(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best acting & auditioning books

If you can afford a Macbook Pro and the Final Cut Pro Software this is a great book that'll get you through the basics easily. I switched from Avid to FCP using it and it was pretty painless. Stay away from FCP X though. It's gonna be a while before they get that one where it needs to be.

As far as the creative aspect of editing the only real way to learn any filmmaking craft is to do it. But there are some great books that did a better job than any of my professors did. This is the best book on editing I've come across. I just got it recently but it would have been really nice to have it back when I started. And this is my favorite directing book. It's written by a film professor but it does a beautiful job of breaking down the creative process. And The Film Director's Intuition is a great place to start with how to work with actors.

For lighting I'd recommend Matters of Light & Depth by Ross Lowell and Film Lighting by Kris Malkiewicz.

Also indispensable is The Pocket Lawyer For Filmmakers.

Those are all great books chock full of practical advice. And if you're interested in screenwriting Story by Robert McKee is pretty amazing. People shit all over that guy but nobody teaches story structure better than him.

Alright, I haven't booked any voice over gigs yet, but I know a couple of people in this industry...
Step one: First thing you need to do is get some good acting and voice training. Learning to project one's voice and change it; learning how to take direction and how to read for a part, these are key elements of the profession. It is best to learn to your find your range, and learn to be creative too--how does your "angry old Martian prospector" character sound next to your "Guy getting a cashiers check at the bank on a Tuesday morning?" Listen to the radio commercials and VO's on tv and movies as well. Record yourself. Oh shit, do I really sound like that? Check this out: How to Develop A Manly Voice | Art of Manliness: http://youtu.be/z4SW_xMueXU.

Why do we love the likes of Morgan Freeman or Keith David?

Step two: there are some helpful books out there, but this one in particular was recommended to me by a voice acting agency rep at a workshop. Amazon link http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1932907904?pc_redir=1405446101&robot_redir=1

Step three involves making a demo which I understand to be an expensive, meticulous process--though a necessary one you really want to get represented through an agency. Expect to invest at least 450$ into this endeavor--though likely more. You cannot get away with just speaking into smartphone voice recorder app in your hall closet, reading a fake mattress ad your "creative neighbor" Weasel (fuckin' Weasel) thought up. No. A good demo consists of you reading a bunch of professionally written copies, recorded on studio equipment. You have to exhibit the quality and character of your voice on that professional and convincing level. Anything sub par is cause for someone at an agency to skip over your demo and listen to another actor's. You cannot expect to snag those big, professional, auditions for radio, tv, movies, and new media stuff without an agent. They get your demo to the people who are casting for the voice in the toothpaste ad, or that pilot for a kid's show. Remember these are the jobs that can pay really well, but are difficult to book on your own.


Be aware: voice acting and voice over is a very difficult industry to break into, but once you're in--implying you hustle and audition for everything you can book--more consistent gigs will follow over time as you mature as an artist, grow your demo reel, and build your resume. Good luck, hope this helps!

*edit: words and clarity

First, I listened to this from the mindset of a casting agent. From that perspective, I stopped after the Pet Meds spot sounded exactly like your slate.

Then I listening to this from a fellow VO, here's some suggestions:

It sounded like you did the entire thing in one sitting. This is bad. I know this is just a quick sample to show us here, and that's fine. As a general rule, each spot needs to sound like it was recorded at different times in different studios, with different mics, and engineered by different engineers. You want it to sound like the demo is made up of actual commercials playing on the air that you've cut and pasted together.

What are you shooting for with your future career? Do you want to do character-based stuff for anime and cartoons or commercial stuff? This demo was sort of a weird mashup of the two niches mixed together.

Actually that got me thinking: You COULD do a whole demo reel of character voices doing commercial spots that are ridiculously out-of-character for the copy the voices are reading: A Brooklyn accent for a Victoria's Secret spot - a snooty English accent for a Mexican restaurant, a happy, kid-friendly voice for a monster truck rally, etc. If you can pull the character voices off believably (and that is the key) then this would definitely be memorable to an agent or casting director. A little secret: if you can make em laugh, you get remembered and doing something like this would definitely be different to the person listening.

The key to doing this is to pull off solid, believable character voices. Your accents and affectations need to be spot-on exact. If you cant do a particular voice believably, dont include it.

However doing a demo like that could also backfire. The agent wouldn't know how to place you. They'd be saying, "Is he wanting to do commercial work or character stuff? I dont know."

Technically speaking, your mic needs some EQ. The sound was very harsh in the mid-range area and not much in the lower frequencies. A little EQ and compression would help.

I hear a little bit of room tone. Overall this isnt too offensive, but you should try to go for as dead of a sound as possible.

I put together a list of tips and suggestions for new voice artists on creating their demo. Some of the things I already mentioned here, but there's a lot more included.

I know you are looking for a coach right now, but do everything you can to learn as much as you can BEFORE you get a coach. If you are aiming for character stuff, read Yuri and Tara's book, "Voice-Over Voice Actor." It will give you some insight into the world of voice acting.

And a great all-around textbook (pretty much the bible for VO, really) is Jame's Alburger's "The Art of Voice Acting" which has tips, techniques, and more information than you could imagine about getting started and doing things the right way the first time.

There are a ton of resources out there that can help you.

I'd also look into Voice Over Club Its sort of a good entry-level start to professional coaching. They have a monthly fee and have several training courses laid out like e-learning modules. Its very affordable and a good way to start out. From there, you can start looking for one-on-one coaching.

Also, dont overlook classes in your area. Stage acting, improv, comedy classes, etc are all really good resources to learn the fundamentals needed for the business.

And lastly, don't forget about /r/recordthis. This is a great way to practice, get advice from peers and maybe even make a couple of bucks.

Hope this info helps you. If this is something you want to do...REALLY want to do, then jump in head first. Keep pushing yourself. Keep learning and growing. Dont give up.

Not on a very regular schedule, but yes. I'm happy to hear that -- now you simply must read Johnstone's books! :-)

Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre is his first book, and more "theoretical", I would say (that is, using improvisational theatre as a vehicle for expressing ideas that apply in many other contexts). It discusses (to repeat my other post) teaching, human interaction, creativity/spontaneity, storytelling, self-perception, among other things; it demonstrated (directly, to me) things about my own (creative) thought process, which is always fun.

Impro for Storytellers is his other book, which is more "practical" (that is, several chapters that are lists of exercises with discussion) and more focused on theatre, which is why I didn't name it initially. Even so, it's a great book to read even without ever performing directly, just to understand oneself and the process involved.

In a way improvisation has a lot to do with Taoism (as I understand them), and I appreciate them for similar reasons, like constant doublethink/unthink, living in real-time, and acceptance of the irrational/imagination (which is a surprisingly difficult thing).

(After you read these books, by the way, your opinion on them would always be appreciated. :-) )

(On mobile so I'm sorry if things are messed up)

Hey there. I also suffer from anxiety and depression, and I'm quite shy as well. I find acting very therapeutic. I'm not in theatre for just that reason, but it certainly helps.

Although yes, theatre and acting is a group and collaborative art there are lots of exercises you could do by yourself that many actors use, especially in the area of understanding your emotions and being more in tune with them. Many of these I use myself not just for acting, but to help my mental health as well.

I would first suggest checking out the book Mindful Way Through Depression I would actually recommend this book to any actor. It helps me be aware of my emotions and helps me when I'm having a particularly hard time. Also Respect for Acting which is an actor book. I recommend this one because it may help to see how universal the emotions of fear, embarrassment and so on, are and to help raise your emotional intelligence. There are actor exercises in this book you may find really silly, but they may be worth trying out.

I'd also recommend yoga and meditation. Not all across do these but I know many that do. They help ground you and get more in touch with the "self" and all that jazz.

Lastly, read a lot of plays. Check out Next to Normal. It's a musical about mental illness. The whole thing can be found on YouTube.

Read Shakespeare. It's hard to read at first yes, but the more you give to Shakespeare the more he'll give back to you. You'll discover a lot about the human condition and probably a lot about yourself as well.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I hope this helps.

I really wonder sometimes how people would have seen Six Feet Under if it would've aired a few years later, when we got used to genuinely great TV shows. Back then there were barely any worth mentioning (other than certain other HBO shows), but today there's almost too many great shows out there.

And I feel like Six Feet Under would've been mentioned right among the likes of Breaking Bad or Mad Men as one of the all-time greats. But now the show is in this odd spot of being some kind of barely known insider tip that very few people have watched, even on here, despite its outstanding quality.

Also, if you are a big fan of the show, do yourself a favor and have a look at the companion book, Six Feet Under: Better Living Through Death. It's not one of those books that's a bunch of screenshots from the show with some unimportant accompanying text. It's 100% new, original content in the form of (fictional) newspaper articles, handwritten letters from and to the main characters throughout their lives, ads, etc.

Want to read Claire's short stories mentioned in the show? Love letters between Nathaniel and Ruth while he was in Vietnam? Excerpts from that book about Brenda? It's all there. It's amazing how much effort went into that book.

It's wonderful to hear that you have an interest in his works! If you want a great place to start, I'd recommend going right to the source: An Actor Prepares. That is his famous work, it's the book that did it all. It's actually a surprisingly easy and very fun read, if at times somewhat confusing. You can see the basis for his ideas very clearly. I will say this though: it reads more like a work of philosophy than anything else. Notes on the translation: there are two major versions out: the one I linked you to, which is similar to how it was originally published, and a new one, more reflective of how Stanislavski wished the book published. The Benedetti translation is harder to read (as it includes sections that were taken out specifically for readability), but more academically interesting.

Other good reads are his autobiography, which is very open and contextualizes his later work beautifully, and Benedetti's work, focusing on the writing of An Actor's Work.

For a complete picture of 20th century acting theory, I would also look into Strasberg and Meisner.

Here are two screenwriting books that I really love that don't get a lot of love:

Writing for Emotional Impact and The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters by Karl Iglesias. Those two go pretty unnoticed but are really insightful.

I also really enjoy:

Directing Actors: Creating Memorable Performances for Film & Television and The Film Director's Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques by Judith Weston. It really helped give me an understanding on how actors look to find their performances and has really informed how I write both dialogue and character actions.

Let the Crazy Child Write!: Finding Your Creative Writing Voice by Clive Matson is great for just untethering your inner critic in some ways.

Lastly, a bit of an unexpected one The Definitive Book on Body Language which gives some interesting insight on how people behave.

I'm a playwright, not an actor, but I've been studying acting to better understand the actor. All I've been doing is reading books on acting and thinking about their role as creative artists. The Actor's Art and Craft: William Esper Teaches the Meisner Technique is a particularly impressive book which increases my respect for actors.

Actors seem to be much more focused on revealing their true emotions and making contact with the audience than in assuming different identities. William Esper emphasizes that the actor lives in his or her imagination.

If you really think you want to be a voice actor, then I would recommend you either read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Voiceovers-Everything-About-Money-Voice/dp/1932907904/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406763796&sr=8-1&keywords=terri+apple

Or this:

http://www.amazon.com/Voice-Over-Voice-Actor-What-Behind/dp/0984074007/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406763812&sr=8-1&keywords=voice+over+voice+actor

These both do a good job of explaining what it really means to be a voice actor (turning yourself into a small business).

Taking regular acting lessons is probably your best bet. There isn't really a "voice acting school" that you can go to besides something like Voice Coaches http://voicecoaches.com/ (who are actually pretty good and have a bunch of online courses for you and help you make a demo [a demo being recordings of you reading things so clients can hear what you sound like]).

Also, you need to learn how to "read conversationally," which basically means being able to read in such a way that you don't sound like you're reading off a script. I would actually say that simply being able to read conversationally is more important than being able to act, since a majority of voice work is not for movies or animated features, its for things like commercials, instructional videos, automated messages, etc.

Look to the right of your screen and down a little bit.

Based on your recent post, I feel like you're looking for a training program in book form. The UCB Manual is the most comprehensive and closest thing to that, but take it all with a grain of salt as at a certain point it does start teaching the UCB style. Novices may take some things to mean these are this-is-the-only-way-to-do-things hard and fast rules, but it's just the way to play their aesthetic. Be open to other possibilities.

Some books, like the recent Will Hines book or Napier's Improvise, are very good but I recommend them after you've done a bit of improv. Same with this, this, and this.

Johnstone's Impro is great for a peek into story-based
British style improv. His passages on status are invaluable.

I personally don't care for Huack's Long-Form Improv, mostly because at the beginning of the book he tries to distill all improv comedy down into an equation, which is way too simplified for my tastes. Improv Wins is a decent, breezy book, but I don't like how they pose scenario questions and then suggest that there is a "correct" response you should make. Still, if you can glean insight from a book, even an understanding of disagreement, then that makes the book valuable in some way.

The only real way to learn improv is to do it and not be afraid to make mistakes and missteps along the way. You will not get improv right the first time.

I think you're on the right track, definitely spend time modeling and animating before leaving your current job.

I would recommend getting started doing modeling and rigging yourself (then feel free to use pre-built rigs and such if you want). This is basically just so you know what's going on behind the scenes of rigs you'll use in the future. Even if you never create a model or rig throughout your career as an animator at a studio (which many times may be the case), you'll have the knowledge to communicate with modelers / riggers to get what you need to animate.

For animation, I do think it's worthwhile to have some experience in 2D animation (a little easier to get started in and helps you practice fundamentals you'll end up using in 3D) Acting for Animators, Animators Survival Kit, and Drawn to Life are all highly recommended books for 2D animation. Oh, and good news! you can practice all the fundamentals of animation with stick figures!

On that note, I would highly recommend practicing drawing. Ctrl+Paint has some decent video things on drawing and painting. While you don't need to be Da Vinci to go into modeling / animation (I'm not great at drawing / painting myself) it does help to be able to sketch out quick ideas (concepts for models, storyboards, etc). Just a little practice each day goes a long way!

As far as 3D software goes, it depends on where you work what you'll use, but the fundamentals will all be roughly the same. The company I work at uses Motion Builder for our animation, though I primarily use Maya for any work (and I know plenty of people using 3DS Max, Blender, and other software for the whole process). Some companies may even use proprietary software that you have no access to outside of the company and will expect you to learn it after being hired. Just stick with whatever you use, learn it well and you'll be able to transfer that knowledge into whatever software you'll need in the future

TL;DR Take your time, learn some 2D animation, draw stuff, and learn a 3D modeling / animation program like the back of your hand.

PS. I know a lot of people say you don't NEED 2D animation, and I'm not saying you NEED to know it, it's just useful.

Improvising Now Rob Norman’s Book, coupled with the podcast the backline is a great resource. I have taken workshops from Rob and Adam and they know their stuff. They are masters of the craft.

How to be the greatest improviser on earth by Will Hines, coupled with his blog “improv nonsense” is also great. Will Hines is one of the most clear articulate thinkers in the improv world. He has the ability to distill the most complex ideas into simple bite sized packets.

Improvise by Mick Napier is a classic. Great for an intermediate player because his ideas and concepts come up all the time.

Podcasts worth checking out: Beat by beat, the backline, improv nerd, and the ask the UCB episodes of I4H.

I’ve read a lot of improv books, but those are the ones I love. Their usefulness never ceases.

Ah yes, I've owned The Animator's Survival Kit for a few years now. Fantastic read, I've also been meaning to check out Acting for Animators. Sorry, I should've given more information about my level of understanding with animation. I had a mentor in high school that gave me a great headstart with animation. Thank you for the advice, very much appreciated.
Edit: Also, I just checked out your animation Circle Fury. You're very talented, bravo.

You're right, that is a very, very broad question. It's similar to asking "what's the full range of what you would learn at a conservatory/MFA program?" or something similar. You could check out Stanislavski's work. It's comprehensive. There's a new consolidated translation of what used to be two books, now called An Actor's Work. That would be a great place to start.

The answer to your question will vary from actor to actor and from role to role. Generally there's a lot of script analysis, learning as much as you can about your character from the script itself. What he does, what he says, what others say about him. Making decisions about what he's trying to accomplish, what he wants, what's driving him, what's holding him back. If it's a historical character or one who can be compared to a historical character, then you can do some research there. You can explore how they may move and speak differently than you normally move and speak, and incorporate that. It may not be different, but I think it's always worth considering.

There's obviously much more to it than that, exploring in rehearsal (a given for stage, not necessarily for camera work) and dealing honestly with your partners and letting them affect you and allowing your impulses to come out freely.

Improv by Keith Johnstone is a great book, not only for improv/acting, but also for creating characters and dialogue, and even just for how you act in everyday life.

It has a fantastic section on status transactions, which can really help bring conflict and tension into scenes that might otherwise be just people talking. Basically, people talking are always jostling for position on who's in control, who's the coolest, who's the smartest, who gets what they want, so every piece of dialogue should be them raising or lowering their own status, or raising or lowering someone else's status.

This explains why Chandler and Joey in Friends work so well - Chandler generally tries to lower other people's status through his snarky comments, and usually ends up lowering his own status from his self-putdowns. Joey tries to raise his own status but ends up unintentionally lowering it because he says/does idiotic things.

The best example I can think of for a high-status player in a comedy is Lord Flashheart from Blackadder. WOOF!

I just got "Accents: A Manual for Actors" recently, and I've been devouring it. You might like it! It goes into way more detail than I was expecting, and though Blumenfeld doesn't use IPA, he has a pretty good replacement system. It's always been a personal dream of mine to be Henry Higgins "when I grow up," and be able to tell where someone is from based on their accent. :)

I found Accents: A Manual For Actors to be rather helpful.

Sometimes being able to see the words phonetically written out can help me get into an accent. Also having a key phrase that you say out loud before a performance to kind of "turn the accent on" helps me. Though in "It's A Wonderful Life:A Live Radio Play" I had 13 different voices in one performance so there were multiple phrases I would just have to quickly say in my head before switching to the next accent.

I still have problems with Australian, Irish and Boston accents. The vowels have just been hard to wrap my head around.

Practice! Don't be afraid to talk to yourself out loud. If you want to be an actor, don't worry about looking crazy :)

If you're taking the improv route, you may want to try The Second City Almanac of Improvisation or the Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual. Both really great improv 'guides'.

If your friend hasn't read Truth in Comedy, that's a serious must for any comedic performer.

Agree. Like the fear of heights, it doesn't go away. One just learns to trust their skills as one gains experience. Here is a great book for actors that applies to any kind of performer or presenter: [True and False by David Mamet] (http://www.amazon.com/True-False-Heresy-Common-Sense/dp/0679772642)

Thanks again! Moved this post to here instead.

I think what would help me most is this book. One of the things I'd really like to do someday is voice acting, and this book seems to be highly recommended to people looking into that field. I've got plenty of more fun things, but this would be actually helpful.

I thoroughly enjoyed Jenna Fischer's book The Actor's Life (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Actors-Life-Survival-Guide/dp/1944648224&ved=2ahUKEwiQnfrKr8LkAhUqmuAKHdwTCR0QFjALegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw0SG7eDGq925-1RP74aBdSB). She shares some great stories about The Office in it.

It may sound bizarre, but a good actor doesn't act. He just goes about his life infusing his own mechanics and behavioral traits to his character. While I can't attest to theatre, for film/tv as soon as an actor steps into the casting office they go into "actor mode" where nothing they do is natural but instead cued up and ready to regurgitate whatever they need to do whether lines or movements. Best book I ever read that discusses this is AN ACTOR PREPARES.

This is a little unconventional, but bear with me: True and False, by David Mamet. Mamet is a playwright turned screen writer and True and False is essentially his treatise on the relationship between the actor and the script. He is writing primarily as a playwright to a stage actor audience, but if you take it with a grain of salt, and read a few of Mamet's plays as well, you'll get a sense for how important it is to write natural dialogue.

The first thing that comes to mind is "Audition" by Michael Shurtleff. A good chunk in there is how to break down a monologue in moments and beats although he's specifically talking about this in relation to the audition process.

If you've already gotten the part and are looking for another great book about the different parts of a script, or how to break down a monologue (from an Actor's view, but I think it translates to the writing process) I would read "Respect for Acting" by Uta Hagen.

Audition can be found here

and

Respect for Acting

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amazon.co.uk

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Most of your time playing a character with lines on a show of film will be sitting down in your trailer, or in the green room, or in a holding area for the 'talent'.

For a really good step by step guide to being an actor, I once again CANNOT RECOMMEND ENOUGH Jenna Fischer's book 'The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide

It's LITERALLY the best book you can read on how to become an actor, from performing for your parents in the backyard to being on a film set

The archetypal BBC British/English accent is RP, Received Pronunciation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation

That would be a good one to learn because they teach it in UK drama schools so there are existing learning resources, like this one - http://www.amazon.com/Access-Accents-Received-Pronunciation-training/dp/0713685042/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253259741&sr=8-1 - I kind of doubt anyone is going to publish a TY course for estuary or brummie or whatever any time soon.

Also, if you can identify a particular well known news reader (e.g. Jeremy Paxman) or actor (e.g. Patrick Stewart) whose accent you like you can probably find a bunch of clips of them on youtube and start imitating them.

Get a learning edition of Maya for free off autodesk's website, get some free rigs off creativecrash.com. Then you need Animators Survival Kit, Acting for Animators, then Timing for Animators. Then practice for years

I have the same problem - I always wish I had a print of some sort for my walls. The only SFU things I have aside from the box set are this book and then the Rittenhouse trading cards.

And by the way, I highly recommend getting a copy of that book if you don't have it. It's great.

Hiya, not bad! It's always a bit tricky with "British" English because that could mean about a million things. I think you're probably aiming for RP though if you're mimicking Emma Watson. Two things to think about:

1 RP is a very forward accent, you want it to resonate around about the teeth or, in some cases, even in front of the lips. Practise this by starting a hum and moving the hum forward and back in the mouth. Listen to Emma or someone like her, Daniel for instance, hesitating (err, umm, etc) as that will be her neutral sound. Interviews are a good place to find this kind of natural sound.

2 RP has a distinctly fluid tune. Listen to people speaking but try and ignore the words, just listen to the music of their voices. Americans tend (with many many exceptions of course) to work on a staircase (I go along and then I go UP FOR A BIT AND then back down), RP speakers are more of a rollercoaster, we're very liquid.

You've got a lot of good sounds, particularly well done on not pronouncing your r's, that's tricky. Keep it up! If you want some resources, check out the Access Accents programme: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0713685042

And for native speaker examples, you can't beat IDEA: http://www.dialectsarchive.com/

Interesting read. I still find that sometimes in conversation I don't know where to go. I'm not really aware of these ideas and randoms feels/sounds/images/experiences/questions floating around in my head, so I need to try and identify and bring them out more in conversation I guess. It's weird: some people I fall into rapport naturally with, others I feel like I have to make a conscious effort otherwise there are too many long silences. I really want to work on building rapport with the latter because otherwise I feel that I'm putting myself at a disadvantage.

On a somewhat related note, I was recommended this book: "Impro" by Keith Johnstone. but I haven't got around to reading it yet. I'll feed back to the sub when I do, it might have some useful stuff in it.

Good advice, but those aren't the best translations of Stanislavski. This more modern version is supposedly much truer to the original. There's also a reading list in the sidebar.

How to be the Greatest Improviser on Earth by Will Hines

In that case, I suggest you read up on Constantin Stanislavski and his best known work An Actor Prepares. Stanislavski invented a technique called Method Acting, and is considered the most famous acting coach of all time to my knowledge.

I’ve been wanting to check that out! He also wrote this book that sounds interesting as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Maybe-Well-Have-You-Back/dp/1620877066

Well sense memory and all that isn't necessarily any older. But that's a different story.

Nothing can really compare to actually being in a class and doing it. But reading in general is good. I will suggest William Esper's The Actor's Art and Craft as a good place to start. Also based on its name you'll be tempted to buy the other book too, but don't, it'll just confuse you.

These books have helped me a lot over the years.

Keith Johnstone - Impro

Sanford Meisner - On Acting

Laurence Olivier - On Acting

David Mamet - True and False

Fred Stoller maybe? I guess he kinda looks like John Tuturro, but he's certainly guest starred on practically everything. (He even has a book called Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star)

Impro by Keith Johnstone is invaluable, and gets across what it needs to without veering into technical or academic language very much. Also, just a good read in general.

Fred Stoller is a good example of this phenomenon. He even draws attention to it.

Another freebie that came up on the Mark Twain listing is:

William Shakespeare: The Complete Works (Illustrated)

https://www.amazon.com/William-Shakespeare-Complete-Works-Illustrated-ebook/dp/B07NCXYXPM

I'm seriously considering buying his book, to be honest.

The accent with the largest corpus of study materials will be RP - received pronunciation. There are lots of videos about it on youtube, and audio courses like this one.

https://www.amazon.com/Actors-Life-Survival-Guide/dp/1944648224/

Get these books by David Mamet:
Three Uses of The Knife, and True and False: heresay and common sense for the actor

https://www.amazon.com/Actors-Life-Survival-Guide/dp/1944648224

Jenna's book: https://www.amazon.com/Actors-Life-Survival-Guide/dp/1944648224

Fred Stoller. He wrote a book called Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star.

https://www.amazon.com/Maybe-Well-Have-You-Back/dp/1620877066

oh and a few more books I just thought of, don't bother with any other books than these as most of them are crap:

http://www.amazon.com/Force-Dynamic-Drawing-Animators-Second/dp/0240808452/ref=pd_sim_b_11

http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Characters-Personality-Animation-Graphic/dp/0823023494/ref=pd_sim_b_13

http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Staring-Facial-Modeling-Animation/dp/0470609907/ref=pd_sim_b_19

http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Worlds-Production-Design-Animation/dp/0240520939/ref=pd_sim_b_23

http://www.amazon.com/ILLUSION-LIFE-DISNEY-ANIMATION/dp/0786860707/ref=pd_sim_b_20

http://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240811070/ref=pd_sim_b_7

http://www.amazon.com/Film-Directing-Shot-Visualizing-Productions/dp/0941188108/ref=pd_sim_b_24

http://www.amazon.com/Acting-Animators-Revised-Performance-Animation/dp/032500580X/ref=pd_sim_b_46

http://www.amazon.com/Vilppu-Drawing-Manual-Glenn/dp/1892053039/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330652274&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Artistic-Anatomy-Practical-Art-Books/dp/0823002977/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330652258&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Looney-Tunes-Dan-Romanelli/dp/B0032FO6G4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330652405&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Bridgmans-Complete-Guide-Drawing-Life/dp/0517255464/ref=pd_sim_b_95

And this book two of my teachers wrote, it has a lot of the concepts from the Ringling course: http://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Animated-Short-Finding-Building/dp/0240808606/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330651988&sr=1-2

Method acting was supposedly invented by Constantin Stanislavski. He has a trilogy of books on the subject, starting with An Actor Prepares (which really hammers in the core concept enough).

https://www.amazon.com/Actor-Prepares-Constantin-Stanislavski/dp/0878309837

People have misconstrued his message for ages since. To get in the mindset of a Black man (a Moor) for Othello, he put chocolate frosting on his face. Yes, his pivotal example was blackface. But he described acting savage and trying to get insider the head of the character. He IMAGINED he was that person to get in their head.

He didn't say he truly had to live his life and do everything that character said.

This notion that you can only portray being a taxi driver unless you drive a taxi is absurd. That is saying you can't play a killer unless you go kill people.

A method actor only needs to spend time analyzing the character and their motivations. If you keep asking "why" the character says and does what is in the script, you are better prepared to perform the role.

As obvious as that sounds, before Stanislavski, directors and actors apparently didn't discuss motive. At least there is no recorded history of them doing so.