Simplify, man. Like the best book about acting I’ve read in a long time: David Mamet’s True and False.
Mamet wrote a lot of great plays and movies, including the play that was adapted into my favorite movie: Sexual Perversity in Chicago, which became About Last Night. And when it comes to advice on acting, the man is downright practical: to hell with The Method.
“The actor is onstage to communicate the play to the audience. That is the beginning and the end of his and her job. To do so, the actor needs a strong voice, superb diction, a supple, well-proportioned body and a rudimentary understanding of the play. Anything else – ‘becoming’ one's part, ‘feeling’ the character's emotions – devalues the practice of a noble craft and is useless to the play. The ‘work’ you do ‘on the script’ will make no difference. That work has already been done by a person with a different job title than yours. That person is the author.”
127 pages of goodness. Recommended highly by Anthony Hopkins, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. And a dude who hates The Method. And reading.
