DISCOVER STILLNESS

Stillness is a powerful ingredient in great acting. Stillness, a lack of action, is visual silence. Stillness and silence work together. They are often more affecting to an audience than actions and words. You may not realize the impact that being still and silent has on your performance. This may be because you are often still only after lines are lost, or after a mistake, not realizing the real effect creative stillness has on those watching.

“Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?” Marcel Marceau

It is during stillness important elements braid themselves together. These important things in acting are the character’s real thoughts, ideas and feelings. In other words: the subtext.

Stillness is a palpable moment; a compelling absence of talk or action that reveals intense unexpressed feelings.

This palpable moment is a pause to process what just occurred, to decide the next action.
A character that pauses to process what happened reveals intention and creates anticipation. Alfred Hitchcock said it’s not the bang that terrifies but the anticipation of it. This anticipation is effectively served up during periods of stillness and silence, which also highlight intention and true feelings about what has happened or is about to happen in the scene. As the proverb goes: still waters run deep.

By the way, you don’t have to think the same thoughts as your character. For example, in a moment of stillness, you could process 10,225 divided by 163, or how to explain the charge on your credit card. As long as it’s something that really affects you, the audience will see a character deliberate what actually happened in the scene. But there must be something internal going on. You can’t just think, “Ok, now I pause… there, all done.”

Too many actors clog up moments in a scene with vocal or physical actions blocking intention and sub-text. Although the meaning of the word acting is to do, doing things, like moving a hand, finger, or foot can distract an audience’s attention from understanding the subtext of a character. Stillness is doing something that draws the audience in.

Another meaning of the word acting is: to stir up, to set in motion. Emotion stirs people when it’s clear what the intention is. A masked emotion becomes clear and affecting during stillness as you stir up your thoughts. Then, this moment forewarns something is about to happen or points out that something has just happened.

Nevertheless, actors fill these moments by moving their hands, fingers, or their head; they shake their foot, or sway from side to side, pace, wiggle a pencil with their fingers or look around. In short, they are trying to be interesting, not interested. And these actors often feel that they are revealing their character’s intention with their actions. Actually, they are blocking this palpable moment.

Stillness without processing, – i.e. stillness without strong intention, emotion, or force behind it, – is empty and ineffective.

If you are not aware of what you physically do during a scene, especially during moments of stillness, you should be. Each physical or vocal habit that you are unaware of prevents your character’s story from touching the audience. And perhaps, prevents you from landing the job.

Some actions are very appropriate and necessary to a character. My question is – do you know the difference between actions that enhance a character from those that detract from a character?  And a follow-up question: do you fully realize the power of real internal processing? You must understand the answer to these questions to be a more effective actor.

Mark Twain said: “That impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words howsoever felicitous could accomplish it.”
 
There are specific times when pausing to process enhances your character and affects your audience. Examples are:
1. Before or after a decision or revelation – Stillness here reveals thought or consideration about the decision or discovery.
2. During confusion – Stillness tells that you are reorienting to the events.
3. Before or after receiving bad or good news – Stillness shows shock or surprise about the discovery.
4. While holding back emotion – Stillness at this time reveals emotion and takes the audience into their own emotions.

The above are some of the moments that connect the audience to the character on a very personal level.

Strong character stories are completed during silence.

Be still and process what you have read.