This is why I can't dance unless it's choreographed. I'm suddenly aware of my entire body and unable to make it do more than "look like many neurons misfiring all at once."
I used to work at a Shakespeare company, and we had a senior member who liked to say to young actors, moments before we made an entrance, "Don't think about your hands."
Absolutely. Someone did an analysis’s of Martin Freeman’s acting and my god the number of factors involved in a very plain scene of him doing nothing were crazy. The way he leans, uses his eyes and mouth and so many other micro expressions that contributed to making the scene normal.
It came up on YouTube sometime after his after his Fargo season. I can’t seem to find it now. It wasn’t a big channel I don’t think, maybe it’ll popup on my feed randomly again hopefully.
There’s a scene in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where he’s just walking into a room, but he’s doing this dopey little point with one finger and it’s very funny.
It's kind of harder to see in this YouTube transfer, but how Harrison Ford handles his hands in this scene while walking away from the tape machine made go "this guy is a genius". The way he leaves his fingers on it and then lets one stay on and then slide off was definitely intentional.
For people who dont know the movie, the whole premise of the move is based around the tape recording.
One thing I try to do, as a casual improv actor, is have a prop with my hands.
I did an audition tape for an unpaid thing recently, and I held a piece of paper that was supposed to look like a script, but had a visual joke printed on it.
When you have something to do with your hands, even to start with, it helps you know what to do with your hands when you don't have anything in them.
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u/Blockchains_Release 23h ago
Even just standing still and looking natural is surprisingly hard. The moment a camera is on you, you suddenly forget what to do with your hands.