Brian: I ask you to do 3 things: Cold read aloud thirty minutes every day. If you think you know how to cold read you probably don’t. So, when class is over you guys visiting today will get a handout from Mr. Keating or Mr. Abner or Miss Jill and it will tell you exactly what to do to practice cold reading. I, I… if you don’t study here, that’s your call. But even if you don’t practice cold reading every day. It’s a skill that helps you have great strength when you audition and you (indicating to Charlie) were just at an open audition. More and more are going to be in person now. Things are opening up a lot. You know. It’s been very convenient for a lot of casting people to go ahead and use self-submissions but producers and directors are getting a little tired of that. More and more is going to be in person. So, cold read aloud thirty minutes a day.
Work on you five senses all the time. And I had somebody relatively new last night say, “What does that mean?”. You all know what your five senses are, right? Right? Okay, so, there’s a difference in the way you pick up a hot drink and a cold drink. Know that difference. There’s a difference in the way you eat a tuna sandwich or a hot dog. Know that difference. If you’re right-handed, brush your teeth with your left hand. Feel the difference. Everybody has a little workstation at home, right? Desk, office, whatever. Take everything out of the drawers and mix it all up. I know. It’s scary, isn’t it? I, I just did that in our new place. I just did that. Oh, it’s scary. Now I don’t know where anything is. But I have to think about where everything is. Using my senses. Okay? Does everybody understand what now “work on your five senses”… When you’re in your car instead of listening to some silliness on the radio, turn the radio off and watch the couple next to you. See if they are having a good day or a bad day. If it’s a nice sunny day watch the way people walk across the street. If it’s a cold windy day watch the way people walk across… if it’s a rainy, and it’s been raining here for four or five days, you just get a boat and float across the street. Welcome to LA. We’re not used to air. I mean rain. Or air. Good air. (Chuckles.) Uh, so, do that.
The other thing I say is stay in good shape for your body type. I never tell anyone to gain weight or lose weight. It’s none of my business. However, you gotta be in good shape for your body type. You just heard what Charlie said and what Jill said. Fourteen hours. Sixteen hours. Okay. If you’re not in good shape you can’t last a full day of shooting. Uh, on “The Secrets of Isis”, the show I starred in for several years back in the seventies, uh, we worked sixteen to eighteen hours a day, every day six days a week because it was a location show, not an in studio show. In studio shows, they can only work you five days. But a location show that shoots… it’s the same thing with a movie, by the way… if you’re on location shooting a movie, they can work you six days a week. So, you gotta be in good shape. So, that’s enough of that.