Many untrained actors can be confused or misinformed about the place of emotion in acting. Most amateurs, or those poorly trained believe that the more emotion you have the more talented you must be. This causes actors to be self-indulgent, with a compulsion to show an audience that they are alive, or strain and squeeze every last drop that is inside of them. The Meisner Technique, and particularly the first year work teaches the actor how to truly come to life in three different ways: through truly listening and taking personally what is being said to you, through truthfully doing, and finally through emotionally preparing off-stage in order to connect to a previous circumstance. This is where Meisner made the biggest departure from the training created by Lee Strasberg, known as The Method. Meisner did not believe that actors needed to use literal past life experiences (sense memory or emotional recall), to manipulate themselves emotionally. He and many actors found it uncreative and unhealthy. The Meisner Technique teaches the actor how to emotionally prepare off-stage through the power of imagination and daydreaming. Harnessing what we already do in life spontaneously to craft is a very powerful part of the Meisner actor’s skill. Throughout the nine months of first year work, an actor becomes keenly aware of the difference between quality vs. quantity when it comes to emotion. The fluidity of emotion is the mark of a well-trained Meisner actor; one who understands that inner life must ebb and flow from moment to moment.

When Meisner was teaching his acting classes in NYC, he understood that his exercise work had no value if it could not be applied to scenes. Most actors, if they train at all, put together a hodge-podge of workshops and scene study classes, which leave many feeling like they still don’t know what they are doing. Crafting is everything for an actor, and in order to consistently create truly vivid, organic, human behavior, it must happen in a simple, specific, and personal way. Any serious actor should know how to craft a previous circumstance, an acting relationship, shared circumstances, objective, and then pin down their actions. Meisner training instills this ability so that it is second nature, and then teaches you how to bring this to text with instincts, spontaneity, and freedom. Bad actors wait for their cues, and “act” at the other people on stage or on camera. There is no real experience taking place. A trained Meisner actor knows how to be fully present, out of their head, connected personally to the issues of the character, with the capacity to respond personally in every moment. A Meisner actor does not adjust to the text, do line readings, or manipulate themselves emotionally to fit a line. They have the skill to subvert the text to their inner life rather than the other way around. Meisner actors do not practice how they say their lines, figuring out the best way to indicate what the character is doing or feeling. They possess one of the most important qualities to any exceptional actor, spontaneity. That is where your uniqueness resides, in your spontaneous response. Ultimately, the ability to break down and interpret a script, with insight into psychology and character issues, and then allow the moments to unfold inevitably yet spontaneously, is the mark of a trained Meisner actor. This is when an actor becomes an artist, capable of illuminating the human condition in all its aspects.