Any theatrical production, whether it is a stage play, a TV show or a film, is built on top of so many individual elements that in some unfortunate cases a film does not succeed at what it aims to achieve despite the exceptional hard work of everyone involved.
If you are considering enrolling in acting courses for adults, you might think about issues like your body language, how to project your voice and even challenges like performing a stage or screen kiss.
However, an issue you might not have given so much thought to is how to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs. Sometimes you can be performing live when things start to go wrong, and being cool, keeping concentration and thinking clearly might help rescue the situation.
It is exactly this scenario that makes the Comedy ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ so funny, as the whole plot is about a performance where everything goes haywire and the cast continually has to try to keep the show going as one mishap follows another.
However, there may be times you need to do this for real, like when props break, or one of your fellow actors makes an error by saying the wrong lines. How you respond will shape whether the performance sails on smoothly or sinks without a trace.
Nor is it just what is happening on the stage that could cause a problem. The issue of badly-behaved theatre audiences arose in April when some patrons were ejected from the Palace Theatre in Manchester during a musical for disrupting the performance by loudly (and badly) singing the words.
Speaking to the BBC, comedian Ben Elton said audiences “should apply good taste and good manners” in theatres to prevent such situations.
However, sometimes theatres themselves can be culpable; as the Norwich Evening News reported, the Norwich Theatre Group recently had to apologise for “encouraging poor theatre etiquette” by issuing an email about upcoming musicals describing them as “something to sing along to”.
The fact is that if you go on stage, you will need to be able to stay focused amid many distractions, some of which may come from the audience. And if it is a modern phenomenon for some people to behave as if a musical is a karaoke session, just consider that even Shakespeare had to deal with all sorts of hecklers and rowdy audiences in his day!
King Charles III might have been spending a lot of time on TV recently, but he definitely wasn’t acting; that business with the crown in Westminster Abbey was for real.
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There are some exceptional actors and actresses out there these days who put their heart and soul into playing a character. In fact, some admit they have been changed by the roles they played.
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When we typically think of the greatest acting performances, many of us focus quite naturally on the best films ever made or films with breakout performances by actors that would go on to have great careers, with films that are commonly part of acting classes.
However, there are far more great actors out there than scripts that do them justice, and a hallmark of a truly great actor is to take a script that may not have the same renown, make do and mend, often with particularly personal reasons as to why.
Here are some great examples of fantastic acting performances found in somewhat unexpected films and the reasons why they appeared.
Fresh off of an Oscar nomination for the brilliant and subversive Lost In Translation and in the middle of working on the unique The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Bill Murray was sent a script that he read for, his curiosity sparked by its apparent author: Joel Coen of the Coen brothers.
Ultimately it turned out he had gotten the name mixed up. It was Joel Cohen and the script was for the somewhat infamous Garfield live-action adaptation. Bill Murray’s enthusiasm quickly waned, which was perfectly suited for the laconic cartoon cat.
In 1992, Bob Hoskins was cast as Mario Mario for the film Super Mario Bros, one of the strangest and most troubled film productions of all time, and a film that throughout the rest of his life he said he regretted doing more than any other.
He was bombarded with script revisions until he finally agreed to be the star but did not realise the origins of the source material, leading to a somewhat infamous interview where Mr Hoskins turns to the camera, takes a pause and laments that he used to star in Shakespearean adaptations.
Award season is upon us, which means Hollywood stars will be gracing the red carpet, paparazzi will be snapping furiously, and budding actors and actresses will be listening to winners’ speeches for encouragement and inspiration.
The third and final series of the TV serial Happy Valley has captured the imagination of millions of viewers, but it might also provide some inspiration for those keen to follow in the footsteps of the cast, who are mostly from the north.
