A Quote by Ali Farahnakian
The lifelong goal of an improviser is to listen to what the other person is saying, taking it in, and responding.
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Acting lessons teach you to really listen to what the other person is saying because in acting it's all about responding to the lines.
Acting doesn't have anything to do with listening to the words. We never really listen, in general conversation, to what the other person is saying. We listen to what they mean. And what they mean is often quite apart from the words. When you see a scene between two actors that goes really well you can be sure they're not listening to each other - they're feeling what the other person is trying to get at. Know what I mean?
I think we need to recognize that learning is a lifelong goal, a lifelong experience.
Actors don't listen to each other. You're so obsessed with what you're saying or doing that the other person could be talking in Swahili and you wouldn't know.
I can watch a movie and go, 'Oh, my god, that person is acting.' If you just listen to what the other person is saying, your response will always be genuine.
I used to not listen that much, but I've really learnt to listen to other people and to really listen to what they're saying. I've found, especially being on a film set, people have so many different stories; if you just listen, you can pick up so much stuff. I try to listen as much as I can.
Listening and hearing are two different things, and acting is comprehending what the person is saying, thinking how it makes you feel and responding. That's the key to really honest, truthful, compelling performance.
I'm an improviser at heart, when I'm writing, I'm improvising in my head. When you're an improviser on stage, you can never be precious about anything, you can't control what anyone else is going to do. The best stuff comes out of moments of inspiration that spontaneously happen.
In a way, I have to have a dictatorship. I can't be told that I'm wrong. That conflicts with what I was saying earlier about listening. It isn't to do with receiving criticism and responding to other views, it's who has that last decision.
Most people don't know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking. They pay more attention to that than to what the other person is saying, and none at all to what really matters: the Being of the other person underneath the words and the mind. Of course, you cannot feel someone else's Being except through your own. This is the beginning of the realization of oneness, which is love. At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is.
Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying 'Listen to me'.
Baseball players practice, runners practice, so how can you practice being funny? You get up onstage. You train as an improviser, playing make-believe, using the vernacular of improvisation, saying 'yes and' to other people's ideas, making statements.
Spouses have each other, and even when one eventually dies, they have memories of a time when they existed before that other person and can more readily imagine a life without them. Likewise, parents may have other children to be concerned with--a future to protect for them. To lose a sibling is to lose the one person with whom one shares a lifelong bond that is meant to continue on into the future.
When listening to another person, don't just listen with your mind, listen with your whole body. Feel the energy field of your inner body as you listen.That takes attention away from thinking and creates a still space that enables you to truly listen without the mind interfering. You are giving the other person space-space to be. It is the most precious gift you can give.
Writing is the act of saying "I," of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying "listen to me, see it my way, change your mind."
When you listen with memory, you have an old agenda, and when you listen with desire, you have a new one. You can't listen to the other person if your agenda is overtaking you.
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