ACTORS: Don't Blink! (seriously... kind of) 

He did text Sally Field in character for the time leading up to production. While not "dangerous", per se, it is overboard. But apparently Day-Lewis does it that way because he doesn't think he's good enough of an actor to do it any other way. Heard him say that in an interview once. So at least his motives are more... pure?

@@GetTaped Steven Spielberg's reaction was to treat him as the President on set. Steven even wore a tie, dressing a little better out of respect.

Alright! Does that make me a doctor of some sort? Should I get a stethoscope?

@GetTaped no stethoscope needed but you could be an Optometrist of actors eyes possibly 😆

😂 😂😂

I think you should start doing a lot of winking in your auditions. Completely random and unjustified winking.

@@GetTaped Thanks for the tip. I'll try it and let you know how it goes.

Haha, thanks Dan! Enjoying my new club membership so far...

Yeah, it's pretty wild when you see the difference that no blinking creates.

If you have a trusted acting teacher or coach, I'd ask them. Short of that, I've talked about the 4 stages of a learned skill that you could use as a guide: Unconscious Unknowing (you don't know what you don't know), Conscious Unknowing (you know the problem), Conscious Knowing (you simply practice not blinking while talking/listening), Unconscious Knowing (eventually it becomes a task you relegate to the background and you don't have to think about it anymore). In short, it takes time to hack your physiology, so you just might need practice! 👍🏼

Hacking your physiology takes time. If you wanted to develop a new way of walking - maybe you want to start strutting everywhere you go 😁 - how would you do it? Practice it. You just need to practice over and over so that the task goes from being a conscious one to a more unconscious one. So start by just timing how long you can go without blinking. If it's 10 seconds, you'd want to get that higher through repetition. Then start practicing with scripts. More specifically, scripts where either you have big speeches, or the other character has big speeches that AFFECT you. Because those are the types of moments where your performance will most benefit from not blinking. If you're server walking and walking out, looking at 4 different customers, etc, then who cares if you blink. Likewise, if you're Nurse and come in to check vitals, adjust the bed sheets, check the chart, then blink away. It's when you're still, and engaged with the other character in dialogue and emotions that are meant to capture the audience, move the audience, etc, that's when you need to be able to UNCONSCIOUSLY stop blinking.

Great question! If your character is "low status", nervous, flustered, or maybe is hiding something, then you can certainly relax and be more natural with your blinking. But if you have some material you're working on (for an audition, for a class, etc), then just get curious about your blinking. If you have the time, do a take where you just relax and do what comes natural, and then do a take where you blink less. I don't know, but you may find that even for the flustered character, less blinking is more effective. Michael Caine, in that same clip (full video is in the show notes), also talks about darting your eyes back and forth (alternately focusing on your scene partner's left eye, then right, then left, etc). That's another trap that actors fall into. It can be appropriate if your character is desperately searching for answers from the other character, but most of the time it's a nervous tic that the actor is unaware of, and it weakens the performance.

​@GetTaped A whole lesson right here. Thank you! 🏆🎉