Three (Non)Acting Books Every Actor Should Read
There’s More to the Craft than the Craft
The problem with actors is we tend to silo ourselves off from the early days of theatre geeks touting the brilliance of Shakespeare and the genius of Rogers and Hammerstein to the latter years of MFA students writing dissertations on what kind of wood was used at the Globe and the proper mask to wear when performing authentic Gypsy commedia on the third day of the month on a leap year.
While the rest of the world is watching Rick and Morty or arguing over the latest Tiger King episode, actors tend to be — at least before COVID — a bit out of the loop.
Rather than reflect those around us, we tend to seek out a tribe. Yet, the goal is to live life visibly, represent something unreal honestly, on stage or in front of a camera. No, everything comes back to the theatre.
Try as we might, life keeps on moving, and there are things we need to know outside of the proscenium. How to perform verse is well and good, but it won’t help you do your taxes, let alone start a business. And although year after year some new graduate tries to start a vogue Shakespeare company, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good business model.
Therefore, we have to expand our horizons. If creatives are always thinking outside the box, then sometimes we need to look inside the box. Below are three books to check out that will help you in life and your career and have nothing (intentionally) to do with theatre, acting, or film.
1. The Inner Game of Tennis
Hailed by golf pros and country club teachers alike, this book is essentially a guide to meta-learning or learning about learning. Timothy Gallwey discovered an unusual problem. As a lifelong tennis instructor, his students seem to get better the less he helped.
Intrigued by this, Gallwey began to study this process and developed a theory that launched sports psychology.
No one teaches us to walk. No one teaches to talk. We observe, and we listen, then we mimic those around us.
Human beings possess mirror neurons, or simplistic terms “Monkey see, monkey do.” The most powerful tool we have at our disposal is our brain is a fantastic Xerox machine (for those born after 1990, that’s a copier).
Every parent can tell you if they try and teach their youngest one their Grandpa’s name, they won’t repeat it. Say a cuss word in a moment of rage, and it will be repeated like a parrot.
For Gallwey, no matter what drill he taught his student or what clever phrase he came up with to coach the proper serve, his students would always do better the less he did. They had an innate ability to copy his swing, without coaching, rather than work it out manually in their head.
He termed these functions “Self 1” and “Self 2.” Had Freud played Tennis, he would have called this the “Conscious” and the “Sub-conscious.” Self 1 is the thinking part of our brain, and Self 2 is the primal, reptilian brain. While the first likes to pretend it is learned and capable of anything, it is the latter that can ace a serve.
The short and skinny, don’t outthink the room. Often, actors are over-educated, under-valued artists who love to analyze and rehearse. Yet, the job is not brain science. We are mimickers by nature and mimickers by profession. Sometimes, the best course is to simply get out of your own way.
2. Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Talk to an artist about finances for more than five minutes, and chances are their eyes will glaze over unless someone gets betrayed, backstabbed, or openly killed in a public forum by Senators. Still, as Raphael Sabatini’s hero, Andre Moreau, says in Scaramouche, “There is a business side to your art.”
Actors are entrepreneurs. We are in the service industry. Sometimes, if the product is hot enough, we move from the service industry into the goods industry, but we fulfill a need most of the time. Ultimately, try as we might avoid it, all actors must learn the business side of the industry.
Whether a producer fails to pay you, an agent tries to swindle you, or Hollywood accounting tells you that you owe them money for the movie you were in, business is a part of the dream.
Until we learn this, we are doomed to be at the mercy of those with the means of production (don’t worry, this is not a Marxist manifesto, hell, I’m plugging a book by Robert Kiyosaki). An actor may fight the good fight. They may turn into activists. They may try and stick it to the man, but the entertainment industry hasn’t changed in the last 100 years, showing no sign of turning anytime soon.
So what does this self-help book from the 90s like was likely sitting on your lawyer father’s nightstand have to do with acting? Nothing. Literally, nothing. This book is about changing your mindset.
In essence, Kiyosaki tells the story of two mentors (hint it’s in the title). One father teaches engrains in him the secrets and the habits to be wealthy, and one repeats the patterns of poverty.
Investing in real estate is not the reason for reading this book; it’s to unlearn the habits that inflict poverty on so many artists. The bohemian lifestyle stopped being cool since before Agatha Christie started killing off erudite elites. Yet, we continue to perpetuate the idea that artists should starve for the love of the art, and to try and succeed or monetize your creations is somehow damnable.
While you can’t make a living in the arts, you can certainly make a killing; the point is that artists must learn to both creative for passion and for profit in this day and age.
3. The 48 Laws of Power
If there was a handbook for understanding Shakespeare, Robert Greene’s love letter to the entertainment industry is it. Written out of spite for all the backstabbing and underhanded power grabs he witnesses while trying to become a screenwriter, Greene’s book is a historical waltz through the rise and fall of great men and women.
This book is literally about tactics. Every intention, every move, every lustful grab for the crown can be broken down into the laws of power.
When dealing with classical works or melodrama, it always comes down to tactics. Why does my character do what they do? Why do they act the way they act?
Men like Richard the III or Macbeth suddenly come to light when compared to the Borgias or King Louis XVIII. The more we understand those crafty dagger-tongued demons, the more we can treat them honestly.
Each chapter is littered with great quotes and ideas about history’s best (and worst) masters, manipulators, conquerers, courtesans, and kings. Although he never intended it to be, this book might as well go hand in hand with the likes of An Actor Prepares and might as well be your personal cheat code for understanding history’s greatest cons and kings (as well as some of the moves of people in your own industry).