Acting is an innate talent (of varying degrees) that can be polished. The amount of polishing required depends on the individual. The desire to act is NOT necessarily proportional to the talent to act. The reasons why people want to act vary and can be divided into the following categories: desire for fame, money, glamor, pleasure, self-expression, love of the ART of acting, or because acting is a necessity, like food and water. But the bottom line is that if you were born with acting talent, you CANNOT LOSE THAT TALENT.
If the desire to act is based on a love of art and if that desire is accompanied by a little bit of talent, then yes, that love does compensate for minimal talent to a large extent. I have consistently argued that talent is never (or almost never) the main reason for casting decisions. We have dozens of famous stars who can barely act. They are stars because of their looks, personality, drive, ego, whatever. But they are stars!
Why talent does not promise success
I’ve worked with very talented people who can’t focus, can’t polish, just can’t succeed. They don’t learn their lines, they skip rehearsals, they don’t self-promote-in other words, they are set up for failure, regardless of their talent.
Actors have innate talent, imagination, intelligence, passion for acting, drive, good hearing, the ability to mimic – the list is endless. Actors do not have “acting muscles” that need to be kept in shape. The only actor’s muscles that can lose strength if they are not used include stage fighting, falling, martial arts, dancing, singing. You simply cannot lose the ability to act. Why not?
Let’s take a look at what is included in acting:
- The ability to plausibly reproduce speech, i.e. to make memorized lines sound real. This is related to the auditory rhythm, pitch, and reproduction of the spoken rhythm and pitch.
- Imagination is the ability to create possibilities in a role.
- Intelligence – the ability to understand the nuances of written language and apply this understanding to the script. The ability to memorize a script.
- Intuition – something that a person just “knows” without learning or figuring it out.
- Presence – an umbrella that covers poise, love of performance, desire to be noticed, pride, confidence.
You can probably add a dozen more to my list. None of them is a muscle.
There are, of course, many personal reasons: illness, work demands, family needs, accidents, living in a place where there are no opportunities, having to work to earn a living, or simply “things happen” and make it impossible to act.
Unless there are “life events” that completely interfere with your acting, then you might seriously wonder why you’re not out there in the audition pool.