Preparation

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers: The Story of Success, suggests that it takes TEN THOUSAND HOURS of practice before any person is at the point which allows them to reach success.

Sir Lawrence Olivier, has said that one should read a piece at least TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY times before it is ready; I learned this information by way of Tom Todoroff.

Sir Anthony Hopkins, in an interview I saw many years ago (I state this as my mind may be faulty here - take the point though it was a very high number), said he often would read a script as much as TWELVE HUNDRED TIMES before he got to set.

I have heard of famous athletes making similar statements in terms of practice.

It seems to me that to be good at anything one needs to put in numerous hours of preparation before one can be successful.  It makes sense to me.  We don't wake up as actors and just know how to successfully spill off believable dialogue for stage and camera.  No we practice, practice and then we practice more.  We go to classes, we read with friends, we do unpaid work to get experience, we monologue to ourselves walking down the street, we repeat dialogue on the subway, we read scripts and we practice.

This past week I had a big audition and I went in prepared.  I went in with my two pieces, both of which have had their runs in practice above the three hundred mark.  Patient friends listening to them, neighbors who must have them memorized while they hear them through my thin walls - I thank them both.

I sat down to do my first piece and I dropped into character, I said my first, my second, my third line and I stumbled.  It was very minor glitch, a second's break in my concentration.  Nerves kicked in, I was messing up, I could loose this chance, never to be had again, how good of an actor am I, what am I doing, oh no what next… all in the blink of an eye in real time.  And then I stepped outside of myself, reminded me of what I can do, calmed myself and carried on. It went over smashingly.

As I left the room and took a moments reflection (a general rule I use, do and forget it cause it is in the past once I am out of the audition room) I realized that in that blink of an eye, I didn't corpse or flail. In the slight rearrange of wording nobody knew any different.  Only I knew there was a glitch.  Why?  Because of so much practice, my "muscle memory" kept me in check while my actor put himself back on track and stayed there.

Practice.