Did you know that, contrary to popular belief, acting is a skill? Like any skill, that means you can get better at it with practice. However, unlike a lot of other skills out there, practicing acting isn\u2019t as straightforward as just doing it.<\/em><\/p>\n What does just doing it<\/em> even mean when it comes to acting? Is it reading Uta Hagen,\u00a0 rehearsing a monologue, or shouting and rolling around on the floor for three hours? (Yeah, I had to do that a lot in drama school). If you\u2019re getting started as an actor, you might be bewildered about where to start. You also probably don\u2019t have a heap of time on your hands. These days, who does?<\/p>\n In today\u2019s article, I\u2019m going to help you design a daily routine that is short and sharp and you can do just about anywhere; no drama school necessary and only a little bit of rolling around on the floor required.<\/p>\n What does a good actor look like? You have to know what good is to get good. Here\u2019s a great example of good acting given to me by my acting tutor. When we inhabit a character as a beginner actor, it\u2019s like the image on the right.\u00a0You can see the ball starts jumping all over the place but it\u2019s confined to the shape and the size of the box. This represents what Declan Donnellan calls \u201cblocked acting\u201d. We often get in the way of ourselves as beginner actors because we either have an idea about what we think good acting is, or we\u2019re self-conscious, or we don\u2019t know what we\u2019re actually doing when we act.<\/p>\n By practicing regularly, we\u2019re aiming to put more gaps in the box; you can\u2019t get rid of it completely but create enough gaps so that even when you do run into blocks, the ball will eventually find a way out. <\/strong><\/p>\n Pretty abstract, I know, but hopefully that gives you some idea of what we\u2019re working towards. Now, onto the routine.<\/p>\n There are three main components to any good acting routine: voice, body and mind.<\/p>\n The days of the silent film are behind us; long may the voice reign supreme. Since the Ancient Greeks started their freaky festivals of Dionysus, and long before that when we figured out how to make sounds that represent things by the light of a fire in a dark cave, the voice has been essential to our way of storytelling. A good voice isn\u2019t just necessary for voice over or stage, either. How many films have you seen recently where you struggle to make out what the actor is saying? The idea that naturalism is quiet infuriates me. Your voice is one of the most powerful tools you have and you only get one, so we need to take proper care of it and make it the best it can be.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re wondering what goes on behind the doors of just about any drama school, it\u2019s yoga. Or some version of it. One of the most important things beginner actors need to train is awareness of their bodies. Knowing how your body moves and what it\u2019s capable of is essential to uninhibited performance. More technically speaking, a healthy body is flexible and strong, which gives you greater range with characters. Take Puck from a Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream \u2013 imagine if he had a bad back? An interesting choice, maybe, but not as exciting to watch as the spry, smart-ass pixie that he is.<\/p>\n Remember the ball in the box? Your mind isn\u2019t just where you do all your thinking, it\u2019s your wellspring of imagination and emotion, energy and intention. It\u2019s where all the nuance that makes you human comes from. And much like the body and the voice, your mind is a muscle that can be trained.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve broken up our routine into the three components above for the sake of simplicity but it\u2019s very important to remember that by practicing we\u2019re trying to get all three working together. They are not and should not be treated as separate entities. While it might seem like we\u2019re training them independently of one another, they all influence one another: without good awareness of your body, you can\u2019t achieve a free voice and without a free voice you can\u2019t achieve an engaged mind. Remember this and remind yourself of it throughout your entire acting journey.<\/p>\n Alright, let\u2019s get down to brass tacks. Make sure you\u2019ve got some space to move around and ideally a bit of privacy; acting practice is weird to watch and hard to explain.<\/p>\n Trace down from your temples to where your jawbone meets your skull. Take the hard edge of both hands and press them into that spot either side and make little circles for about a minute. This will probably hurt a fair bit when you get started so go very slowly and gently. Start tapping your face with your fingers. Spend some time on your forehead, your cheeks, your neck, your chest and the sides of your torso. Do this for about a minute then give the same spots a good rub. Add in a gentle hum while you\u2019re at it, too.<\/p>\n Why are we doing this?<\/strong><\/p>\n Your voice resonates in your bones when you speak. By giving all those bony spots a good tapping and a good rubbing, you\u2019re more likely to engage them when you\u2019re speaking. By bringing awareness to our chest and our sides, we\u2019re also encouraging our lungs to expand into them more freely.<\/p>\n Have a yawn. A big, full-body yawn and let out all of the sound you can manage. Feel all of that space in the back of your mouth? Try and keep that there for the rest of this step. Now for some sirens. Start with a very soft hum, moving up in pitch until you\u2019re as high as you can go, then down again to the lowest note you can manage.<\/p>\n Sidenote:<\/strong> Don\u2019t push anything here, if you\u2019re straining or your throat feels scratchy, you\u2019re going too far.<\/p>\n Open up from a hum into an \u201cahh\u201d sound, then some \u201coohs\u201d and finally some \u201cees\u201d. Why are we doing this?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Gentle, occluded sounds (like humming and lip trilling) are amazing for your voice. It\u2019s very hard to damage your voice when making these sounds and they give your vocal folds a nice massage. Check out my article about maintaining good vocal health<\/a> for some more specific tips on keeping your voice in good nick.<\/p>\n Cheat code: I use an app called WarmMeUp which is available on the app store for about $9.99. It creates a new vocal warmup for you every day and takes the mental effort out of planning a warmup.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is a very simple exercise that doubles as a standing meditation. Stand up, plant your feet about a hip width apart, let your arms hang by your sides and close your eyes. Start to notice the way your weight is distributed, how you\u2019re balanced, how you\u2019re breathing, if you\u2019re tensing any muscles. Don\u2019t change any of it, just notice it. This is the body you\u2019re working with today. It\u2019s different from yesterday and it will be different tomorrow. However it feels today is perfect.<\/p>\n Why are we doing this?<\/strong><\/p>\n I recently wrote an article about feeling self-conscious<\/a> when we act. It\u2019s one of the top killers of good performance and it often starts with the body. A bit of tension in your left hand can grow into over-awareness and uncertainty very quickly when you\u2019re performing. You might start thinking things like \u201cWhy is my left hand so tense? I should relax it. Okay it\u2019s relaxed but now I\u2019m furrowing my brow, relax. Oh man, why is it so hard to relax? Can they tell I\u2019m not relaxed? JUST ACT RELAXED!\u201d By learning to meet our bodies where they are on any given day, at any given moment, we can start to treat anomalies, like tension, with curiosity rather than judgement.<\/p>\n If this is your first spinal roll, how I envy you. Stay standing, blink your eyes open and start to roll your chin to your chest then try to curl over one vertebrate at a time. Let your arms dangle and stop once you\u2019re hinging at the hip. Breathe here for a moment and notice how this shape changes your breath. Then, roll back up, one vertebrate at a time. Repeat a couple of times.<\/p>\n Why are we doing this?<\/strong><\/p>\n We often neglect a whopping 50% of our bodies: our backs. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose. A fully engaged performance requires your full body. Take, for example, your lungs. Your lungs are three-dimensional and expand into your back. Imagine what happens to your voice and your mind if you\u2019re only breathing at half-capacity.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s turn it up to eleven. This section is open to whatever you want but it has to be something high energy. You could dance, do some shadowboxing, push ups, go for a run; anything that will get the blood pumping.<\/p>\n Why are we doing this?<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s a little something called \u201cvia negativa\u201d. It\u2019s a pretty dense philosophical approach to life but in the context of acting, it\u2019s about making the work easy for ourselves by tiring out the part of our brain that says \u201cthat was bad\u201d. When we\u2019re out of breath, sweating and getting all the good feelings from exercise, we don\u2019t think as much about \u201cgiving a good performance\u201d, whatever that means, and focus more on the present moment.<\/p>\n Before you start this daily routine, pick a monologue, any monologue. Actually, pick two and make sure they\u2019re quite different e.g Puck from a Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream and Biff from A Death of a Salesman. Make sure you\u2019ve read both plays, do that in your own time, too. You want to have two new monologues to work on each month. This way you\u2019ve got some text to dig into and you\u2019ll have a couple of audition monologues up your sleeve for when you need them.<\/p>\n Launch into one of your monologues. Don\u2019t think about it, just go for it; if you still need the script in front of you, that\u2019s fine, just don\u2019t stop and don\u2019t overthink it. Now grab a pen and paper, start a timer for 1 minute and write down anything that came up that you found surprising or interesting. It doesn\u2019t have to make sense, and in fact you might not even remember most of what happened, just see what you do remember by writing it down.<\/p>\n Lie on your back and close your eyes. Now speak your monologue, slowly and deliberately and try to resist the urge to perform. Go line by line and stop to speak out any images or thoughts that pop up as you. Here\u2019s a transcript of when I did this exercise using the most famous and most overdone monologue<\/a> in theatre history:<\/p>\n \u201cTo be or not to be. To be\u2026 to be\u2026 what is it \u2018to be\u2019? What is it like to be alive? Is it just electricity and sensation? Blood and guts? Thoughts? What are thoughts and feelings anyway, are they also just electricity? Or\u2026 well, what\u2019s the alternative? Not\u2026 to be? For all of that to go away, to vanish just like that, into thin air. Whoa, that\u2019s scary. Is it? Maybe it\u2019s peaceful? How can we know for sure?\u201d Get the idea?<\/p>\n Why are we doing this?<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019d be surprised at how good your first instinct with characters is, but you need to train it. \u201cDropping in\u201d is a way of teaching yourself to identify what\u2019s coming up for you in the moment and the reason I like it so much is because it gets you away from ideas of the \u201cright way\u201d to do a monologue. The more you do this, the more layers you\u2019ll add to your performance without even noticing.<\/p>\n The next time you run your Mind Practice (the next day) switch to your other monologue.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve probably heard the old adage about it taking 10,000 hours to master a skill. Unfortunately, it\u2019s very difficult to find 10,000 hours to put towards acting; you have to squeeze practice in between your job, your social life, your love life and everything that comes with being a person in the modern world. Fortunately, acting doesn\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t be what you live and breathe; in my opinion. When you\u2019re starting out, focus on training your awareness and your instinct and always remember that acting isn\u2019t that serious; the more fun you have doing it, the better you\u2019ll be.<\/p>\n Hope this helps. See you around the traps!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nHow to Become a \u2018Good Actor\u2019<\/h2>\n
If you\u2019re a beginner actor, imagine yourself as a box, like the image on the left.\u00a0The box is your capacity to inhabit a character. The ball in the middle is your potential; where that character springs from. It\u2019s your energy, your imagination, your emotional world and your spiritual world.<\/p>\n![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.stagemilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/How-to-Be-a-Good-Actor-1024x488.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.stagemilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/How-to-Become-a-Good-Actor-1024x488.jpg\")
Now, as we start to practice and get good, we start to look more like the left. Then, what happens when we inhabit a character is like the image on the right: the ball can escape! This represents moments where the best acting comes from: uninhibited curiosity and playfulness. That\u2019s ultimately what any good actor is trying to achieve.<\/p>\nHow to Structure a Daily Acting Routine<\/h2>\n
Daily Vocal Routine for Actors<\/h3>\n
Daily Movement Routine for Actors<\/h3>\n
Daily Mindfulness Routine for Actors<\/h3>\n
Integrating Voice, Body, and Mind<\/h3>\n
Step-by-Step Daily Routine for Actors<\/h2>\n
Voice Practice (10 minutes)<\/h2>\n
Step One: Muscle Release (3 minutes)<\/h3>\n
Next, run your hands down your face, giving yourself a big pat and think about releasing your jaw. Be gentle and don\u2019t force anything, you\u2019re just giving your jaw a bit of loving encouragement to let go of any tension. Do that a handful of times.
Now onto the tongue. Keeping your mouth closed, make big circles with your tongue, trying to stretch it into every little nook and cranny of your mouth. Make 10 circles in one direction, then 10 back the other way, then 6, then 2, then 1. As soon as your finished, open your mouth, press the tip of your tongue into your bottom teeth, push it forwards and look up. You should feel the stretch somewhere in the back of your tongue.
While we\u2019re with the back of our tongue, release the stretch and work your thumbs into the underside of your jaw, about where you think the back of your tongue is. Keep reminding your tongue to release; it sounds bizarre but by thinking \u201crelease the tongue\u201d you\u2019ll subconsciously make tiny adjustments that loosen up any tension.
Why are we doing this?
We hold a lot of tension in our jaws and tongues, often without even realising it. When we\u2019re young, we imitate the way our family and friends speak and unless you\u2019re exclusively hanging out with speech pathologists or professional actors, you\u2019ll pick up some unhelpful tension. Doing a muscle release like this every day opens up our voices and allows sound to move more freely.<\/p>\nStep Two: Wake Up the Resonators (2 minutes)<\/h3>\n
Step Three: Now for some Sound (5 minutes)<\/h3>\n
Now for some lip trills. Press your lips together and blow some raspberries, moving up and down your vocal range as before. If you struggle with this, try pushing your cheeks together with your fingers.<\/p>\n\n
Body Practice (5 minutes)<\/h2>\n
Step One: Full Body Scan (1 minute)<\/h3>\n
Step Two: Spinal Roll (1 minute)<\/h3>\n
Step Three: Energise (3 minutes)<\/h3>\n
Mind Practice (15 minutes)<\/h2>\n
Preparation<\/h3>\n
Step One: Just Do It (2-4 minutes)<\/h3>\n
Why are we doing this?
It\u2019s amazing how quickly we can get stuck in a very specific way of doing things. If I had a dollar for the amount of times I\u2019ve read a monologue once and got stuck doing it the same way forever, I\u2019d be living in luxury in the Bahamas. By coming at your pieces straight after energising, you\u2019re giving yourself the best shot at performing authentically. If you\u2019re feeling sad, do it sad. If you\u2019re feeling glad, do it glad. If you\u2019re feeling mad, do it mad. This creates fertile ground for discovery.<\/p>\nStep Two: Write it Down (1 minutes)<\/h3>\n
Step Three: Dropping In (5 minutes)<\/h3>\n
Wrapping Up<\/h2>\n