The Bold Acting Podcast

Reflections from Jason Bryden's More-than-just-an-Acting-Class class in Toronto.
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I'm an actor and a teacher in Toronto. But I don't just teach acting. I teach performance technique that everyone can use. Each week I'll publish an episode that covers the newsletter, everything we've been working on in class and all of the videos I've published on social media. All in one place. boldacting.substack.com

  1. 10/29/2025

    66. A Bug, not a Feature

    I spent this past week on the road with two dear, longtime friends as they needed some cheap labour for their comedy show they’re touring around Ontario. We improvised from Ottawa to Cornwall to Peterborough and back to Toronto. We stayed in Airbnbs, ate at questionable hours, didn’t sleep enough, and drove for days. We performed on nights there was a world series. We danced like monkeys for drunken animals. We took pictures after with the appreciative. We were making comedy in Canada and it was so much fun. There’s more. This Tuesday, November 4th, 2025, we’re screening all six episodes of a digital series three of us spent the last year-and-half making. It’s called Kensington Diner and it’s at the Paradise on Bloor here in Toronto. It’s about a down-and-out cook who opens a pop-up diner inside his ex’s occult bookstore. Don’t expect Hollywood. It has more heart, it’s more inclusive and it’s more Canadian which is a feature, of course, not a bug. As I write this, I’m at the library and a bug—a bumble bee—is leading a group of toddlers and caregivers in a rousing game of Ring around the Rosie. Obviously I’ve got something in my eye. That’s why they’re red and misting. Not because I miss the babies. Not because the young men in my house go to school of their own accord. I’m still needed … just in a different, less involved way. It’s fine. I’m fine. Out there in the hinterlands, outside my comfort zone, I met rural people and city people. The answer is exposure, I’d say. You meet people and then they’re not a stranger/threat/the other. You meet a farming couple married for 45 years. They’re funny and tired. You meet a group of twelve friends that take turns planning a monthly get-together and this month they chose your show. You meet the sister of a friend of yours from Vancouver who was instructed to attend. Which is what I am doing now to you. Attend the Kensington Diner screening Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. Doors open at 630pm. I hope you can make it. I want people to see it in the theatre. I’m not as interested in putting it online only for it to disappear into the modern media garbage gyre YouTube is. I wanted to make something people would watch together (and with me). I’m not going for “likes” or selling it or pitching someone with money and then having to listen to their suggestions. I just want to collaborate with the artists. I don’t need anyone’s permission anymore. Like that bumblebee over there. She’s doing it. She’s dressed as a bug and she’s buzzing around with a bunch of tiny humans. It might not be Hollywood. It’s something better than that. It’s a library in Canada. What a relief. Paradise Cinema is located between the accessible Dufferin Street and Ossington Street subway stations. The Paradise is fully accessible. It’s a pay-what-you-can event in support of the West End Phoenix which is also the presenting sponsor. Tuesday, November 4th, 2025 at 630PM. 1006 Bloor St. West in Toronto. See you there. J.B. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe

    1 min

  2. 11/19/2024

    45. Starting Artists

    Somehow with all that’s going on the pressure is off. I’m reminded not to be surprised. Dogs are going to bark, baker’s gonna bake and humans are going to treat each other terribly. What’s important to you? For me, for now, it’s blood. Tonight I made some fake blood. Two tablespoons of chocolate syrup, one cup of corn syrup and some red food colouring. This is for a short film, a Western, I’m making with my old friend Mike and my new friend Shelly. There is nothing going on in Film & TV so there are a lot of people and equipment just sitting around Ontario. Last Friday we went out to the BadLands of Caledon. I thought it would make an excellent location to shoot a Western but I was outnumbered.  It was too muddy and too hard to get to. Shelly will be directing. She and I bonded briefly over how we were both equally annoyed by the Left, a group we both count ourselves members of. The Left these days spends all of the time getting angry at each other for not being the same kind of Left and in the meantime the Right are winning elections by the pant load. We got back into our cars and drove to Kerncliffe Park in Burlington. It’s an old quarry. We met Laney there. I’ve known her for ages. I met her on commercial shoots back in the day. Now she’s a DP whereas before she was pulling focus. It was so good to see her again. She is a real pro. And she said she is going to bring a fancy camera for this shoot because it’s available. She also mentioned getting a jib or a crane. I said nothing because my mouth had begun to water. A crane?? Are you kidding? I mean, it’s slow. The equipment is just sitting around. Kerncliffe looked a lot like one of my favourite movies, Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm. A movie my children saw far too early in their lives. But if you’re going to show them inappropriate content that includes teens like Christina Ricci and Toby McGuire exploring sex and drugs while their parents Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver hang out at key parties you might as well do it via Ang Lee. It could be worse. It could have been a Marvel movie. I’m sure someone has measured what we learn from Film & TV. As a child how much of my dialogue was cribbed from the shows I was watching? How was my sense of humour informed by SCTV and Family Ties? Did I get my love of the theatre from all those Muppet Shows on Sunday night? Certainly anything with Bill Murray, John Candy and Rick Moranis in it had me mimicking them, trying to figure out how they did what they did. While a show like Alf showed me the power of subversion. He was an alien from the planet Melmac living with a family in the suburbs. He spent his time hitting on the wife and trying to eat the cat. Wit Stillman taught me you can make a film where people just sit around talking. Same with Mike Leigh. Later Michael Haneke showed me the power of the wide shot when it isn’t muddied with coverage. Lucrecia Martel taught me you can go the other way and forsake an establishing shot for a close-up. She also beat cancer,  turned down the job of directing Marvel’s Black Widow and is married to the world’s most singular voice, Julieta Laso. I’m not into heroes but if I were Lucrecia would be at the top of my list. Every six months a longtime friend of mine, Denise, sends me an old photo of my ex-comedy partner and I, in character. We were Chris and Bev, two suburban divorcées that had moved in with each other after their marriages ended. We had a popular monthly show called It’s Good to Know People which in addition to being the truth was also a study in making people laugh without making fun. This was in 2006 I think — at the height of irony. There is a part of me that thinks, look at those two idiots. And both of them are still making things and looking for an audience all these years later. And shouldn’t they have learned their lesson by now? Or are we the persistent ones? The ones that will make our art no matter what. I mean, what else are you going to do with a life? My friend Rebecca (who makes her own theatre) once said “It’s a pretty good way to spend the time before you die.” Pretty good is pretty much the right yardstick. There is no Hollywood effusiveness here. No vocal-fried gratitude signalling from the insta grid. It’s just pretty good. Keep your expectations low. When we left each other in the parking lot of Kerncliffe I thanked Mike for connecting me with even more self-starting artists. Having left Vancouver 12 years ago I miss the actors I came up with. Now I am finally making a community of creatives here. So I stay up late making fake blood. In the hopes they’ll want to keep me in this new village I’ve found. Thanks for reading How To Be A Person. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min

  3. 11/05/2024

    43. Kensington Diner

    We have shot two episodes of a digital series I have created called Kensington Diner. We have four more to go. I based some of them on some of my favourite films: Cleo de Cinq a Sept, In Bruges, When Harry Met Sally, My Son the Fanatic. I steal from the greats — I do not just let myself be inspired by — and then I put someone else’s ideas or filmic techniques or casting choices or story elements through my own neophyte gaze and out pops a dog’s breakfast unrecognizable to it’s estranged parent. Rob Reiner, Agnes Varda and Martin McDonough would not give their ugly stepchild a second glance. Kate Zeigler, Fiona Highet and Amy Matysio on the set of Kensington Diner. “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources,”  Albert Einstein When I bang on about copying the greats to see how you can do a version of what they are doing I don’t mean you reverse engineer a performance in order to replicate their results, I mean by copying the best you are better able to find your own voice, your own way to the questions you want to explore. Nowhere are we searching for answers. As artists we just ask the questions. The more pointed the better. “The point is to be pointed.” - Terry O’Reilly What the greats do in performance, when they are at their most formidable, looks like magic to the uninformed but we know better. It’s technique honed by many hours of practice. There are no shortcuts to the hard work you have to put in. Luckily, a creative life only stops when you’re dead. So you have all the time in the world. The pressure is off to make it. “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” - Picasso The writer and critic Jacqueline Rose speaks of translation as not about equivalence but about a re-rendering. The actor translates those words on the page into the thing that is most them. You re-render ideas that came from another world (the writer’s) into your world, the physical. Translation is not mimicry. It’s an opinion, an interpretation. The way we do this is by choosing a path. There are innumerable ones in front of you. There is no need to deliberate on which path to take first. Just take one. The learning is in the doing. Above is a theory on learning retention. As you can see the teacher has the advantage. But second to that with a 75% retention rate is Practice by Doing. The only shortcut to becoming a good actor is by acting. In class, in auditions, by yourself, with friends. You take the class to get better at auditions and then you meet your people in that class and then outside of class you get together and scheme. In a darkened bar, at a cheap restaurant, drinking in a park. In other words, my youthful charges, this won’t happen via the phone. You plan your next short film, your next digital series, your demo reel. You do this not because it is easy or because it will get you somewhere. You do it because making stuff is the very reason why we are here. To create. The meaning of life is to connect. Artists connect through making art. Auditioning for a laundry detergent commercial may not be enough. Booking two days on a Hallmarkian masterpiece may not scratch that itch. Shooting in a neighbourhood like Kensington Market is a dream. A filthy, graffiti-encrusted jumble of restaurants and vintage stores, empanada shops and cafés. Every episode I am bowled-over by the background and art direction that shows up in our frame. Our cast gets to act surrounded by the vividness and diversity that makes Toronto special. I didn’t have to invent this neighbourhood. I just had to film it with my phone and I have a copy of it and it is mine. Tai Young, lil’ ol’ me and Cheverny Baluca outside of Gallery 78 Books. So whatever art you’re making a shortcut to learning is copying someone that’s gone before. Make it your own. That great performance you copied was also copied. Picasso didn’t enter the world out of a void. Glenn Close doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Nor did Glen Gould. The electric vehicle is more than 100 years old. Before there was Elon there was Nicolai Tesla. Before Streep there was Sara Bernhardt. Before there was Putin there was Stalin. The world is unoriginal. These bad times are not unique. Our suffering is constant because we chose it to be that way. Because it’s easier. You have more agency than you think, I say to myself. Re-render your point of view and watch a whole new world open up to you. Thank you for subscribing to How to be a Person. You can find every issue podcasted wherever the podcasts are for you. Just search up The Bold Acting Podcast. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe

    8 min

  4. 10/13/2024

    42. MESSAGES TO MYSELF

    From the Oxford English Dictionary hypocrite, n. From the Middle English by way of Old French: ecclesiastical; and the Greek: One who falsely professes to be virtuously or religiously inclined; one who pretends to have feelings or beliefs of a higher order than his real ones: A pretender, a dissembler, an actor on the stage. It’s all about me, unfortunately. Every prescriptive pearl is aimed at me. I use the word ‘you” but I mean me. Do you? Don’t you? Don’t we all? 1. You’ll Tire of Me A disclaimer. I’m on about peace now. But peace can’t come from me. It has to come from you. Help is the sunny side of control (Anne LaMott). So I’m not here to help. I’m here to tell you to be bold because you’re going to die much sooner than you think. Bold means being bold with the fear that is in front of you. There is no banishing fear. When I write these things I know I should shut up. I’m helping too much. You’re going to get turned off by me. It’s okay. There will be others. 2. Be Boring When you turn your phone off, turn yourself off too. Unplug everything around you. Try to be with yourself once in a while. When you’re sitting there open up yourself to possibilities. They won’t come if you’re staring at that thing. They’ll only come if you’re bored. Being boring is highly underrated. It’s the cheapest, fastest way to inspiration. 3. Bad Math When we compare ourselves we are using false models. We see the facade of someone else and we compare it to the inner workings of ourselves. The equation does’t hold up. You don’t know the whole story. X + ___ does not equal Z. You came up with Z all by yourself. But it’s not the truth. 4. Ideas Don’t have them. They shut others out. Inspiration comes when you’re open, generous, slutty even. Be a slut with your growth mindset. Go to bed with any and all ways of doing things. Not to brag but I have a friend that is an anti-vaxxer. Top that. Not that we go to bed with one another. You know what I mean. You don’t have to agree with everyone at Thanksgiving for you to travel across the country to see them. 5. Blame Yourself The things that are our fault are the things we can control. If you played a role in your victimhood (and it almost always takes two to tango) then you have agency. We have little control over most things but ourselves. When bad things happen ask yourself What part did I play in that? Point the finger of blame at yourself. That’s where the learning is. The fetishization of victimhood is a wide net and it comes with a lot of bycatch. Recently I screwed up with my youngest. I can’t even explain why I was cruel last night over a game of Blackjack. I didn’t think I was that competitive. After I apologized I tried not to beat myself up but I couldn’t stop. I still can’t. This behaviour cuts me off from making stuff. I can’t stop thinking about it. My inner victim is highjacking my day. I did this once in university when I was wrongfully accused of something. I moped around for far too long. When I’m like this I’m giving away all of my agency. I’ve become rather useless to myself and others. Fatherhood or motherhood must have a lot to do with being useful. So as I wallow I continue to not meet the very responsibilities I had failed at meeting during the blackjack game. 6. Frank O’Hara “And I am out on a limb, and it is the arm of God.” Frank O'Hara wrote that. Out on a limb means being in the unknown. You’re in a spot just off course from the trail you’re familiar with. This is where art happens. It’s uncomfortable, awkward, your face goes red when you’re there, you don’t quite know what to do. That’s where you want to be. That’s where it all happens. It’s stressful but it’s the good kind. And then it ends and then you breathe a sigh of relief and you look around and your people are there too. The clowns, the misfits and the fools. Those are the people you want to emulate. The ones that are making art for others in spite of a bottom line. 7. The Life You Live is Yours to Give The things that happened to you really happened. This is your grist for your mill. If it happened you’re allowed to talk about it. If it’s useful to you then use it. What else is it there for? No more secrets. Secrets are bad. They fester, they protect Catholic pedos and corporate greed. F**k secrets, they’re for crooks. (Shoutout to Dougie Ford!) The best thing about being a writer is that when bad things happen (and they always do) you can rejoice in the recent acquisition of more ammunition. Art doesn’t happen when everything is peachy. 8. Purpose The only thing that will fill the void is the art you make. That feeling of fulfilment is all. It’s not cash or publication or views or likes. You know this already because you’ve been there. If you’re creating something you’re doing the very thing that you are compelled to do. That’s peace right there. For what more could anyone ask of you? Nothing. You’re fulfilling your requirements. You’ve read all the way to the end of the instructions before assembling. 9. Friends Your friends will save you. Do whatever it takes to find your people and then regularly buy them dinner. Do it over and over. Don’t be stingy. I was stingy (see earlier post on frugalness.) until I realized breaking bread with friends is the antidote to pretty much everything. 10. Stomachs You’re allowed to have one. These days stomachs have been banished. Big butts are suddenly okay — but for how long? Now we must all have visible ab muscles. This is incorrect. Your voice comes from your belly (aka your bellows). My singing teacher Elizabeth taught me this. Don’t strangle your voice. Bellows require air. Not a lot. Just enough. It’s okay to look the way you do. Keep those bellows loose. Being fixated on a flat stomach strangles your voice and more importantly it makes you talk about how often you go to the gym and that is the worst conversation topic around. The profligate spread of vocal fry comes from our incessant need for flat tummies. We think that if we stop breathing we’ll look better. If we just don’t let our stomachs out people will love us but the result is no one can actually hear what we’re saying. And yet social media is all about everyone explaining everything to us. We are a world of influencers. Of what? Of whom? 11. Intimacy Issues Laughter is intimacy. When we laugh we show others inside of ourselves. When we make others laugh we can see inside of them. Laughter is to commune between hearts. It is the very best thing you can do with people. You don’t have intimacy issues if you can drag yourself to a comedy club with another person. You’re fine. You just need to take more of that medicine and then get your prescription filled regularly. 12. Stop Drinking So Much Water You’re not dehydrated. If you were you'd be in the hospital. Just relax and quit weaponizing everything. Think for yourself for God’s sake. Drink water when you’re thirsty. The human thirst mechanism is alive and well. Call b******t on yourself. You can get water from coffee or an apple or broccoli. And there’s no scientific evidence that caffein is a diuretic. Quit giving your kids water bottles as big as their heads. They have brains. They’ll get water when they need it. Just shut up for a while. 13. Don’t Be So Surprised Everything is Terrible When faced with adversity know that that is the natural state of the world: a shit sandwich. It’s cold comfort so take warm action. That’s the required response. An action that will warm your soul, feed your creativity and generate community. Find your people. Create together. Remember why we got into this in the first place. It doesn’t have to add to your workload or your list of obligations. It’s not meant to get you into your head. It can be writing in your journal, or painting or singing in a choir or whatever. Start small. The key is art should be about others not just about you. Art that resonates leaves room for an audience. 14. You Have to Give it for it to be Art The way you find an audience is by making art that means something, that says something. If you want to be heard you have to make a statement. Don’t worry about the hustle yet. You have to have something to hustle before you start hustling. We try, try, try and then we die. That’s the entire trip. When somebody asks you what your plan is you say, “Well, I’m going to try something and see if it works. And if it doesn’t I’m going to try something else. And if that isn’t quite what I want then I’m going to pivot a little and try something else. I’m going to keep trying and in this trying I’m going to find my people, my like-minded weirdoes and we’re going to make stuff together, and laugh together, and fall in love and fall out of love and we’ll vacation together and we’ll be there for each other all the while making art together and then when I’m old and grey they’re going to walk me home. And I them. And that’s it. And when we admit we must make art, whatever that may be, we then admit something truly empowering: we can’t fail. You can’t fail if you’re making art. You just can’t. It’s yours but you make it for others. It’s a gift. You are gifted. So give it. How to Be a Person is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe

    14 min

  5. 10/07/2024

    41. A Weird Way to Go Out

    I found a book in a little library called Talk Like Ted. It’s annoying both because I’m easily annoyed and it was written by a finance Chad that’s more successful than me. One suggestion is when you want to engage an audience (like at a Ted Talk) teach them something new. Or at least frame it in a novel way. I’ve been doing this newsletter for a couple years now and I am ready for something new. So here is one: I’m doing a new podcast with my friend Preet Banerjee . He’s a wealth manager and personal finance expert. The show is called Pop Finance. Here’s the logo: That’s a nice logo. Preet did that too. Preet did a lot of the heavy lifting on this show. Which is better for everyone. I’m the fun-guy, the charm, the magic. In other words my skill set is narrow. We explain money concepts found in your favourite Film & TV. And by we, I mean Preet. Preet explains the financials, I tear apart Ben Affleck’s “phoning it in” and Henry Cavill’s woodenness. Besides making fun of celebrities I teach you how to serve your audience. For a couple years now I’ve been teaching beginners how to get out of their own way, how to be present and how to connect with another human being in front of the camera. Everyone has an audience to serve these days but not everyone has learned how to talk properly. So while Preet teaches you personal finance I teach you how to listen like Frances McDormand in Nomadland or how to act confident like John Travolta in Get Shorty. Here’s the link to Spotify but you can listen to it wherever the podcasts are for you. Leave us a 5-star rating and/or glowing review on whatever platform you use. (5-stars only.) Honestly, why would anyone bother to leave less than a 5-star review? Crusher of Dreams, don’t you have some puppies to drown or something? Isn’t there sunshine for you to pooh-pooh? Go onto your podcast app, go to our podcast, scroll down and where it says “Tap to Rate:” TAP ALL FIVE STARS. Thank you. Gawd. Oh and the other thing I’m up to is grad school. I begin a Masters in Psychology in January. I’m going to be a talk therapist … iiiiin two-and-a-half years. So I’ll be writing about that. I’m really excited. AND I’ve quit auditioning. The ROI had flatlined. It’s weird to not do what you’ve done for over a quarter of a century but when I finally pulled the trigger it was quickly followed by a great sense of relief. I’m not getting any younger and from here on out I would like the hours of the day to amount to either helping someone or earning a living or both. Personal finance is something I've had to get better at out of necessity. I wish I could have someone else take care of all the adult stuff but when I look around — there is only me. If you’re like me then let this podcast be a complementary part of your financial edutainment. Feel free to give us recommendations for scenes from movies and shows that we might use for a future episode. You can reach me directly at jasonbryden@gmail.com or at Boldacting.com where you’ll find links to my corporate coaching business, videos and more. Not At All A Thematically-Linked Book Recommendation: The Buried Giant by Kasuo Ishiguro. In Arthurian England an old couple search for their son. On their quest they meet murderous monks, pixies and a dragon. In the hands of Ishi this becomes a book of fantasy for people that don’t read fantasy. I couldn’t put it down. It’s immersive and weird and very convincing. Thanks for reading How To Be A Person. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe

    5 min

  6. 09/30/2024

    A Massive Bob

    A pendulum is a weight called a bob suspended from a pivot so it can swing freely. In Math there is a simple gravity pendulum that swings without friction. This is so nerds can measure things like amplitude and bob’s trajectory. In real life there are other forces affecting the period of oscillation, like gravitational pull and friction. The pendulum is within us and without. A starving man overeats and is soon vomiting. A suicidal person gets a terminal cancer diagnosis. You fall head over heels in love but soon the head and the heels find their rightful places. Does the stomach learn? Is the depressive impatient for their death bed? Do we ever stop looking for love? Story dictates a massive bob. The greater the distance between adversity and victory the more satisfied the audience. When we tell a story to a friend we consider the beginning, middle and end, we exaggerate and we punctuate. We use expression and our voice and our hands to add the friction. Whether we are actors or not we are wired up to perform. Everyone has to know how to talk these days. Be it an interview, a podcast, a Lunch & Learn, a Tedx or a keynote. We all have an audience to serve. We are always on. Now we say things like The best version of ourselves and Very online because the camera is ever-present. The pendulum is political and social. Strong man politics is on the rise. The world is ending. Again. You can worry — but how will that help? Besides, fear impacts judgement. When faced with adversity the greatest revenge is to make art from the misery. We need more artists not less. Bob is swinging towards peak art. In authoritarian regimes the artists are the first to go. Stalin required art meet certain criteria. Hitler controlled artists because he knew they threaten a dictatorship. Art creates new pathways for subversion. It gives kids ideas. And it’s happening today. In 2017 the Trump administration wanted to cut spending to the National Endowment for the Arts. 180 kms south of Mar-a-Lago, in 2015 the Cuban artist El Sexto spent ten months in prison for his anti-Castro art. PEN America has reported book banning in America has tripled last year. Dogs gonna to bark. Haters gonna hate. And bob’s gonna swing. It’s up to the artists to remind us there is utility in the friction. T’was always thus. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe

    4 min
  7. 1. The Gord Record

    09/27/2024

    1. The Gord Record

    Now more than ever actors have to make their own opportunities. On the first episode we talk about how ACTRA members can make their own stuff and how best to navigate the ACTRA Toronto Co-op agreement. Cohosted by Gord Rand and Jason Bryden. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe

    37 min

  8. 09/24/2024

    37. "… Open thine eyes. I am still here, just older.”

    How to be a Person is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. In Judith Kerr’s YA novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (based on her escape from Nazi Germany as a child) she writes about how leaving her home and moving to Switzerland, Paris and finally London was a great adventure. It was not, of course, for her parents. They managed to keep it together under terrible circumstances and shielded their children from much of the horrors of displacement due to war. This reframing of one’s situation is a worthwhile exercise for us, also. To treat the difficulties like a picnic. Look forward to the challenges life throws you for they are guaranteed and evergreen. Try pursuing hardship instead of happiness for happiness is fleeting. Hardship, not so much. Look for the obstacles. Become good at smiling in the face of adversity. Just try this on for a while. Audition this approach. You can always go back to the way you did things before if it doesn’t serve you. This idea was reinforced by reading a work of fiction. Novels access a different part of the brain. It is the same part that is responsible for nuance, subtext, sarcasm, irony, and charm. Reading fiction gets you away from arguable things like facts and delve into the truths that make up the human condition. A condition we’d do well to become acquainted with. The truth is what we’re after. It’s irrefutable. We know a truthful performance when we see one. We might not know why we like it. That’s why we’ll say things like How does Mark Rylance do it? He does it by bearing his soul in public. How does Meryl do it? She does it by practicing listening and connection. What do we practice day-to-day? Are we out there in the world being honest with one another? Recently I was at Cafe Pamenar in Kensington Market for an evening called Be ME with the Holy Gasp. The ME is an initialism that stands for Meaningfully Encountered and The Holy Gasp is a multi-genre ensemble. I encourage you to check them out online and in-person. This night the Meaningful Experience was founder and trained psychotherapist Benjamin Hackman calling on audience members to come up on stage and receive free talk therapy accompanied by the band. The outcome was a strange mix of the intimate and the performative as the male participants tried desperately to entertain (one fake-cried repeatedly, one threatened to) and the female participant managing to investigate memory construction with the plonking dissonance of a toy piano behind her. All in all, a great night. One that served as a reminder of how hard it is to show vulnerability especially if you are a man. What cannot be overstated is the difficulties of the world require such behaviour. There is a difference between victimhood and vulnerability though. The former takes away agency and the latter creates it. For it is only within a truthful existence can we establish boundaries, build bridges and forge alliances. We are collaborators but we’re stuck in an individualized society that fetishes He was one man … Against the rest. For too long we equate strength with a stiff upper lip. But strength is removing your family from Nazi Germany in spite of the fear you feel. And then when you don’t think you can take anymore you do. And you practice falling in love with it. You call it what it is: adventure. The starting gun has gone off. The runners run. The crowd is cheering. That voice inside your head telling you to stop is fear. Push it down into the mud. You’re older than you think. Thanks for reading How to be a Person. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe

    6 min
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About

I'm an actor and a teacher in Toronto. But I don't just teach acting. I teach performance technique that everyone can use. Each week I'll publish an episode that covers the newsletter, everything we've been working on in class and all of the videos I've published on social media. All in one place. boldacting.substack.com

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    Reflections from Jason Bryden's More-than-just-an-Acting-Class class in Toronto.
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2025
  • Episodes
    82
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Jason Bryden
  • Show Website
    The Bold Acting Podcast