How to Calm Your Nerves While Acting -This Works For Film, TV and Commercial Projects

Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to my Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel. If you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you click the subscription button and click the bell, the little notification button, and that way every time I upload a new video, you'll be notified. So this is probably, uh, the biggest mistake I've made on sets, um, and, and I tell you, it was a tough experience But it was something that I learned from, and I've made changes since then, and I want to share it with you. Now, whenever I am sharing information, whether it's my online private mentoring or in-person or online workshops, I always like to share real-life experiences. And I've been doing this for over 34 years full-time. So there are a lot of experiences. Good. And, you know, learning experiences as well. So this was a number of years ago, and I was booked on a television show. Now, I found out the day before. I was on hold, but, you know, when you're on hold for a project, you know, there could be a number of people on hold. I was holding the date, but I didn't find out until the day before the shoot that I was booked. And now, I had worked on my lines, so I was very comfortable with that, but I had to be able to get from where I live to New York, and it's about 3.5, 4 hours. But they weren't shooting in New York City. They were shooting probably about an hour and a half north of New York City. So what I decided to do was I rented a hotel, got a hotel room for the next day, and I left in the morning And drove, you know, probably, I don't know, 5 hours or so. I wanted, I wanted to land about 30 minutes away from where the set was and went to the hotel room, tried to sleep a little bit because it was an evening shoot. It was an all-night shoot, and then drive up to the set. So that's, that's what I did. And so when I, when I got there, um, you know, number one It's not an ideal situation because, you know, you want to go in feeling rested, feeling comfortable. You know, here I had just driven a very long way. Like I said, it's an evening shoot. Tried to sleep. It was— it wasn't great. So, but I got there and then, you know, I had a trailer, but I don't like hanging out in trailers. It's just me. I much prefer sitting outside. So when I can, I do sit outside. And I was going over my lines outside the trailer, and it was a pretty, pretty long speech. And so when it was time for me to head to the set, the PA got me, got into a van, went up there, and as soon as I walked in, the director said, okay, let's try rehearsal. And like I said, it was a pretty long speech and I'm walking. I have a lot of people following me because I'm talking to people, and I got about 3/4 of the way through and then I kind of got stuck. They also changed, uh, they updated lines, they changed words and things like that. So hey, look, that's just what happens, um, so I expect it, but you know, it doesn't make it easier, uh, when that takes place after I've Worked pretty hard at getting my lines down, and it was a tough evening. You know, it took me a number of takes. And so here's, here's what I learned from that. For every job that I've done after that, every film and TV project I've worked on, I try to get onto the set as early as I can. So I think it was the, the next shoot after that was a feature film, and I was a preacher, and I had a Pretty long sermon in this one scene, and that's what we were shooting that day. So instead of just hanging out by a trailer and sitting around, I said to the director, I would like to be on the set. And I knew they were setting things up. Crew was there. They're, you know, getting, you know, all the lights set up. They're getting the camera set up. I didn't need to be standing, you know, at the podium where I was giving my talk. I just wanted to be in Inside the room, inside the church where the scene is taking place. And what I found was when I was actually in that environment and I'm going over my lines, it just calmed me down. It made me feel more relaxed. I felt like, okay, this is the area, this is where things are happening. It felt right to me. I could, you know, look out, see all the benches and, and It just was a great experience so that when we actually got ready to do our first rehearsal, it was easy. You know, it was like I was already there. I already was in tune with the feel of the room. And, and I, I realize, you know, that's not always going to be the case. You're not always going to be able to do that, but What I would suggest is whenever you can, ask. Ask if you can get onto the set. And once again, you don't have to be standing in the exact spot where the scene is taking place. But if you're doing something in a room, well, you can just be in the corner in the room. And I'm telling you, it's kind of like with baseball or for a lot of sports for that matter. But I'll just use baseball as an example. Quite often when a batter is on deck and they are getting ready to go up and get into the batter's box, a lot of times they're taking practice swings beforehand. Or you watch punters or kickers in football, they're practicing right on the sideline and they're going through the motions, they're doing it, but they're there. And it's not like they're sitting inside the locker room doing— they are actually right there. And I realize it's not a great comparison because, of course, they have to be there. But the point is, as you are closer to being exactly where you're going to be working, it just makes it so much easier. So always ask. And for people like us, we're not stars. We can't, you know, have a lot of demands. That's probably not going to work or be in your best interest. But I always ask, you know, I'll just say, hey, look, just wanted to find out, could I be in the room where the scene's taking place? Can I get onto the set pretty early? And I'll just hang out in the corner, but it would be really helpful to me. And I find that most of the time it's not any kind of issue. You know, people just don't think about it. Normally it's you sit in your trailer and then some, you know, PA will come get you and say, okay, they're ready for you. And then you walk in and— Boom. Boom! It's like you're just hit with all this stuff. So anyhow, I highly recommend get onto the set as quickly as you can, go over lines, relax yourself, just feel the environment. And I think this will be really helpful to you. Hey, and, and do me a favor. If you've ever experienced this, leave a comment below. Let others know how how this experience has been for you, or if you've tried what I'm suggesting, and let other people know. On a little bit of a side note, always feel free to share this information with other people. Look, I'm doing these videos to help other actors and/or models, people in the industry, have more success in the, you know, in In Acting and Modeling. So please, I'm giving you permission. Feel free to share it on your social media pages, email links to, you know, people you might have on an email list, however, you know, you want to spread the word. And that way we can continue to build an Acting and Modeling family of people who are helping each other. And to me, I mean, that's what this is all about. I don't believe in competition. I don't— I truly do not feel that anybody has competitors in this world. We don't. We're not competing with anybody else. Everybody is unique. Everybody brings something unique to the table. So instead of being worried about, well, if I give somebody this information, they might do a better audition and they're going to book the job— well, if that's how you want to do it, I mean, that's fine. I have no ill will towards you if you want to do that. But My thought is let's just help each other. So feel free, share it. Very, very last thing, at the very bottom you can see if you would like to support this channel, there is a donation link, goes straight to PayPal. It just helps me keep this Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel up running. And so if it's something you can do and you would like to do, that would be great. Whatever amount is good for you would be wonderful. So if you'd like to support just use the PayPal link below and make a donation. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.