly 2 years. Stand up is a lot like acting, but only it's usually a 20 minute monologue. I used to be a part of a sketch group, my favorite character being a pro wrestling commentator. I have to agree with a post above me that said acting is frustrating, but it is also pretty lonely. At the moment I'm back in a shit hotel in newcastle after my gig tonight for a bunch of students.

I've only had 3 tv slots, 2 of them for Taggart (any Americans, imagine CSI Glasgow) as a drug dealer/snitch and the other is on FHMs stand up hero 2010.

 

[The Bearded One]

I was in my high school drama club and it was some of the most fun I ever had in school. We always played improv games during class and the teacher didn't care what we did or said so it was a blast. Some of the funniest stuff I saw in school happened in there. We were going to do "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" for our school play and I was going to get to play Ventura. I was excited, but the teacher got told she was being fired at the end of the year, so she stopped caring and we never did it.

I really want to try out improv and stand-up comedy again. I was pretty good at improv and there is a local group here that I want to sign up for. You have to take the class before you get to try out, which is fine since it will help me out more.

As for stand-up, it's been something I've wanted to do for as long as I remember. I remember being like five or six and telling my teacher I want to be a stand-up comedian, and she thought that was the worst idea ever. The only problem is that I terrified to get up there. I have some material that I've come up with, maybe 10-15 minutes worth, that I think is pretty funny, but I'm just way too scared to actually find out if it is or not.

 

[The Rob]

Finally, a thread based upon the industry I love.

I've been acting/performing since the age of 8. It's something that comes very naturally to me. I started out by doing school plays and pantomimes and quickly grew and became accustom to many of the basic acting skills, such as facial expressions. When I was 10, I joined a group called NADMCS and began working with their junior section NEWTS, a group I would be apart of for 6 years, doing three proper shows (Bugsy Malone, Honk and The Wizard of Oz) and half a dozen Christmas performances, getting myself two nice little a roles and one lead. I picked up the award for 'NEWT of the year' in 2006. When I turned 16, I did one show with the adult company but left due to the unpleasant nature of many of the older members.

Surprising I did very little in terms of performances in secondary school. That is something I regret looking back because they did a number of good shows (Oliver, Toad of Toad Hall being just a couple) but at the time I was more interested in playing Basketball. Plus I was doing shows with NEWTS so I had my fill there. At this time acting wasn't something I considered to be a career option.

I got a B in GCSE Drama and moved on to do a BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts and did many fun and interesting performances with them, including a performance of Oh What A Lovely War and The Permanent Way and walked away from the 2 year course with a distinction and two merits. I'm currently coming to the end of my first year of a Foundation Degree in Performance Production with the University of Plymouth Colleges and only last night was our major performance for Year 1. Half Macbeth, have original devised scenes that were based on themes guilt and consequence. I play Macbeth which was absolutely awesome. And back in April I had a lead in a show called Our House which was great fun. I'm now involved in a production of Oliver which takes play this September, which should be brilliant as well, gaining the part of Noal Claypole (not bad, considering the audition was against many very talented actors, aged from 18 to 60).

Acting is a major part of my life, something I know I'm very good at.

 

[TheKingHustla]

I happened to get into Drama my senior year of high school, and I did great. I carried every group I was in every time we did a scene. We reinacted scenes from "Paid In Full", "The Temptations", "The Piano Lesson" among others. I was one of only 2 first years who was in the annual school drama show and our scene was good enough to warrent a showing at Florida State University. The drama teacher wanted desperatly to get me into a college to further pursue this field but since I was only in it for 1 year, I couldn't get a scholarship for it and I didn't have the money to pay for it so I missed that train. It could have been my ticket out of the ghetto, but much like basketball (which I'm also a star of) and rapping (which I suck at), the aspect of doing good in school wrecked those dreams. My drama teacher was in movies and plays and he saw potential in me, I was just not serious enough about school work outside of P.E. and drama to get a college scholarship. Just another thing I look back at my life and wish I would have taken more seriously. But hey, that's life.

My only problem was that the stage lights were so damn hot! I have the voice, and the bravery to do it, but that light was always bothering me. I loved being in it, but it was hot. I enjoyed being David Ruffin the most. I got to act out my favorite scene, because "Ain't nobody coming to see you, Otis!"

 

[Karilas]

He, I've done a bit of am-dram, just some operata with my local Gilbert and Sullivan society. It's a good laugh and I do reight enjoy the singing. Somewhat less enthused by my delivery of dialogue, mind. Although recently we did Trial By Jury and I did really get into the role of court usher, but then again Trial has no dialogue. Ah well.

 

[nikvoodoo]

I used to be an actor, but I decided I wanted to get paid for a living so I moved into technical theater instead. Didn't feel like making a career out of being a waiter like all my other acting friends have done.

When I was acting, I was trained by some very fantastic Broadway caliber teachers. My high school drama program was headed by a woman who taught me more than my college acting professors taught me. I was selected to an elite summer school that was run by New York State which auditioned 4,000 applicants and selected 32 to train under working theater professionals.

It started to go downhill when I went to college. I wasn't being challenged anymore and I sort of gave up on acting to pursue technical theater which I enjoy more than I ever did acting. I've been living and working in NYC for the past 4 years now. Living the dream!

 

[Good Golly It's Ollie]

Yes, Myriad! Nice thread!

I am finishing up doing an acting course at Uni, and it was epic. Really enjoyed it and hopefully I will be able to do it for a living.

My main areas of specialisation are voice acting and classical stuff, my voice is one of my strongest aspects and I really put a lot of work into the text, especially with something like Shakespeare. Your delivery has to be spot on so the audience understands what you're talking about, because of all the bizarre language. Although outside of this I can work about anything, I don't really like absurdism that much, especially when it doesn't have a point to it.

I was wondering what you guys who are about to go or all ready have gone professional, what your thoughts about all the background stuff. Agencies, headshots, audition experiences? Any particularly good/bad ones?

My headshots are pretty shit atm, I need to get new ones done badly if I'm gonna try and get on Spotlight or something, but chances are a lot of work I go for will be in radio, both plays and commercials. That or voice acting/voice overs.

My dream voiceover project would be to voice the protagonist/main villain in a video game, and I'd also like to go in the RSC. I'd love to be in Titus Andronicus, that is a sick play.