This Week at AYA 

Casting directors can smell pretense from a mile away! One idea we’ve been focusing on in class is how to practice making choices while also making them real each time. Our students have been learning how to avoid giving the appearance of false intentions in a scene— i.e. saying the same words with a practiced cadence for comedic timing, or executing a gesture exactly the same way without the character’s motivation behind it. These polished sequences can look scripted and unrealistic, taking a viewer out of the authenticity of the scene. Instead, we are learning how to make choices from the character’s internal motivations and thought processes every single time— no matter how many times we practice! Casting directors spend all day looking for moments of truth in performance, and our students are training to deliver authentic choices and performances in the room each time. On set, this preparation will allow our students to take direction, create characters, and make choices that fulfill the creative vision of the projects they are working on as well.

What we learned? Use your character’s internal thought processes to drive your choices every single time, no matter how many times you are doing the scene! Don’t just do something because you’ve rehearsed it that way— know the character-driven reason behind it, and and use that.


—Lili Fox-Lim, AYA Student