START AGAIN MONDAYS

Do Less Better

When I graduated from drama school

I tried to distill everything I had learned into one single word document

As simple and clear as I could make it

I had a list of approximately 200 “important” points

Two hundred

Which meant anytime I had an audition or job

I felt my duty was to tick every single one of those 200 boxes 

In order to build a good character

So I could feel like a good actor

And get my gold star for the fridge

Now

When I actually got an audition or job

I would block out every day I had available in order to prepare

Buy a case of red bull (I was 21)

Lock myself away in the garage

And apart from bathroom or sleep

Refuse to come out until I felt like I had done everything I needed to do

Can you guess what kept happening?

No surprises here

I would get to the 3rd or 4th day

My adrenaline dump from getting the role would have worn off

And my lack of sleep, rest, nutrition would have caught up to me

Dreams would meet reality

And I would fall over

“Body says no”

But

I would’ve only done about 5 - 10 of my 200 “important” tasks!

What followed was the valley of despair

I would spend the rest of my prep time feeling like a failure

I should be working harder

I should be all out obsessive

I should be doing everything to make this work extraordinary 

I would eventually rock up to set feeling tired and scared

And spend the majority of time thinking about the other 190 things I didn’t do

Thinking about how I should be more prepared than I actually was

Thus 

I stayed in the zone of “not good enough”

Now

When I look back at this time

I see a beautiful intention

I really wanted to give great work

And feel validated in an industry I loved

Pretty normal desires for a hungry young amateur one would think

I just needed a bit of guidance with my approach

An adjustment of the “how”

I had a little think

Got some really great external accountability

And commenced an experiment

I started watching actors

And what I noticed from watching them

Frustrated the living heck out of me

It seemed the better the actor

The less work they did

The actors who wanted to rehearse over and over

Who wanted to ask a hundred questions on set

Who had clearly spent the last week killing themselves with preparation 

Seemed to be a bit poo

And by that I mean they carried an underlying insecurity into their work 

Which came through on the screen

And the actors who rocked up with an Oscar or huge resume of work behind them

Did less

Way less

They had a kind of ease

Or grace

They knew their lines enough

They hit their mark

And they asked a question if it was actually necessary and helpful for the scene to work

And if they made a mistake

They shrugged and did another take without getting flustered or beating themselves up

I thought this wasn’t fair

It looked too easy

I scoffed

“But look at all the work I’m doing”

Hard work equals success right?

Oh? 

No!?

I think I might have been telling myself a story based off my belief systems I acquired growing up

Belief Systems

B.S.

Time for another experiment

What if a did less?

I don’t mean from 200 down to 20

I mean 200 down to 2

Two things

What if I experimented with only allowing myself to do two things in order to prep for an audition or job?

Okay

Obviously I need to learn my lines

Hang on

What about that time I apologised to the director in that call-back for not knowing my lines perfectly

And he replied with 

“Mate, shut up, no-one ever got the role because they knew the bloody lines”

Maybe that’s just my B.S. too!?

Ugh

Alright

Start agin

Clean slate

I know nothing

Now

From this place…

What do I actually need to do?

In order to get where I actually need to get?

So I can give what I actually need to give?

Do. Get. Give.

Since graduating from drama school

The jobs I am proudest of

I have done the least amount of work on

I still read that sentence and think “how does that make sense?”

I’m guessing a huge part of it

Is based around the idea that the key to not caring

Is being very clear and honest about what you do truly care about

So… the key to doing less work

Is being very clear and honest about the work that is actually worth doing

Which allows for work to become far more sustainable

I feel safe and strong in knowing that what I actually need to do is taken care of

Which opens me up to play 

Something else I have noticed…

Giving up on trying to do everything 

And only doing one single thing really well

Builds a muscle

Your body gets to feel what it’s like to experience good work

Even if its just one tiny, minuscule moment

But that experience compounds

And if you can learn to do one tiny thing very well

You can learn to replicate the formula

It will bleed into other areas of your performance

And life 

So

Lets play “would you rather”…

Looking at your acting process

Would you rather do 10 things averagely?

Or do 2 things bloody well?

Quantity vs quality

Amateurs do lots

Pros do less

But the few things they actually do

They. Do. Well.

My point?

Do less

And do it better

Hope this helps

x

Sheasby 

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Something I’m Pondering

A first bad draft + A second iteration = 80% of the work

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x Sheasby 

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