Some of the best acting tips include paying attention to details that help the actor’s character appear both realistic and compelling. Even minor changes in voice tone, for example, can make a big difference between good and bad acting. Actors must practice reading scripts in a variety of ways in order to achieve the best results. One of the best acting tips for aspiring actors is to be able to act solely with their eyes.
To be believable and interesting, actors must be able to express their characters’ thoughts and feelings through their eyes. The words and character are likely to seem flat if the facial expression doesn’t match the situation the character is in at any given point in the script. Many actors prefer to use arm or hand gestures to convey emotion and thought rather than using their eyes. Television and film, with their close-up cameras, are, of course, excellent mediums for capturing subtle facial expressions. Because constant closeups of the face are not a common occurrence in stage acting, theater actors must be a little more dramatic in their movement and speech.
Another excellent acting tip is to use pauses between words and lines. The best advice for acting pauses is to use them in the same way that the character would if he or she were a real person. This includes not only the length of the pause between lines of dialogue, but also the actor’s eye and body movements. What would a person with the character’s background and qualities do in that situation, for example, if the character has just admitted to another character that he is the murderer? Would he or she pause and look away, worried, or would the eyes be glaring and defiant, as the script stated, because the character makes the confession in an angry tone?
Understanding the script thoroughly is one of the best acting tips, because when an actor understands the character’s feelings in each scene, his or her body language and voice inflections are more likely to be appropriate for that character. If an actor is unsure of how to deliver a line, the end of each sentence is more likely to rise in inflection like a question, which isn’t considered impressive acting. The more natural an actor can portray his or her character in various situations, the more believable the character and actor become.