On Saturday, I took a ballet class at Visceral Dance. NickPupillo, the owner of the studio, is an amazing teacher. Throughout the class,he said many useful things to improve our dancing but I realized his commentswere very applicable to acting as well. He said that, when he dances, hefocuses on clean moves and details, rather than being perfect. And when he does, perfection follows.

Brooke and I have been putting many actors on tape for anumber of projects over the past few weeks. When we compare the auditions, thesimple yet detailed performances are the strongest. That may sound like acontradiction. Let me clarify. The simple performances are easy tounderstand.  There is a clearintent in the scene and when we watch it, even if we don’t know any backgroundinformation, it is easy to understand what is going on. This is not always thecase when we put people on tape.

The details come in developing the character. A real point of differentiation amongactors is detail, which makes a character more believable, complex andinteresting to watch.

For your next audition, rather than thinking about beingperfect, think simple and detailed. The perfection will naturally follow.