Aaron Marcus shares advice from a director who told him to play a scene as "warm" instead of "sad," a shift that transformed his performance. He explains how that single note improved his reading and offers tips for actors and models working with directors.
Here's another acting and modeling quick tip with me, Aaron Marcus. I was working on a film yesterday and the subject matter was— it was pretty heavy and it was a little sad. And I did one read and the director walked over to me and in just a couple of words, he completely changed the way that I wound up reading. Basically, he said, hey, look, instead of this being sad, I want it to feel warm. He goes, sad is going to kind of depress people. Making it feel warmer will allow people to feel more approachable to you, to your character, and the content of what was being said. And it was amazing. Just with those couple of words of going from sad to warm completely changed how I went about reading it, and it made sense to me as well. And so what I had to do is make a quick shift and really start thinking about how I wanted to share that. Even though it was tough material, I wanted to share this with you. I wanted to share this information with somebody else because it's important. And I wasn't coming from a sad place. So, Whenever you're working with a director, always listen very carefully to what they have to say. Because if it's a TV show, I can tell you that certainly you want to listen to the director, but for a TV show, typically it's going to be the writers and producers who are really in power. But when it comes to a film, it's the director. The director is king or queen, depending on who's directing. But anyhow, it's really, really important to listen to what they have to say, make the adjustments, and it can completely change your read. Hey, I'd love to hear any information from you about what directors might have said to you that helped change your read. So leave some comments below. If you're watching this on YouTube, please give it a thumbs up. If you're watching this on Facebook, like it. Feel free to share this with all of your social media friends. And if you have any questions, you can always reach out to me at either facebook.com/howtomodel or you can go to my website, howtoactandmodel.org. I'm Aaron Marcus and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
