How to Overcome Monologue Fear and Perform with Confidence

Many actors experience anxiety when they have to perform a monologue. Overcoming monologue fear can be solved.

It’s important to understand that if your nerves are making themselves known to you, that is actually a good thing. It means you care about the work you’re doing.

That’s not to say if you aren’t getting nervous that your acting work means any less.

Acknowledging the fact that you care about the work you do is obviously a positive thing to keep in mind in the first place.

Instead of letting monologue fear get in the way of your performance, here are a few techniques you can try to see about eliminating it.

How to Overcome Monologue Fear

• Where are you placing your attention?

When you first look at a monologue, all you may see is a block of text.

Feelings of doubt may creep in. You may ask yourself, “How the hell am I going to say all of this in front of an audience?”

Take your attention off yourself and redirect it onto something else.

Instead, ask yourself, “What is my character’s intention in this monologue?”

Shift your focus to your character’s intention and why they are saying what they are saying.

This will instantly replace the thoughts of yourself with those of your character.

Whenever you feel worried or concerned about how you are going to perform your monologue, replace such anxieties with what your character’s intentions are.

• Don’t look at your monologue as a whole

If you have a one-page monologue that intimidates you, it is because you are looking at the largeness of the piece.

Break it down. You can begin by breaking your monologue down into beats.

A beat is a shift in your characters interior life stemming from emotion, thought or action.

For example: How to Make Acting Choices in Confliction: Tips for Performance

SHEILA: (BEAT 1) You know exactly what I mean. (BEAT 2) I liked you. I cared about you, Chester. I actually believed you to be decent – one of the decent ones – which was refreshing during that time in my life. (BEAT 3) Drink.

Chester sees his drink and drinks. He begins to calm slowly, regaining his breathing.

(BEAT 4) I mean, I was so unhappy. I could never make things work with John. Well, I did love him, but things evolve, people change, I changed, he changed, every damned idiot changed around us – and not always for the better, but we remained married because we hoped it would get better.

You look at your monologue, and each time you see a different shift, mark it down in your script.

The beat is not designed to be taken literally but rather used as a way to break down your monologue piece by piece.

It’s not an intellectualized exercise so much as it is a way for you to digest the monologue and process it into smaller quantities.

Over time, the goal is to forget each beat so you are free to play your monologue like musical notes on sheet music.

Physical Activity

Another helpful idea to keep your nerves in check is having a physical activity.

When you work with a physical activity, your nerves become secondary.

You are no longer focusing on being nervous when you are focused on what your character is doing. Focus on the doing of what your character is physically involved in.

Is he/she making dinner? Then that’s what you should be focusing on…making dinner. Is your character putting on their shoes? Then that is what you should be focusing on…putting on your shoes.

Concentration and Relaxation

Relaxation and concentration go hand in hand.

The more concentrated you are, the more relaxed. The more relaxed you are, the more you can concentrate.

Everything you do within your monologue will take concentration, but when you are relaxed, things will flow from you with less nervous restriction.

• Quick Acting Tip

Concentrate on breathing deeply and exhaling slowly, combined with some minor physical stretching, all done within 5 minutes time.

Focusing on your breathing will increase your concentration and provide inner calm.

Jump Right In

Hesitation will slow you down.  It will block your creativity and get in the way of your flow.

Don’t think about anything. Just jump right into your monologue and see what happens.  Sometimes when you take the leap, we land on our feet.

The more you practice just going into the monologue, the easier it will become over time.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Using any one of the suggestions discussed may help you do what you need to do as an actor, without allowing your nerves to get in your own way.