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I Don't Need an Acting Class

Milton Justice

Become a Paid Subscriber: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/actingclass/subscribe Academy Award winner and celebrated acting teacher Milton Justice invites you into his weekly acting class, based on his years of study with the legendary Stella Adler. I Don’t Need an Acting Class delves deep into the craft of acting, breaks down concepts, tools and techniques, explores endless possibilities and offers you a foundation on which to build a solid, dependable process. Produced by Walker Vreeland.

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26 episodes
weekly
Avg 15 min
English

Episodes 26

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Thursday · 16 min
Working With A Partner
What happens when an actor really looks at the person they’re speaking to? This week, I use Edgar Degas’s painting L’Absinthe to help the class build a relationship with a partner. We begin with what we notice about the woman in the painting, then explore how those observations can become a personal attitude toward her—and an impulse to speak. One actor’s response takes us somewhere unexpected. Along the way, we talk about giving ourselves room to explore, letting the partner affect us, and finding the difference between describing a relationship and experiencing one.
September 16 · 16 min
The Play Is Not in the Words
This week’s episode is a little different. Using the opening monologue from Jack Heifner’s A Wide Place in the Road, Milton invites the class into the kind of conversation actors might have at the first rehearsal of a play. Rather than beginning with the character, the dialogue, or how to deliver the monologue, the class begins with a larger question: What is the play about? The discussion moves from a small East Texas town where nothing seems to change to questions of comfort, stagnation, the fear of leaving, and the tragedy of unlived lives. It is an exploration of how actors can look beyond the words on the page to discover the ideas underneath them—and how those ideas begin to give the words meaning.
September 9 · 12 min
The Scene Starts Before You Speak
Recorded while working with an actress in a class in Paris, this episode explores one of the most common problems in acting: actors don’t start acting until they start talking. Beginning with the discovery that a character is impulsive, we explore how to turn analysis into experience—imagining the character’s behavior outside the play, creating specific circumstances, and beginning to live as the character before the first line is spoken. Because the scene doesn’t begin when you start talking. It begins before you speak.
September 1 · 15 min
Don't Talk Away Your Talent
This week, we explore the actor’s preparation: how to get beyond vague ideas and find something specific that actually feeds you; why we need to shop more widely for choices instead of settling for the first thing that works; and what happens when you return to a choice that worked before. We also look at repetition—how to do the work again without trying to recreate the previous result, how preparation can become shorter once you’ve truly built something, and how to recognize when you’ve done enough. Because sometimes actors find exactly what they need—and then, because they don’t trust it, they keep going until they’ve talked away their talent.
August 25 · 18 min
It's Enough
This week's episode is about learning to trust that acting can be built a little at a time – and recognizing when what you've built is already enough.
August 18 · 17 min
More Kick Ass Choices
Picking up where last week’s episode left off, we dig a little deeper into what it actually takes to make a great acting choice. What makes a choice come alive? In this episode, Milton works with actors on cutting through the explanations, descriptions and unnecessary details that can kill a moment. Stop trying so hard to perform. Stop decorating the work, stop explaining it, stop trying to be impressive—and get to the thing that actually brings you to life.
August 11 · 17 min
Kick Ass Choices
What does it mean to make a great acting choice? This week, we challenge the current obsession with being “authentic” and look instead at what Stella Adler demanded: choices that are appropriate to the play, that require the actor to pay a price, and—importantly—that make good theater. From A Doll’s House to NCIS, we explore why actors have to understand the world and form of the material they’re working on, and why even the simplest line can become compelling when the actor brings something specific and personal to it. Because ultimately, acting isn’t about being accurate or safe. It’s about shopping for choices until you find the one that makes you think: Oh, I love that.
August 4 · 18 min
Trust Your Preparation
Actors often do wonderful preparation—and then abandon it the moment they begin speaking. This episode explores how to trust your work, stop explaining the plot, and let your preparation carry you naturally into the life of the scene.
July 29 · 18 min
Slow The F••• Down
Rushing to make choices means we miss great acting opportunities. In this episode Milton works with one of his students who's going into rehearsals for a play soon.
July 21 · 14 min
Simplify Your Choices
There's a tendency to complicate our choices by inventing elaborate plots, when simplifying to something specific will bring us to life. Also being more specific allows you to dig deeper.
July 14 · 11 min
Living Off Your Partner
Building a solid relationship with the partner gives you grounding. Knowing who I'm talking to and what my attitude is towards them opens up what's going on in a scene.
July 12 · 7 min
Talking Out a Preparation
In this video Milton works with Rashaud as he prepares a monologue from The Laramie Project.
July 7 · 12 min
Specificity • a Key
Not just unexperienced facts can deaden our work as actors, the need to explain or report the facts can get in the way of our most creative work. Digging down specifically can help this problem.
June 30 · 16 min
Getting to Depth
It's not just enough to be functional or accurate or good enough. There's a road in to our actor work that helps us find extraordinary choices and frees us up to do our best work.
June 23 · 17 min
Before the First Line
If you think of the play as a continuation of what has already happened, it gives you a sense of how much work you have to do in order to earn the play. Excerpted from my New York class, we continue our work on the Frank Gilroy play, The Subject Was Roses.
June 16 · 16 min
The Human Being Behind the Character
Continuing work on the Frank Gilroy play, The Subject Was Roses, this expert from Milton's in-person class begins to explore the road in to building a character with more depth.
June 12 · 12 min
Working on Text
Working on a play begins to give actors the foundation of working on any text they get. These are excerpts from my Script Analysis class at The Actor Lab in New York.
May 26 · 14 min
The Partner and their Behavior
We're combining two exercises in this class. (1) Seeing someone 'on the street' and being able to make decisions about who they are, based on their behavio and (2) building an attitude towards them.
May 19 · 15 min
Making Active Choices
Making choices that really bring you to life seems to be a constant struggle. Maybe it's because we're relieved that we can come up with any choice, but the choices must be worth it. They can't be passive.
May 13 · 13 min
Living Off Your Partner
Actively building an attitude to your partner can open you up to the action of the scene.

Showing 1–20 of 26 episodes