Film Acting vs Theatre Acting
Experienced actors often say that there’s a difference between acting on film and acting in theatre.
Famously Michael Caine said that while theatre “is an operation with the scalpel”, film is “an operation with the laser”.
But what did he mean? What do actors mean when they say there’s a difference?
In this article we’ll look over how film and theatre are very different for actors and their acting.
Order & duration
A play starts on page 1, goes through each scene in sequence, and finishes on the last page and when it’s performed it might last 2 hours.
A film might take 3 weeks or 3 months (or even longer) to complete and it may well start with Scene 27, then Scene 89, then Scene 2 – in other words it will film completely out of sequence.
For the actor this means you need to keep hold the emotions you used in each scene. For example, your character might be feeling vulnerable in Scene 23 and then three weeks later when you shoot Scene 24 you’ve got to remember that you were feeling vulnerable in the previous scene.
Some actors have gone so far as to keep a chart of their emotions for each scene.
The bottom line: film actors need to understand the emotion of every scene and keep an eye on how their character develops through the story.
Intimacy
Film is, without doubt, far more intimate than theatre.
In theatre your actions must be visible to the short-sighted theatre goer sitting 100 metres away right at the back – hence exaggerated movements and sweeping gestures.
But on film the camera may be so close that the whole screen is filled with just one eye and the slightest movement or flicker can be seen by everyone in the audience.
Likewise with sound. In theatre your words must boom back to the hard-of-hearing theatre goer way back in the darkness.
But when you’re filming, the super-sensitive microphone will be able to pick up the slightest breath you make and echo it around the cinema.
So in effect, film acting is “smaller” and “quieter”. In theatre you might express disgust by throwing your head back and grimacing; in film you could show the same reaction by a momentary twitching of your mouth.
The bottom line: on film act naturally as in real life and above all, keep it small.
Re-takes
In the theatre you don’t get a chance to re-take a scene if you forget your lines or something goes wrong. You just need to keep plodding on.
But in film you get the chance to try different ideas on each take and make subtle changes to see what works.
The bottom line: on film have a few ideas for how to act in each scene and allow yourself to experiment.
Familiarity
Lawrence Olivier would have been met by outrage from the audience had he been performing Hamlet and said, “To be, or not to be – that is what I’m asking.”
This is because many plays are incredibly familiar to the audience. Many will know the script word perfectly.
Of course new plays don’t have this issue and if an actor makes a mistake then no one in the audience will be any the wiser.
But almost no film (except films of plays) have a script written in stone. If Lt Colonel Kilgore had said, “I’ve come to appreciate the smell of napalm in the morning,” nobody would have noticed.
Granted, it’s not as good a line as the original, but the audience wouldn’t have cared.
And of course the same principle applies to the characters. Everyone knows (or think they know) what Hamlet was like but the public had no idea at all what Amelie was going to be like before the film was released so she could be exactly how director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tatou wanted her to be.
The bottom line: in a play stick to the script; on film you have more freedom to experiment and improvise.
Preparation
When you are in a play the chances are that you will begin in a rehearsal room with all the other actors and the director and begin to develop the play together.
As a group you’ll experiment, try different ideas, bounce ideas off each other, and slowly build up the play until it’s ready for performance.
At the same time you’ll probably also be learning your lines.
With a film it’s very different.
Once you have the script you’ll sit alone and learn your lines and mentally try to work out what it will look like and how each scene should be delivered.
When the day finally comes for shooting, you might be meeting the other actors for the very first time 10 minutes before the shoot. And you might get a few moments alone with the director to go over the action… or you might not.
And when you do shoot the scene the director might well tell you to forget the way you did it and try something completely different.
The bottom line: alone you have to study and get to know the film script intimately and prepare different options for performing each scene.
The bottom line
Don’t think that just because you’ve been successful in a play you can be successful on the screen. Or vice versa.
So for those of you moving from one medium to the other, remember this: don’t take anything for granted!
