Great acting looks effortless, but it takes hard work. The best actors make a scene feel real by fully stepping into a character’s life with honesty and skill. If you have ever watched a powerful performance and thought, “How do they do that?” you are not alone.
How to learn to act is a question many ask, and the answer is simple: training, practice, and a deep understanding of, and curiosity for human behavior.
Some start by reading scripts and studying real people, while others jump into acting classes to train with fellow actors. Both can help, but acting is not something you learn alone.
It requires listening, physical awareness, and the ability to respond in the moment. Without structured training, performances can feel forced, indicated, and unconvincing.
This guide breaks down what it takes to become a good actor, from strengthening your voice and body language to accessing emotional depth. If you are a beginner actor or looking to sharpen your craft, these steps will help you approach the art of creating behavior with confidence and consistency.
Key Takeaways
Great acting comes from training, discipline, and a deep commitment to truth and artistry.
Real growth happens when you step out of your comfort zone, embrace failure, and train with the best master teachers of the art form.
If you are serious about acting, invest in structured classes that challenge and refine your craft.
1. Learn How to Listen
Great acting is built upon an actor’s ability to listen. Most actors don’t, they wait for their cues in order to do the line reading they’ve practiced out loud a dozen times. This is the hack actor’s approach to creating behavior.
Acting takes place from unanticipated moment to unanticipated moment, and the ability to listen with empathy, to respond personally, to be malleable to how you are being treated in every moment is a fundamental necessity.
Acting is experiential, and if you want to move an audience, the actor must be working from a deeply personal and vulnerable place. You want to be played upon and changed from moment to moment. I believe the best way to instill this skill in an actor is with the Meisner Technique. Meisner’s entire approach to acting begins with listening. It’s the bedrock of acting.
Watch real people, listen and watch how they behave. If you want to be an actor, you need to be fascinated with human behavior and psychopathology.
Pay attention to conversations in coffee shops, subways, and busy streets. Observe how people react to bad news or surprises. Notice changes in posture, listening habits, and facial expressions. A real person is unpredictable, and that unpredictability in acting makes characters feel alive.
Keep a behavior journal. Writing down observations sharpens instincts. Fill a notebook with notes on gestures, expressions, and unique behaviors. If someone has a nervous habit or an unusual laugh, write it down.
As an artist, you are always searching for ideas and inspiration. Listen to great actors talk about their process, their fears, and their struggles. You can learn a great deal from listening to respected artists discuss craft and technique.
Listen before you speak. Acting is not just saying your lines. The best actors know that listening is the most important thing. Remember, acting is continual. You are continually listening and responding in every moment, whether you have lines or not. Do not wait for your cues. That is completely hackish.
When rehearsing a scene with other actors, focus on what is being said and how it is being said, instead of planning how to say your next line. Respond personally and spontaneously to what is being said to you. This keeps performances alive with an improvisational sensibility.
Acting is not about delivering lines—it is about responding with truth in every moment.
2. Build Emotional Depth
A great performance feels real because the actors are living through something in an experiential way. Most actors have big misconceptions when it comes to emotion. Only actors want to feel, and they want to make sure you know it, and that everyone can see it. Bad actors push emotion, try to squeeze it out or keep it going. That is not how human beings behave.
You want to be emotionally fluid. Emotion ebbs and flows, like water being poured between two glasses. Never concern yourself with the quantity of your emotion; concern yourself with the quality.
Developing acting skills means strengthening emotional accessibility and depth. I believe the Meisner Technique is the greatest way to develop an emotionally fluid, vulnerable actor. If you want to play rich, complicated parts, you will need to access the full range of human emotions. It means tapping into the parts of yourself that spend most of your life suppressing.
Craft simply, specifically, and personally. Real emotion in acting comes from a genuine connection to the characters, their circumstances, their relationships, and the important issues brought to the surface in the script. Learning how to answer these questions in a simple, specific, and deeply personal way will lay the groundwork for an emotionally rich performance.
Instead of trying to "feel" something, focus on listening, responding, and doing truthfully under the imaginary circumstances. Let your reactions be shaped by the character’s given circumstances and the behavior of other actors. The more present you are, the more truthful your work will be.
Embrace vulnerability. The best actors do not hold back. Fear of looking foolish or being judged creates guarded, self-conscious performances. Let go of control and commit fully to the emotional stakes of a scene. They will never hire someone who is cautious and afraid of making choices and creating behavior.
Develop your craft. Work to chisel away the parenting, the socialization, and the education that has kept you guarded, protective, defensive, and closed off. This is hard work, and the Meisner Technique was designed to accomplish this. You want to return to the curiosity, the wonder, the playfulness, and the freedom of your inner child.
Trust the moment. Pushing for an emotional result makes a performance appear indicated and untruthful. Instead of trying to “act” sad, angry, or excited, leave yourself alone, put your attention on the other person, and go from unanticipated moment to unanticipated moment.
The best work happens when you stop “showing” emotion and start doing truthfully under imaginary circumstances.
3. Train Your Instrument
The best artists master their instrument. For the actor, that means developing your imagination, your temperament, your voice, and your body. At its best, acting is transformational, and you want the flexibility and dexterity to step into as many shoes as possible.
Bad actors bring all of their work down to their pedestrian, everyday, boring behavior. Every character has a unique way of moving, speaking, and reacting to the world around them.
To perform with truth, an actor must develop control over their voice, body language, and physical presence. A strong foundation in these areas makes performances more dynamic, expressive, and believable.
Develop a daily warm-up routine. Physical tension blocks emotional truth. Before rehearsing, take time to stretch, breathe, and loosen up. A released body allows for greater freedom in movement and expression.
Simple exercises like deep breathing, shaking out tension, and stretching your entire body can allow for your acting to become more experiential, which is what you want.
Strengthen your voice. Your voice is one of your most powerful tools of self-expression. It has taken decades to develop the voice you have now, and it has been influenced by your parenting, your place of origin, and your trauma.
The journey to unpack these restrictions and liberate your voice is incredibly hard work. Your voice must be clear, expressive, and adaptable to different roles. Work on vocal projection and clarity so you can be heard and understood in any space, from intimate film scenes to a large theatre audience.
Articulation exercises help with clarity, while breath control keeps your speech strong and natural. Experiment with pitch, tone, and rhythm to develop range and flexibility.
Use movement to define your character. How a character moves tells a story, often before a single word is spoken. Their posture, gestures, and physical habits all reveal something about their personality, background, and emotions.
Study how different people carry themselves and apply these observations to your work. Adjusting the way you walk, sit, or use your hands can transform your performance and bring depth to your role.
4. Read the Great Acting Books (But Don’t Get Stuck in Theory)
Reading about acting techniques can expand your understanding of the craft, but acting is learned through practice, not theory alone.
Many actors spend too much time analyzing methods instead of applying them. The best way to gain knowledge is to read, apply, and refine your skills through real work.
Study the major techniques. Some of the most influential teachers in acting include Sanford Meisner, Konstantin Stanislavski, and Uta Hagen. Each offers a different approach to building a believable character.
The Meisner Technique focuses on creating truthful, instinctive behavior, while Stanislavski emphasizes objectives and given circumstances. Hagen encourages actors to find personal connections to their roles and the simple truth found in our daily routines.
Reading these perspectives can help you develop a deeper understanding of what works best for you.
Apply what you read. The best way to absorb what you learn is to use it. Get into a professional acting class and learn to apply the advice given to you in the books you read.
If a method suggests focusing on your partner rather than yourself, practice that in a rehearsal. If another book emphasizes physical adjustments, test them out in a play or acting classes. Acting is not just about understanding—it is about doing.
Experiment and find what works. Every actor develops their own process. Some connect deeply with Meisner’s repetition exercises, while others prefer Stanislavski’s detailed script analysis.
Try different techniques and see what feels natural. The goal is not to follow a method exactly but to develop a process that helps you create truthful, compelling performances.
5. Learn to Break Down a Script Like a Professional
A script is more than just words on a page. Every character, relationship, and moment is shaped by what happens before the scene begins. Knowing how to pin these down helps actors bring depth and authenticity to their performances.
To learn acting at a professional level, approach each script as a blueprint for behavior rather than a set of memorized lines.
Find the given circumstances. Every scene exists within a larger story. The script provides clues about the character’s past, present, and their important relationships.
Ask yourself: What is the previous circumstance that caused this scene to happen? How do I feel about it? What is/are the acting relationships? What is my objective? These are the fundamental questions that the first year of the Meisner Technique trains you to answer and then live out in the contact.
Define your character’s objectives. A character always wants something. Every scene is driven by an objective, and the actor needs to know what they are and when they change.
Break down the scene into beats, and figure out the obstacles. What does my character need? What stands in their way? What are the pivotal moments in the scene, and what is the emotional meaning of the beat changes?
Explore the subtext. Real conversations are filled with unspoken thoughts, hidden emotions, and underlying tension. Pay attention to what is not being said. Acting is essentially a subtext exercise. What a person says and what a person means can be two completely different things. Good actors respond to not just what is being said to them but how.
A line may sound polite but carry resentment. A pause may hold deeper meaning than the words themselves. Great actors bring these layers to life, revealing what is beneath the surface of the script.
6. Build Emotional Truth with Monologues, Then Move to Scene Work
The Meisner Technique trains actors to do truthfully under imaginary circumstances. Monologues can help develop an actor's ability to justify text, implant meaning, and do actions. Working out the moments of a monologue is challenging, but helpful in refining craft.
Use emotional preparation. Emotional preparation is an important fundamental skill in acting. First, pin down the previous circumstance that is causing you to speak. How do you feel about it? If you can boil that down to its emotional essence, then you can use emotional preparation to connect to it.
The Meisner Technique teaches actors how to do this so it becomes something second nature to their process.
Stay active and pursue an objective. A monologue is not just talking—it is doing. Identify what your character wants and commit to that pursuit. How you go about achieving your objective from moment to moment are your actions. Actions are the clay of behavior, and you want to learn and understand what they are so that you can do them without thinking.
Transition to scene work. Once grounded in emotional truth, move to scene work to develop a real moment-to-moment connection. The Meisner Technique emphasizes listening and responding spontaneously.
Acting is not about delivering lines—it is about illuminating the human condition in all of its aspects. All of these important skills can be taught to you in serious NYC acting studios like the Maggie Flanigan Studio.
7. Rehearse with Purpose
Great acting requires preparation and attention to detail. Acting is a collaborative art, and the rehearsal process is a key part of the art form. Learning how to rehearse, how to approach a rehearsal in an artistic, professional way is very important. There is a tremendous amount of homework that an actor is sometimes required to do, especially for complicated parts.
Make sure you have the ability to make vivid choices, have an idea for the character, answer fundamental crafting questions, and then go to rehearsal ready to see what happens. Look at rehearsal as the fruits of your labor. The other actors will bring their ideas and then live them out to see what works and what doesn’t.
A strong rehearsal process helps actors and the director to shape the storytelling, so that the vision of the playwright or screenwriter comes to life.
Go beyond memorization. Words on a page mean nothing unless they can be brought to life with spontaneity and intention. Instead of trying to memorize how you want to say your line, which is the epitome of hack acting, let the lines rest on the truthful moment and allow yourself to respond personally based on what you get from the other actor.
Ask yourself: Why is my character saying this? Why do I need to say this and not something else? What do I want? How do the circumstances shape my emotional life? When you connect deeply with the meaning behind the text and you work tightly off of the moment, you have the chance to break out of something conventional and cliched.
Use repetition to stay present. The Meisner Technique emphasizes the importance of listening and responding to not only what is being said, but how. The way you are treated from moment to moment is everything.
Meisner’s repetition exercise in the first year develops over nine months, instilling these fundamentals so that they are second nature. The repetition teaches you how to listen, gets you out of your head, and keeps you rooted in the present moment.
Instead of thinking about how to say a line, respond truthfully based on what is happening in the moment.
Try different approaches. A scene is never played the same way twice. During rehearsal, explore different interpretations. Adjust your point of view in moments, shift your physicality, or try a new emotional approach to the previous circumstance and relationships, as long as you can justify your choices.
The more you experiment, the more freedom you will have when performing. Acting is not about locking in one “correct” choice. It is about staying open and responsive to the creative process.
8. Get Comfortable Performing
Rehearsal prepares you, but real growth happens in front of an audience. Many actors feel nervous before an audition or performance, but the only way to build confidence is to step onstage and do the work.
The more you put yourself in front of people, the easier it becomes to stay present, trust your preparation, and bring a scene to life. When you can fully embrace public solitude, your work will become much freer and less self-conscious.
Start small and build experience. Begin in a comfortable setting. Perform for friends, join acting classes, or participate in open mic nights.
Smaller audiences help you adjust to being watched without overwhelming pressure. Each performance teaches you something new about your strengths and areas for growth.
Learn to accept feedback. Constructive criticism is essential if you want to grow and learn. Directors, great teachers, and respected peers can offer valuable insights that can refine the approach to your work.
Instead of fearing feedback, use it as a tool to develop your skills. Acting is about growth, and outside perspectives can reveal things you might not notice.
Embrace failure and keep going. Every success in life, in art, is founded on colossal failures. It is really the only way to grow.
Make choices, commit to them, and don’t get caught up in whether something is right or wrong. There is no wrong; there are only choices that work and choices that don’t. Have a sense of humor about your failures, and embrace the struggle of creativity.
Stay present, make adjustments, and move forward. Confidence is not about being perfect. It is about taking risks and learning from experience.
9. Record Yourself and Study Your Performances
Recording yourself is one of the best ways to grow as an actor. The camera catches details you might not notice in the moment, showing what feels real and what needs work. Regular self-taping helps you fine-tune your acting techniques and feel more at home on screen.
Self-tape regularly. Set up a camera and record monologues, scene work, or cold readings. The goal is not to judge yourself harshly but to gain insight.
Pay attention to your skills, emotional depth, and physical presence. Watching the playback helps you understand what translates well on screen and what needs adjustment. And if you realize that there are issues that need to be solved, get into a serious acting class and train.
Analyze your habits. All of us have physical habits we have developed over our lifetime. These are unconscious, and for actors, these pedestrian habits can creep into their work. You need to become aware of these, so that you can eliminate them from your acting. You don’t want everything you do to be brought down to your pedestrian, everyday way of behaving.
Identifying these habits makes it easier to develop a more natural and dynamic piece of acting.
Work on naturalism. On-camera acting requires subtlety. Exaggerated expressions or forced emotions can feel unnatural and fake.
Aim to look and sound as real on screen as you do in everyday life. If something feels overacted, adjust and try again. The more comfortable you become with the camera, the more truthful and compelling your work will be.
10. Train with Professionals
Acting is not something you master alone. While reading scripts, practicing monologues, and watching performances help, real growth happens in a structured training environment.
Working with experienced teachers and like-minded artists challenges you to push past habits, take risks, and develop a strong foundation for your acting career.
Learn from experienced teachers. Great acting coaches offer direct, honest feedback that helps you refine your skills. They guide you through acting techniques, push you beyond your comfort zone, and teach you to respond truthfully in the moment.
A professional studio setting gives you the structure and discipline needed to develop as an actor.
Train with other serious actors. Working with scene partners in a professional setting teaches you how to listen, react, and connect authentically. In a training studio, you are surrounded by other committed actors, which creates an environment of accountability and inspiration.
Build industry relationships. A reputable acting studio does more than refine your craft. It connects you with directors, casting professionals, and a network of actors who are serious about their work. These relationships can lead to future opportunities in film, theater, and beyond.
Why Maggie Flanigan Studio is the Best Place to Train
MFS is the leading Meisner-based conservatory for serious actors. Our structured, no-nonsense approach prepares students for the demands of the industry with intensive, professional-level training.
Expert training in the Meisner Technique. MFS offers the most rigorous and comprehensive Meisner training in the country. Our curriculum challenges actors to develop truthful, emotionally rich performances rooted in authentic human behavior.
Learn from industry professionals. Our faculty consists of master teachers and working professionals who provide expert instruction in acting techniques, voice, movement, and script analysis. Their experience in film, television, and theater gives students real-world insights into the profession.
A structured, progressive program. Unlike other acting classes that offer quick workshops, MFS provides a full conservatory experience. Our two-year program is designed to build a strong foundation before refining and advancing your skills through immersive training.
Train with dedicated actors. Acting is a collaborative art. At MFS, you will work with like-minded artists who are just as committed to their craft. This environment pushes you to grow, take risks, and develop professional discipline.
Small class sizes for individual attention. Our classes are intentionally small to ensure each student receives direct, personalized feedback. This approach allows you to deepen your acting skills and refine your craft under the guidance of master teachers.
Build industry connections. Training at a reputable studio connects you with industry professionals, including directors, casting agents, and other working actors. These relationships can open doors to future opportunities in film, television, and theater.
If you are serious about your acting career, call the Maggie Flanigan Studio today to schedule an interview. Take the next step toward becoming the actor you were meant to be.
Conclusion
Great acting is not about talent or luck. It is about training, discipline, and a willingness to grow.
Reading plays, memorizing monologues, and practicing on your own can help, but real progress happens when you train in a professional setting with expert teachers who challenge you to go deeper.
The Maggie Flanigan Studio is the place for actors who take their craft seriously. Our Meisner-based training pushes you to develop authentic, compelling performances rooted in truth.
If you are ready to do the work and commit to real growth, call us today. Your acting career starts with the right training—this is where it begins.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I teach myself to act?
Start by reading plays, watching great performances, and practicing monologues. Observe how people express emotions in real life and apply that to your work.
While self-study can help, real progress happens in acting classes, where you receive expert guidance and feedback. Training with professionals is the best way to build strong acting skills and confidence.
What are the 7 principles of acting?
The core principles of acting focus on truth, connection, and presence. These include emotional honesty, active listening, strong objectives, physical awareness, vocal expression, imagination, and spontaneity.
Every great performance stems from mastering these elements through consistent practice and structured training.
What are the 5 C's in acting?
The 5 C’s—commitment, concentration, connection, creativity, and confidence—define a strong actor.
Commitment means fully investing in every moment, while concentration keeps you present. Connection helps you engage with scene partners, creativity fuels unique choices, and confidence allows you to perform with authenticity and freedom.
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