Acting should be easy, right? It’s like playing dress-up with a little more intentionality behind it. If that were actually true, we’d all act and the pool would be that much thicker to wade through in finding the greats. So what separates the Laurence Oliviers from the Pauly Shores? Usually a semester or two at Juilliard, or just basic talent, but even more so it’s a muscular conditioning of the extraocular variety. Yes, the eyes are without a doubt the most important physical aspect of an actor’s ability to embody a character. Don’t believe me? Go back and watch Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, Jack Nicholson in Chinatown or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, for that matter. All of these performances are bolstered by the intensity, discrepancy and overall directionality of the eyes. Admittedly there’s an entire body to go along with them, but every presentation has its focal point and the eyes tend to standout in the most standout performances.

The actual movement of the eyes reveals intent or contempt, love or hate, truth or mistruth. The best actors can communicate a myriad of emotions in only a few moments with their eyes. After years of directing all shapes and sizes, I finally asked an actor if my fascination and effectively higher standards for eye-performance was warranted. He told me it’s one of the most basic principles that, for the most part, goes unspoken. See, it’s like watching the NBA and saying, “wow, he’s an amazing dribbler!” Instead you’re just waiting for a dunk. The dribbling is seen, it’s registered, but is also gone unmentioned. Why? Because it’s rudimentary, a foundation. The eyes are always there, and even the most exceptional ocular effectuation is invisible simply because it’s so good. The best kind of acting is that which either goes unnoticed or becomes immortalized. Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote or Brando’s Don Corleone were both understated, with eyes that barely moved for all the weight these characters carried around their necks. In contrast, Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood and Charlize Theron in Monster were accentuated, darkly-spirited performances in which the eyes were more carnal, frustrated and deadly bright.

In the same ways the eyes can seal a truly great performance, so can they undo the less honest ones. I’m not such a vicious critic that I’d list examples of poorer actors so cavalierly as I did the greater ones, but I’d encourage anyone interested in my theory to go back and vivisect any performances you consider to be truly bad. Watch the eyes. Watch where they track. Watch how they vibrate or else awkwardly dart from place to place. The most telling moments will be when these actors are not delivering dialogue but are instead giving silent reactions. In situations of tension the truer eyes will remain focused, unmoving and almost three-dimensional in their potency while the untruer will glaze in and out of attention, thinking more about the script or what’s for lunch than the world of the scene.

So, be you actor, director or casting manager, keep in mind the windows to the soul may in fact be the windows to your character as well.

This is an opinion piece on the importance of being ‘yourself’ rather than trying to fit into a certain ‘type’.

Too often I hear actors going through casting billboards say, “I would never get that part, it’s not my type.” It frustrates and annoys me that there are starving artists dismissing potential work because they feel branded, so I’ve started exercising a new trick that I’ve recently picked up. I sidle up to them, square my shoulders, look them dead in the eyes and say, “Define ‘type’ for me.” Invariably, most of these actors become red in the face, and spit and stumble trying to cough out some lame Webster’s definition. That, of course, is precisely the response I’m looking for.

My agent played that exact game with me in my first interview with him. I had come into the office, cocky that my self-assessment of what I could and should be cast for would impress him, and like these other actors, I was left with the same slack-jawed look on my face that I receive now. But that one moment explained so much more to me about the casting process than the hours and hours of bad advice that I’ve had the misfortune of listening to and occasionally following from actors I’ve surrounded myself with for years. Here’s what I took away from the experience:

Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.

“Well, I’m the girl next door. I’m the lawyer. I’m the mob boss.” Were Zooey Deschanel or Viola Davis or Steve Buscemi those “types” before they established the trends? A type is far too broad for any actor to try to fit into with any sort of certainty, and you are doing yourself a disservice in thinking that way. I can already see virtual eyes rolling at my A-list examples, so let’s examine a more relevant case – my own.

For the first eight or ten months in Los Angeles I had been brought into auditions for parts I would consider to be more or less of the same type. Almost always I was reading for the thoughtful, emotional, romantically-stunted loner. Chalk that up to my big forehead, weak chin, and lack of facial hair. There would be the odd vampire or cyborg (many thanks to my bony body and pasty skin), but 90% of the characters I went out for and booked could be lumped together in one awkwardly wrapped package.

Then, about four months ago I saw an interesting shift occur. Without any real impetus from me I was no longer going out for the nerd. Suddenly, all of my auditions were for the young meth-head, the punk, the scrawny bully. Same photos, a reel composed wholly of clips of my various nerds, and yet I was being seen in a very new way. I struggled to make sense of this on my own, wondering if I should change my hair, my photos, my wardrobe, get more tattoos and piercings. Should I stop bringing in Michael Cera characters to workshops, and start bringing in Ezra Millers?

This was recently crystalized at an audition I had for a music video. Music videos are great because there is no dialogue and you’re normally cast based on how you look and the vibe you give off. They are a helpful tool in analyzing how the industry sees you, sans acting abilities. So I go to this audition, and I’m being seen for the role of “nerdy teen boy”. I showed up in ill-fitting clothes, my hair combed stupidly, and looking as baby-faced as possible. Easy breezy. It was a group audition, so at my scheduled time we five nerdy teen boys entered the room and stood side by side. The CD went down the line, asking some general questions, then stopped and did a sort of double take when he got to me. He asked if I was comfortable being filmed shirtless. I said yes and stripped. He looked at my tattoos and asked if my ears were pierced. I said yes again. I put my shirt back on, finished the audition and left. The next day I got a phone call saying I had booked the job for the character “shirtless punk”.

An argument could be made that these two columns of characters could be uncomfortably nestled under the umbrella term “outcast”, but that word is too unwieldy to even pay attention to. The point of all of this is that you have no idea what it is that casting directors are looking for—hell, they probably aren’t entirely sure themselves. The most you can do is learn to accentuate and embrace what makes you you. Not what makes you special or different, but what is most honestly you. It’s trite, but casting directors aren’t stupid. They can smell a phony a mile away and can spot a plastic, Hollywood actor just as easily as the rest of us. You are right for some part in some production somewhere. Changing yourself into a watered down version of what you think casting directors should see you as is not only dishonest and disrespectful to yourself and to them, but also makes about as much sense as a dairy farmer deciding to sell staplers, just because there is a market out in the world that he isn’t tapping.

And it got me thinking.

The truly memorable performances came not from a great story or the words on the page, but from the level with which the actor allowed him-/herself to embody their character. Two performances stood out to me this year; Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything and Jennifer Aniston as Claire Bennett in Cake. Eddie Redmayne bringing a brilliantly nuanced performance as Hawking, as his health deteriorates, and Aniston bringing a flat portrayal of a depressed woman suffering from chronic back pains. Now, it’s easy to dismiss Jennifer Aniston as a one-note rom-com actress, but if Matthew McConaughey can redeem his career, why not Aniston? In the case of Cake, it’s because she did not truly step into her character’s state of chronic pain and mental suffering. She played the surface. She made the faces. She cried the tears. But somehow I didn’t really believe her. Redmayne on the other hand was Stephen Hawking for 123 minutes.

And during the Q&A’s with Aniston and Redmayne, respectively, it became clear why the two actors with similar challenges ended up with two completely different performances: Their difference in approach to getting into character was monumentally different.

During the conversation with Eddie Redmayne, he described how he had spent four months studying Stephen Hawking. He was watching every documentary, every YouTube clip, reading everything he could find on the physicist. He worked with a physics teacher to better understand Hawking’s work. He was also visiting a neurology clinic in London every two weeks, speaking with patients, so he would better understand what it was like to live with a paralyzing neurological disease. And when it came time to physically embody his character, he worked with a choreographer for several months to get the movements and body positions just right – for every stage of Hawking’s life, as the disease got more and more paralyzing. Together, Redmayne and his choreographer would film his movements, study them on the iPad, take notes for use during the shooting – and he even spent weeks rehearsing in public parks, so he would feel what it was like to live with ALS in real life. Or as real as possible, we should say.

And that’s what earns you an Oscar nomination.

Jennifer Aniston gave similar insight in her Q&A, describing how she had ‘empathy’ for the character, had worked with doctors and physical therapists to understand how to walk when drunk and on pain medication, and how she had to wear a back brace during filming, so she would have a constant reminder of the physical manifestations of chronic back pain.

While Eddie Redmayne stayed in the same, crippled position in his wheel chair between takes, because it was too painful to get in and out of character, Jennifer Aniston wore a back brace to remind her to keep her back straight, because that’s what you do when your back hurts.

And that’s what will not earn you an Oscar nomination.

All of this to make a point: Getting into character is not to be taken lightly. It will show on screen if you act from the surface (meaning you look like you’re in pain, but you’re not actually feeling it) instead of owning the physicality (meaning you feel the pain and you know what it’s like to live with it, not just in a moment, but in life). And it works the other way around too; it will show on screen if you manage to completely embody the character’s circumstances.

If you look at some of the great film performances throughout history and do a little digging to find out how each actor or actress approached their role, it paints a pretty clear picture. Feel it, don’t fake it. Embrace it, don’t fear it. Live in the circumstance of your character – don’t let the character live in your circumstance.

And so, in the age of lists, let’s make one.

5 Times an Actor or Actress Truly Embodied a Character

Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything

This one has already been explained above, so please just let the clip speak for itself.

Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry

Even though Swank was only in her early twenties when shooting Boys Don’t Cry, she dove right in. She lived for months as a man in preparation for her role. She wrapped her chest in tension bandages and stuffed socks down her pants. Her neighbors during that time reportedly thought that the young man coming and going from Swank’s apartment was a visiting brother – when in fact it was, of course, Swank herself.

Philip Seymor Hoffman – Capote

Hoffman spent four month preparing for this role, working on the technicalities (like Capote’s speech and mannerisms), but also on looking at all the historical material through the eyes of Capote – not himself. He also lost 40 pounds.

Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver

On top of studying mental illness and Midwestern accents, De Niro also worked 12-hour days as a cab driver for a month. He hass also said that he saw his character as a crab, which made him walk and act in certain ways. The “You talkin’ to me?” scene is completely ad-libbed. But it’s not De Niro talking. It’s his character.

Meryl Streep – Sophie’s Choice

The scene where Streep’s character has to choose which of her children gets to live and which must die, may very well be one of the most truthfully emotional scenes. Ever. Streep has said that the reaction from both her and her on-screen daughter was not acting – it was what happened in the moment. To prepare for this, Streep and the girl spent months bonding, going to playgrounds, playing in hotel rooms, just hanging out. The girl, who had never acted before, had such a bond with “her mother” that when they shot the scene, she really did feel like she was being taken away. As did Streep.

Here’s how they did it.

In an interview with Screen Daily’s Jeremy Kay, the producers behind boyhood, Richard Linklater, Cathleen Sutherland, Jonathan Sehring and John Sloss, elaborates on how they approached this very unusual cinematic endeavour.

While Linklater assembled his cast and crew, Sloss and Sehring began to thrash out the deal points on what would become a $4m-plus production.

“We structured it in a way that took a little pressure off [Sehring],” says Sloss. “He committed to finance the first year and could stop at any time, but if he did we could bring in someone else in a more favourable position.

“It took pressure off him and still created enough for us to be able to go out and find other financiers if IFC changed their business agenda. Jonathan stuck with it. Rick and the cast stuck with it. About 400 crew people worked on it throughout.”

“It’s almost like financing a short film every year,” adds Sehring. “We did it on an annual basis. We were committed for 12 years and a big part of the production process.

“In terms of finance, Rick would come to us every year and we’d talk about the project and we would give him roughly $200,000, give or take 10%. That was our commitment, and it doesn’t include post and music, etc.”

The flexibility in funding and the fact that IFC did not have to assume full financial risk from the outset of such an unconventional production made all the difference in getting the project off the ground.

And then there’s the cast. Of Richard Linklater’s choices:

“When he was casting Ellar, he was also casting his parents. He knew his parents and had confidence they were going to show up every year and be responsible. That was the wild card, because the [on-screen] daughter is Rick’s daughter [Lorelei Linklater], anybody who knows Patricia knows she’s a stand-up person and we started this film before they conceived Before Sunset [the 2004 middle episode in the Before series], and Rick and Ethan had a very strong bond by then.”

With the cast in place, it came time for logistics.

“Ultimately it’s 12 years, 12 scripts, 12 productions,” says the director, who sent a rough outline to IFC that he would update each year. “Within that it had quite a structure. I knew the last shot.”

By the time shooting wrapped at the Big Bend Ranch State Park in West Texas in October 2013, they had filmed for 49 days in total and Coltrane was 18.

While 49 shooting days is more than some of the films Boyhood is up against in the 2015 awards race, it’s not a lot when you consider that they are spread out over 12 years. The cast and crew met once a year for 3-4 days, at times that worked with everyone’s schedules.

“People think we had this set date every summer. It wasn’t like that. It had to shift because Ethan was in a movie or doing a play, Patricia was in Medium, Rick had things going on. The kids were the easiest ones, with the rest of us trying to juggle life and responsibilities.”

And it wasn’t just the cast that was committed. Most of the crew was consistent year after year, which undoubtedly helps give the film a uniform look and feel.

“It didn’t always work out that every crew member came back but for the most part people tried to repeat the job,” adds Sutherland. “It became a very close community. By the end of the film there was the 10-Year Club. It was great having that commitment from people.” As Coltrane says: “When you work on an art project with people for any amount of time, you become like family.”

Although this was an IFC production, the plan in Park City was always to go in with open eyes. “If somebody had made us an offer we could not refuse, we would have sold it,” says Sehring, who wound up distributing Boyhood.

A deal was struck at Sundance with Universal for international rights excluding Canada (Mongrel), France (Diaphana) and Benelux (Lumiere), and after more international festival kudos the film opened in July in the US. By mid-November the audacious $4m experiment that had seemed so risky had amassed more than $23m Stateside and around $50m worldwide.

In conclusion; it worked. An almost impossible project with a modest budget turned into an Oscar contender. Or perhaps it was one from the very start? While this is certainly an impressive and moving feat, personally, I can’t help but see this as more of an exercise in filmmaking. Impressive, but not as groundbreaking on screen as on paper.

When I first started acting, I was surprised to learn how antiquated the headshot printing process is. What most people do is print a big stack of headshots, staple paper resumes on to these headshots, audition, use a few and then eventually throw away hundreds of unused headshots, because they’re outdated. This was annoying me for several reasons. First of all, why wasted the paper? A rule of thumb is that you need new headshots every 6-8 months. A year, if you’re lucky. Most photo labs that specifically offer headshot printing will sell you prints in large quantities. Hundreds of prints. Commercial auditions rarely ask for a headshot anymore (if you’re SAG-AFTRA, at least), and let’s be honest, do you really need 500 headshots for your theatrical auditions every year?

I didn’t think so.

Second of all, why spend good money on a nice headshot only to ruin it by stapling a piece of paper to the back of it? The staples mess up the composition of the shot that you paid your professional photographer big dollars to take, and if you have a stack of them in, say, your car or your bag, they staples will scratch whatever prints they’re stacked with. No bueno, amigos.

So I did some thinking and here’s what I came up with.

1. Get your hi-res files from the photographer and set them up in Photoshop.

It’s easy. With just minimal Photoshop skills, you can open a new document, size it 8×10 (standard headshot size), add a border and your name – or design it however you want. Import your hi-res headshot image and size it so it fits nicely within your 8×10 canvas and any borders you may have added. Save as JPG in maximum quality.

2. Print small quantities with WHCC.

WHCC is an online printing service that let’s you create an account (they call it a studio), download an app for easy ordering and image uploads, and then order whatever quantities you need, whenever you need them. Free shipping is included. Though this option is slightly more expensive than printing large quantities at a Hollywood photo lab, you will never end up with more headshots than you need and the quality is professional photo studio quality.

3. Print your resume on adhesive paper.

Personally, I use the Avery Internet Shipping Labels. They are a little smaller than the 8×10 prints, so they fit nicely on the back of your headshot. They’re thick and a little rigid, so they make your headshot less prone to bending and kinks. No staples needed.

That’s it! Update your resume, print new headshots and labels as needed and stop wasting money on headshots you won’t be using – or ruining the ones you will be using by stapling them.

But don’t tell anyone. I like it when my headshot stands out from the stack on the Casting Director’s table.