Be Rigorous, Not Rigid

I believe actors should be obsessive about their work. A healthy obsession. Obsessive about detail, specificity, understanding the writer’s intentions, the given circumstances, the character's struggle, and the personal choices that will bring a piece of material to life. 

I believe in preparation. Serious, meticulous, imaginative preparation. But I also believe that an actor can work really hard, develop a disciplined process, understand their material, and still produce a performance that is completely dead and uninteresting to watch. 

How is that possible? Because there is a profound difference between being rigorous and being rigid, and you don’t want to confuse the two.

An actor who is disciplined understands the value of preparation. They know how to break down a script, understand actions, justify the text, particularize relationships, create a rich emotional life, and make specific, personal choices. They don't wait around for inspiration. They have a way of working. 

But there is another kind of actor who takes all of that preparation and turns it into something fixed. They decide exactly how the scene should unfold, where the emotional moments should happen, how a particular line should be delivered, what the other actor is supposed to do, and what the audience should feel. They arrive at rehearsal determined to reproduce what they have already imagined.

That's not artistic freedom. That's control. And control is one of the great enemies of truthful acting. 

You cannot genuinely listen to another human being while at the same time insisting that the scene unfold according to your plan. You cannot be surprised if you've already decided what is going to happen. You cannot respond spontaneously if you're preoccupied with reproducing yesterday's choices. At that point, you're not creating behavior. You're demonstrating your homework.

I recently listened to an interview with Jeremy Strong in which he discussed the extraordinary amount of preparation that goes into creating a character. What interested me wasn't his reputation as a method actor or the lengths to which he goes in his process. It was his insistence that the work must become second nature. 

All of the intellectual investigation, physical choices, character research, and psychological exploration must become so deeply internalized that the actor no longer has to think about them. I couldn't agree more.

This is something I spend a good  amount of time teaching my second-year students at my NYC acting studio, the Maggie Flanigan Studio. 

An actor might be working on a character who is drunk, pregnant, physically impaired, or speaking with an unfamiliar accent. Perhaps the scene demands a complicated emotional life while the actor is also contending with heat, exhaustion, or physical discomfort. If the actor is thinking about how to appear drunk, how to maintain an accent, or whether their physical impediment looks believable, they're in trouble. Their attention is divided. They're no longer fully available to the other person. The work hasn't become part of them yet.

This is why the actor must be willing to spend hours on details that the audience will never consciously recognize. You do the private, personal, intellectual, and emotional work so that eventually you can stop thinking about it. The preparation becomes part of your instrument, and now you're free.

One of the great misconceptions about acting is that understanding something intellectually means you can actually do it. It doesn't. 

You can understand every detail of a character's psychology and still be incapable of creating truthful behavior. You can write pages of analysis about a relationship and still be completely unaffected by the person standing in front of you. You can have wonderful ideas about a scene and never experience a single spontaneous moment. 

Acting is doing. The intellectual work is essential, but it must eventually be transformed into something personal, instinctual, and alive.

This is where rigorous preparation becomes so valuable. When the actor has genuinely absorbed their choices, they no longer have to think. They have created the conditions in which behavior can emerge. The distinction is subtle, but it changes everything. A rigid actor tries to control the result. A rigorous actor prepares deeply enough to surrender control.

There is another misunderstanding I encounter frequently. Some actors believe that freedom means doing whatever they want. It doesn't. 

An actor has a script to honor. There are relationships, circumstances, actions, blocking, technical demands, and the intentions of the writer. There are other actors whose work deserves your attention and respect. You cannot simply indulge every impulse that comes into your head. That isn't artistry. It's self-indulgence.

The challenge is to remain free inside the form. 

I think this is one of the more sophisticated aspects of an actor’s craft. To have a deeply personal understanding of the material while remaining open to something completely unexpected. To make strong choices without becoming attached to them. To listen so fully that another person's behavior can alter what you thought was going to happen. To remain spontaneous while honoring the demands of the work.

This requires tremendous discipline. It also requires trust. You must trust the preparation you've done, your imagination, and your instincts. Trust that you can respond to something unexpected without losing the structure of the scene. And you must be willing to fail.

I have taught actors who are exceptionally hardworking, intelligent, and disciplined, but who are also profoundly inhibited. They take the work seriously. They prepare, listen to notes, and want to improve. And yet, the moment something unexpected comes up, they hesitate. 

They worry about making a mistake, begin evaluating their impulses, and become careful.

Their discipline has become entangled with a need for control and doing something correctly.

This is where an acting teacher must be particularly perceptive. The solution isn't to lower the standard. It's to help the actor understand what the standard is actually for. 

We are not trying to produce obedient students who can execute instructions perfectly. We are trying to develop independent artists with a reliable craft and the freedom to use it.

That distinction matters enormously to me.

I often tell my students to leave themselves alone. It's one of those phrases that can sound simplistic until you begin to understand how difficult it actually is. 

You cannot leave yourself alone if you haven't prepared. If you don't understand the material, if your choices are vague, if you haven't done the work, then there is nothing substantial for your imagination and instincts to operate upon. But once you've prepared thoroughly, you must be willing to let go.

Stop checking whether everything is correct. Stop trying to manufacture the emotional result. Stop forcing the scene to unfold according to your expectations. Put your attention on the other person, allow yourself to be affected, and go from one unanticipated moment to the next.

At the Maggie Flanigan Studio, we believe that technique should liberate the artist, not imprison them. Craft provides the structure. Discipline provides consistency. Imagination gives the work its depth. But the actor must bring the courage to remain open to the unknown.

Be rigorous in your preparation, be fearless enough to abandon your expectations, and never confuse control with artistry.

Build the Craft. Develop the Freedom.

The freedom to work spontaneously comes from disciplined training. At the Maggie Flanigan Studio, our acting classes develop the listening, emotional availability, and imagination that truthful acting demands. Our acting programs are grounded in the Meisner Technique, giving actors a reliable craft and the discipline to use it without controlling the result.

If you’re ready to commit to that work, contact us to discuss your training and schedule an interview.