Hamlet's Advice to Actors, Applied to Your Self-Tape

In Act 3 of Hamlet, a group of traveling actors arrives at the castle. Before they perform, Hamlet gives them notes.

It is one of the rare moments where Shakespeare, an actor himself, talks shop. And the notes hold up. Swap the stage for a phone on a tripod and they read like feedback on a self-tape.

Two lines matter most.

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"Trippingly on the tongue"

Hamlet opens with this:

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue"

(William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2)

"Trippingly" means lightly and easily. Hamlet wants the words to come out as if the character is thinking them right now, not reciting them.

On a self-tape, the opposite is easy to spot. You can hear an actor who has run the lines so many times that every word gets the same weight. Or one who is working so hard on each line that the sentence stops sounding like speech.

What it looks like on tape:

• Know the lines cold, then stop polishing them. Memorize early so the words are automatic, then spend your rehearsal time on what the character wants, not on how each line sounds.
• Let the sentence lead. Aim each thought at the end of the sentence instead of hitting every word. Real people speed up, trail off and land on the idea that matters.
• Do not decorate. If you catch yourself adding a pause or a push just to make a line "interesting," take it out and see if the thought carries on its own.

"Suit the action to the word"

A few lines later, Hamlet adds:

"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action"

(Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2)

He means what you do and what you say should belong together. A gesture that fights the line, or a line said over a body that is doing something else, breaks the picture.

Self-tapes are usually framed from the chest up, so the camera sees everything your face and hands do. Small, unplanned movements read as big ones.

What it looks like on tape:

• Cut the extra gestures. Watch one take with the sound off. Any movement that does not come from the thought, like touching your hair, bobbing your head on every line, reaching for nothing, goes.
• Let a real action carry a line when it helps. If the character is putting something down, pick something up and put it down on the line. One true action beats five illustrative ones.
• Match your size to the frame. A close shot needs less. Hamlet's warning against overdoing it is even more true two feet from a lens.

A Five-Minute Hamlet Check Before You Submit

Before you send your next tape, watch it twice:

1. Sound on, eyes closed. Do the lines sound like thoughts or like recitation? Mark any line that sounds "performed."
2. Sound off, eyes open. Does every movement come from what you are saying? Mark anything that does not.
3. Fix one of each and record one more take. Do not change your whole interpretation, just the two marked moments.

Where ActorLab Fits

It is hard to hear your own delivery in the moment. ActorLab's Scene Partner reads the other side with timing you control, so you can run a scene as many times as you need and focus on keeping it light and specific.

Shakespeare wrote this advice for actors on a wooden stage. It works just as well for actors in a spare bedroom with a ring light.

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Quotes are from William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, following the 1604 Second Quarto (also the 1623 Folio) in modern spelling. The play is in the public domain.