Five acting exercises to make you a better performer

Whether you dream of being in films or on stage, or you’re already a working actor, acting exercises have the potential to improve your skills. They’re a great way to practise elements you’re less familiar with and can make you feel more connected to characters.

Wherever you are in your acting journey, we’ve put together some of our favourite acting exercises to help you hone your craft.

What are acting exercises and why should you do them?

There are a whole host of acting exercises out there, but whether they’re focused on character work, developing your voice, or becoming more confident, they’re all designed to enhance your skills and deepen your understanding of your character. Dramatic exercises are an essential part of any actor’s training, helping you to take your acting beyond just memorising lines by developing the versatility and authenticity that are essential for delivering a compelling performance.

An actor rarely delivers an outstanding performance right off the bat. Although your favourite film and stage performances might seem effortless, there are hours of work and preparation that’s gone into what you see as an audience member.

Acting exercises are the perfect training ground, giving budding and experienced actors alike the space to experiment, refine their acting techniques, and break out of their comfort zones. If you’re nervous, then acting exercises can help you to build up more confidence and overcome stage fright, as well as helping you to dive deeper into a range of different characters through crucial skills like voice control, expression and improvisation.

How do I improve my acting skills?

As with most things, practice makes perfect. If you want to run a marathon, you need to run regularly. If you want to write a novel, you need to dedicate time to practise creative writing. And so, if you want to become a better actor, you must spend time honing your skills. And, of course, one of the best ways to do this is with acting activities.

Acting warm-ups

Before you start any physical acting exercise, it’s a good idea to do a warm-up to prepare both your body and mind. Some common acting warm-ups you can do include:

• Physical stretches to warm up and loosen your muscles
• Breathing exercises to improve your breath control
• Vocal warm-ups, like tongue twisters and scales

It might be tempting to dive straight into acting exercises, but taking some time to warm up can help you to prepare both physically and mentally, helping you to get in the zone – particularly useful if you’re going to spend time getting creative, getting into characters, or doing improvisation work.

Dramatic exercises to try

Here are some ideas to help you refine your existing skills and explore new avenues in your acting career.

1. Emotion walks

Emotion walks are a dynamic acting exercise that can help to deepen an actor’s emotional connection with their character. During an emotion walk, performers physically embody different emotions, which gives you an insight into the feelings and body language associated with each one, from anger to joy and everything in between.

Choose an emotion – you can either just pick the first one that comes to mind or fill a jar with slips of paper that each have an emotion written on them, then choose a piece of paper at random.

Go for a walk, around your house or outside, taking deliberate steps while fully engaging with your chosen emotion. Let it take you wherever it takes you, leaning into the emotion to see how it manifests in your posture, movements, gait and facial expressions. Doing this can be a powerful way to help build your ability to convey genuine feelings through your acting.

2. Physical objects

Have you ever thought about how the physical objects in your space affect your acting? As Brian Cox explains in his BBC Maestro course, Acting:

“Physical objects help to define character and relationships, both interpersonal and spatial.”

If you can find some fellow actors, rehearse a scene that involves some pieces of furniture. Try moving the furniture around, putting it in different locations. Ask yourself these questions:

• What happens if you move that piece of furniture around the stage?
• What effect does it have on your power to communicate?
• How does it affect your character?
• Which is the best placement and why?
• Do you feel, as I did, that there is a ‘wrong’ and a ‘right’ place?

Acting isn’t just about the lines you’re reading – it’s also about the way you interact with the different characters and objects you’re sharing a stage or screen with. This exercise gets you to think more carefully about the physical objects around you and can help you to see them as part of the performance, rather than simply set decorations.

3. Find the truth in your characters

Have you heard of Konstantin Stanislavski? He was a leading director and actor from Russia, and many actors use his ‘Stanislavski Method’ during their training – including Brian Cox.

As he explains in his BBC Maestro course, “Stanislavski tried to create a style of acting that worked for twentieth-century realist drama, rather than the more historic style of the nineteenth century, and the key to that was finding the truth in characters.”

One of his methods is the seven questions, which reveal the main motivational force for an actor. They’re a great tool to help you get to know your characters better, whether you’re preparing for an audition, have landed a part, or are developing your own characters.

The questions are:

1. Who am I?

2. Where am I?

3. What time is it?

4. What do I want?

5. Why do I want it?

6. How do I get what I want?

7. What must I overcome to get what I want?

As Brian says, “You can’t go wrong once you’ve asked those questions. That’s the basic motivation of any script.”

You can still use this exercise even if you’re not rehearsing for a part. Simply think of a character, answer these questions about them – and then improvise a scene.

4. Tone and expression

As an actor, it’s not just about the words you say, but the way you say them too. This is a really easy exercise you can do anywhere, at any time.

Choose a sentence to say out loud. Then say it again, emphasising different words to change the meaning and expression. Can you say something in an angry tone? Emphasise one of the words to show that you’re happy? How can you show sadness through your tone?

Repeat as many times as you like, paying attention to how you convey emotions through your voice, and how it changes the impact of what you’re saying.

5. Learn how to play a monster

In your career as an actor, it’s likely that you’ll have to play a wide variety of different characters – and for many actors, playing people they don’t understand can be the most challenging aspect of acting. How can you play someone evil? Brian Cox thinks that researching monsters can help you to understand them better – and if you learn how to play a monster, you can play any character.

He says:

“I did research for the film Manhunter, when I played the psychiatrist turned cannibalistic serial killer, Dr Hannibal Lecktor. I was thinking why is this man doing this? Curiosity about human nature led me to look at interviews with the serial killer Ted Bundy, who was so smart, so bright. He could have been a politician, but he had this fatal flaw. He murdered these young women. And I thought to myself, what really makes him want to do that? I came to the notion that he was obsessed by his own cleverness… Being smart is a kind of mask for his brutality, and ultimately that’s what defeats him, because his personality is so wedded into this cleverness that he’s got nothing else.”

He goes on to say that actors are transmitters. It’s not about you as an actor, but about the character you’re playing. So, you need to get under the skin of your character, to be able to bring nuance and depth to the role.

The exercise, then, is to choose a monstrous character, and understand them better. Find out what makes them human, and then act out a scene that shows their human side.

What acting exercises can I do alone?

Don’t worry if you don’t have any acting troupe to do exercises with. There are plenty of solo exercises to improve your skills, including almost all of the exercises listed above. The only one in this list that requires acting partners is the ‘physical objects’ exercise.

You can also try these exercises when you’re on your own:

• Stand in front of a mirror and practise facial expressions and body language, conveying different emotions through your face and gestures
• Monologue practice: Choose a monologue from a film or play, memorise the lines and then focus on delivering them with different emotions and intentions
• Rapidly switch between contrasting emotions – from joy to sadness, for example – to improve your range and flexibility

Improve your acting skills

These acting exercises and warm-ups are sure to help you deepen your skills. If you want to find out more tips and tricks to improve your acting technique, sign up for Brian Cox’s Acting course.

From impressing at auditions and drawing out the subtext in scripts through to navigating a film set and developing a truthful character; Brian will walk you through it all, scene by scene.