On Consistent Training and Expanding Your View of Success

Scott Fielding and Anna Weinstein

(AW): When actors do have success, by their own definition, what kind of work would you say is necessary to maintain that success or even jump off the plateau? Can you describe what that level of hard work looks like to you and your students?

(SF): I think it was Hemingway who said something like, I sit down at nine o'clock in the morning and I don't get up until one o’clock. I put in my X number of hours a day, every day. I start with that blank sheet of paper, and I work. I have days when I'm inspired, and I have days when I'm not. But I sit down and I do my work.

For the actor, one of the challenges is that most of us don't have access to an empty studio, and few actors go into the living room at nine in the morning and say, I'm going to work on my acting for X number of hours. But that's the hard work – the practice. Yeah, you have to do the business part, but from my point of view, persistent training is the essential work.

For actors, the work of training and conditioning yourself on a regular basis is hard. I know a lot of professional musicians in the classical world. They get up, and they practice their music every day for hours – it isn't even a question. And this is the same for an athlete. In my training with students, I frequently use those two analogies.

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This interview was recorded in June, 2015.