Internal vs. External Acting – Stimulation vs. Simulation

First off, let’s start by examining thesomething real. All good drama schools and acting
meaning of internal, external, stimulation, andclasses know this.
simulation. It may seem obvious enough, butBy internal, we may think of the inside as
these four concepts are central in evaluating goodopposed to the outside of a book. The outside is
acting from mediocre acting or worse, muchthe cover, right? Usually it is an illustrative surface
worse... Though it may also seem obvious thatthat covers the content. Take that analogy a little
good acting, like great beauty, has to come fromfurther and you get an act that
inside to make the external shine,‘covers’ for something that
we’ve all seen bad acting enough tomay or may not be there.
know that not all acting training is on the sameGreat acting is about tapping into internal
page.resources, which we all have, and using it to the
Basically, internal means from the inside. Externalfullest. Acting from inside leads to believable
means from the outside. Stimulation means an actcharacters simply because the emotions are real.
that encourages a given response. SimulationThat shows – how could it not?
means an act that imitates the appearance of aHumans are very good at spotting emotional truth
given response.– they can be fooled, but only when
Now, let’s look at these conceptsthey allow themselves to be.
more closely to see how they apply to acting andThe most moving performances, the ones that
acting methods.really touch you, involve actors who bring
The external is all about surfaces.themselves – their emotions, their
That’s not necessarily a bad thingexperiences, their physicality – to the
– the external is a given and arole.
necessity for the actor. An actor showing up forMethod acting stimulates the process by insisting
a casting call, for example, automatically bringson truthfulness from every angle.
their external, visible selves. Strangers on theSimulation in acting is a sham, a pretense, a
street are seen externally for the most part.shortcut that will only lead to mediocre
It’ll take some kind of stimulationperformances at best. Stimulation, on the other
– an accident, a tantrum, a fighthand, comes with hard work and years of great
– to make the internal come out.acting lessons to perfect. The approach of
Method acting aims for stimulating the internal tomethod acting classes turns out to be one of the
come out also.most, if not the most, successful approaches for
With external acting, what you get is voiceinsisting on internally-driven acting brought to the
inflections, mannerisms, sad/happy faces,outside. (Marlon Brandon, Harvey Keitel, Denzel
presence if the actor is charismatic enough, andWashington, Ellyn Burstyn, Al Pacino, Sean Penn
other tools of projection. Don’t get me– the list goes on and on –
wrong – all these things are importantwere trained in The Method.)
for an actor. But not at the expense of theWhen it comes to solid method acting classes in
internal, the emotional truth from within. TheLondon, I am renowned for providing top level
external craft is there to support the internalinstruction. By stimulating your inner tools, not
characterization. They are not intended to coversimulating them.
up for - ‘simulate’ -