never be nothing

           Never be nothing as an actor:

1. Don't seek ordinary, seek extraordinary.
2. Don't get little.
3. Don't just start playing dialogue.
4. Don't make it easy, audience won't watch. Find ways to make it fascinating.
5. Don't play the effect (you cry audience won't cry).
6. Don't be minimal.
7. Don't sound as natural as possible.
8. Don't throw lines away, make all of it valuable.
9. Don't be in control, don't pose.
10. Don't loud and soft acting: audience gets use to anything.
11. Don't try to shock audience.
12. Don't play the end.
13. Don't do hand acting. Audience will watch your hand.
14. Don't play conclusions.
15. Don't rationalize.
16. Don't do ordinary things.
17. Don't do unnecessary things, don't fuss.
18. Don't just walk over the diamond field and miss all the diamonds.
19. Don't be yourself with just emotion and objective, you must have the character's "who am I? going.
20. Don't get in the key of monotony.
21. Don't add embellishment.
22. Don't think lines.
23. Don't be cute, take out the improvements.
24. Don't visualize the character.
25. Don't make wrong assumptions.
26. Don't tell the audience how to react.
27. Don't do word, cue, word, cue. It won't look real.
28. Don't do the opposite to humanity.
29. Don't be subtle.
30. Don't have more fun than the audience.
31. Don't self indulge, remain the actor until you step up to the camera.
32. Don't walk like; see I'm interesting. Enter room thinking objective.
33. Don't think the story. Think what we want for the moment.
34. Don't lean toward other actor, have to reach them with your will.
35. Don't try to save the scene, while you are in it. It will only make you look worse.
36. Don't take the dialogue literally.
37. Don't look for the order. Order is only found in the plan, but doing it is not organized.
38. Don't play the lines on the page.
39. Don't play one key.
40. Don't pace just for the hell of it.
41. Don't be awed by playwright.
42. Don't bury the jokes, know when you want the audience to laugh.
43. Don't kill the moment with extra movement.
44. Don't yell it has no validity.
45. Don't act, just react. Audience will read all kind of things into it, don't act it.
46. Don't think of it as radio.
47. Don't pose, but feel.
48. Don't listen to yourself. Your voice.
49. Don't just jump into conversation.
50. Don't play Vaudeville.
51. Don't go beyond boundaries of reality.
52. Don't sacrifice characters for laughs.
53. Don't be a tragedy with a small voice, please don't mumble.
54. Don't act without feeling. Turn your talent loose.
55. Don't practice how you are going to say your lines.
56. Don't repeat something, go back to cause of it, when redoing a scene. Hoping your talent will even make it better.
57. Don't depend on word jokes.
58. Don't do it all at once.
59. Don't go plot.
60. Don't listen to Director in character.
61. Don't fall in love with one thing, try many different ways as an actor.
62. Don't play a character not knowing his situation. Read about times and places; make decisions.
63. Don't be an actor showing off...
64. Don't use your own behavior on every character.
65. Don't try and do a movie in two minutes.
66. Don't do cliches.
67. Don't just do things, they have to relate to the character.
68. Don't just walk over the land, find the gold mines.
69. Don't berate yourself, leave it to the critics.
70. Don't fall into traps of the scene (one is self-pity.)
71. Don't see your character and imitate him.
72. Don't do things under insecurity, audience is not interested in actor.
73. Don't hurry anything.
74. Don't show off your art. Just do it well -purist.
75. Don't abandon principles.
76. Don't show everything, so the audience doesn't see it all.
77. Don't make a final statement, audience makes its own conclusion.
78. Don't play even keyed. Don't be over decorative.
79. Don't be in a hurry to get to the dialogue, acting is behavior.
80. Don't wait for the Director to tell you anything. He doesn't have time.
81. Don't do two things at once.
82. Don't take the if out of it.
83. Don't make own assumptions.
84. Don't act all over the place, must affect audience.
85. Don't do shtick, do character.
86. Don't rob the audience.
87. Don't feel you have to act every moment.
88. Don't make it easy for yourself. Lead your character to a problem.
89. Don't be more moved than audience.
90. Don't do things for your own comfort.
91. Don't do vanity stuff.
92. Don't know the answer.
93. Don't make meaningless pauses.
94. Don't be logical, do opposites.
95. Don't play joke to joke.
96. Don't choice behavior that goes with dialogue.
97. Don't do tricky reading (say it in pain. Talk out of pain. Love is not smooth. Nothing will substitute for pain).
98. Don't  have your mouth doing one thing and your body doing another.
99. Don't look for 1+1=2/ Can't find answers with logic.
100. Don't turn playwrights word into breath. Fill a palace room with voice.
101. Don't have performance in mind, have character in mind.
102. Don't fall in love with your performance.
103. Don't make everything important.
104. Don't make every moment a gem.
105. Don't be self-indulgent as an actor.
106. Don't wipe yourself out. Take practical advice. It helps for you to look good for camera.
107. Don't tell the story of your life every moment.
108. Don't over act.
109. Don't make yourself endearing to audience.
110. Don't hurry on with next line.
111. Don't turn it into an opera of sense memory. Just enough to show you are cold, hot, etc.
112. Don't do seventy things at once, just do one thing well at a time.
113. Don't get ready to do anything, your body will do it.
114. Don't be conscience funny.
115. Don't go point to point.
116. Don't know where you're going in the scene, that is what life is about.
117. Don't have planned behavior.
118. Don't start seeing the character you will imitate the character. You start to walk next to character, turns actor into puppeteer.
119. Don't govern your performance.
120. Don't think how to do it during scene. Do it at home. You are trying to get a living moment.
121. Don't lose self confidence.
122. Don't always be touching something. You have to get used to the world of illusions.
123. Don't act in little pieces.
124. Don't ever make pictures, stay in character.
125. Don't look for psychological conclusions as an actor.
126. Don't be a character in your head, it will never show.
127. Don't create more depth in your character, than your character's got.
128. Don't confine people to sitting if possible.
129. Don't freeze a character to ride a laugh.
130. Don't try an act funny. It is serious work. Actor is in a state of mischief. Plan a prank on audience, it can't look planned.
131. Don't play line to line. Play difficulty to difficulty.
132. Don't make assumption about characters.
133. Don't have same rhythm or same tone throughout a scene.
134. Don't think words. Don't think business.
135. don't be a great actor. Don't be a great human being. Be as guiles as a child.
136. Don't do safe things.
137. Don't create movement for moment.
138. Don't just walk around to create movement. Legs won't make it better.
139. Don't let the audience anticipate what's going to happen.
140. Don't yell, it irritates audience after awhile.
141. Don't clown through farce.
142. Don't do the same things over from other parts, every project is new.
143. Don't think up clever things.
144. Don't repeat, to go back to what you did, but go back to what caused it. Your emotion and objective.
145. Don't have scene at one level; must have progression.
146.  

"In the end, it can't look like acting."