At long last Mr Jeff Bridges has finally won an Oscar! Congratulations to him. Well deserved.

He also takes the percentage up again. What percentage I hear you ask…?

The percentage of Best Actor Oscar winners since 2000 who are method actors. It’s now at over 80%. Coincidence? I think not.

I like to call this percentage the ‘hidden message’. Most people never know about it.

Mr Bridges appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show recently, and he revealed one of his method acting secrets. When Jonathan Ross asked him if he got drunk to play his role so convincingly in The Big Lebowski (his character is high a lot of the time), Jeff replied “Absolutely not”. In fact, he completely abstained from any such substances, including alcohol, as he had to remain completely focused and alert. Instead, he told Jonathan, he relied on Sense Memory.

In The Method we have a tool called Sense Memory, which is about recalling life events through your senses in order to recreate the correct emotional content.

This is easier said than done, and method actors go through a progression of work and training to do this at its optimum.

But one thing is for certain. It works. That’s why people like Jeff Bridges, Sean Penn, Daniel Day- Lewis, Forest Whitaker, and a very long list of outstanding actors use it.

But here is the funny thing about The Method. Most people never learn it. Either they never get to hear about it or they just don’t think they need to learn it.

Well, you don’t have to learn it, but the top actors do because they want to be the best.

Please, for your own acting sake, start learning The Method. Jeff has just given you another sign, please don’t ignore it.

Yes, it’s true that you can learn The Method with me, but even if you don’t choose me, please go to someone else. I want to see more acting of Jeff Bridges’ standard. In fact, I would like to see all acting at that standard, and that means more people have to learn the technique which produces this type of outstanding acting.

Best wishes

Brian Timoney

Dan Hubbard and myself at the special session for my one year students.

A few weeks ago leading Casting Director Dan Hubbard, who cast The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Bourne Trilogy and who discovered actors like Kate Winslet, Sienna Miller and Colin Farrell, visited my actors’ studio to talk with my one year students.

He gave some interesting insights. Here’s a list of 10 tips he gave:

1. When going for an audition read the whole script, not just your scenes. Sounds obvious, but it happens a lot.
2. Be enthusiastic and interested in the project.
3. Learn the script. Cancel any engagements the night before and work on the script.
4. Research the director, so you know their work.
5. Don’t talk to other actors in the waiting room before auditioning. Concentrate and focus.
6. Be directable. If the director asks you to do the scene in a different way you must be able to do this. Otherwise they will think you can’t take direction and this will severely handicap your chances of getting the job.
7. Bring your personality into the room. Be polite and personable.
8. Do not say anything negative, especially about the project.
9. Have an interpretation of the role. Do something with it.
10. Be thick-skinned. If you don’t get the job, keep going and go into the next one with a positive attitude.