Hi, my name is Kheira Bey and I am a professional actress living and workin in London and the
United Kingdom.
Today I have had the pleasure of training at really amazing establishments such as the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Sylvia Young Theatre School.
And I’ve also had the pleasure of selling out really amazing theaters in London such
as the Kingshead Theatre, Alcoa Theatre and Pleasant’s Theatre.
And so today I am going to be providing general advice to other actors about how to learn
lines really quickly, how to choose your maybe first headshot photographer, and also how
to earn more money to facilitate your acting career.
3 Tips for Memorizing Lines
Firstly, I know that learning lines is probably the most boring and possibly even stressful
part of an actor’s job.
Especially when you have less than 24 hours to learn a script or in my case I know I have
had to learn 18 pages of dialogue and I was given the script at 8:00 p.m. in the evening
and then had to audition at 7:00 a.m. the next morning in a Persian accent and I didn’t
even know what a Persian accent was.
And I had to learn how to do it.
So yeah I think generally there is some ways that I know I do in order to help learn lines
really quickly and efficiently.
So firstly, I think actors should always be reading whether this is books, plays, magazines,
newspaper articles (you know the free newspaper in the troupe) just because every time you
do that you are really strengthening the muscles up here because you are retaining all of that
information in such a condensed amount.
So then when you are actually faced with a script (a whole new piece of text) those muscles
are stronger and more stimulated.
So it’s kind of easier to absorb those lines more quickly.
And also the second part of reading for character preparation, I will read everything in order
to get in character for a role.
This might be radio pieces, recounts, diary entries (if I’m doing something really historical)
or anything really?
Like at the moment in my room at home I have fashion magazines from Russia (like replica
ones) because I was trying to get into character for a Russian girl like last week.
So I have that and if you’re more engaged with the kind of world you’re trying to
create the lines kind of sink in a bit easier because you’re owning them in your own way
and you’re just more connected to them.
The last way I like to learn lines is by focusing on movement memory and muscle memory and kind
of trying to challenge myself to kind of think how many ways I can learn my lines and get
that into my body so it can be by whispering them, shouting them, singing them, writing
them all the way out, doing them in as many accents as I can and doing them as if I’m
talking to a child or like a really, really old person just so that I am getting really
into my body.
So that my body will know how to do the lines when my mind forgets or I’m really tired
and can’t forget.
4 Tips On Finding The Right Headshot Photographer
Next I’m going to be talking about headshots.
So headshots are like this size [motions in a frame around face] and they are really important
because they get you in the room.
So first piece of advice like I understand they are really expensive for what they probably
are, but do not scrimp on headshots.
And so when you are going about photographers just remember that the casting director or
director, producer or whoever will be casting from about a hundred thumbnail images all
tiled on a computer screen.
So if your headshot doesn’t have your eyes sticking out on top of them and you know they
can have a massive screen full of so many people, I mean you’re probably not going
to get called in, sorry.
And also secondly when you are choosing your headshot photographer please remember to exhaust
all of your research methods.
Don’t just Google ‘Headshot Photographer’ and then whatever your city or town is because
chances are…yeah…that might be good but why don’t you actually go on an agency website
of actors who are actually booking jobs.
Have a look at their headshots and are they interesting, are they engaging, do you want
to put them in a room?
Then probably save that, save all of the names of the people that interest you and choose
whoever you want really.
Next I am going to talk about when I go into a headshot photographer’s website.
Okay, they might have loads of famous people they’ve taken pictures of which is great.
They are going to have them first because it obviously looks great for them.
But did the famous people actually look like you because remember that when you’re purchasing
headshots you don’t know in advance what they are going to look like so you’ve got
to really estimate what you might end up with at the end of the day.
So if I’m looking at a website and I see loads of male actors that are really famous
and standing out, I’m probably going to be a bit like “Well, I don’t really see
females so I can’t really estimate how myself could be interpreted as so just bear that
in mind.
Bear in mind that a fashion photographer is amazingly different from a headshot photographer.
So you’re not a model, you are an actor during the day, just bear that in mind when
you’re choosing your headshot photographer.
Ways To Earn Money While Pursuing An Acting Career
Lastly, if you’re young in your career (like perhaps me) and you’re thinking “How on
earth am I going to afford all these amazing headshots to get really amazing auditions
to also learn lines for?”
I have some money advice for you because we all need to do something I think on the side.
So you probably have a job already but that doesn’t stretch to extra classes, extra
plays, trips to Russia to get into character or Russian museums to get into character.
So firstly I want you to kind of think about doing something like writing or freelance
writing or blogging because a lot of actors currently do this and they have blogs where
they tell people about what they do and also share their skills and also expertise in their
field but a lot of actors don’t actually use Google Adsense or a similar kind of system
to put adverts on their sites and make more money out of it that way.
So I guess that’s something to kind of think about because that’s free money and you’re
not really doing anything in order to get the money so just think about it that way.
Also I know that quite a lot of actors share skills.
So it can be teaching, that can be…I like to run workshops for little kids.
Like I get paid to do that.
For me that’s just fun because I don’t really think of it as a job, I just get to
just hang around and play games with kids and watch them act, which is really, really
fun.
And also I know actors that share whatever skills they have so accents, languages, musical
instrument skills practically anything and you can also work whenever you want, flexible
hours which is great when you’ve kind of got auditions, rehearsals, classes, filming
all of that.
You can just earn money when you can.
And lastly, I just want you to kind of think about that you can practically do anything
for money, so you could be a hair model, you could drive for Uber, you could be a delivery
driver, you could be one of those people who literally get paid to take documents from
one building to another, there are so many different ways.
And really just research and have fun with it.