Quick Answer

The key to stopping that fake, performing sensation is to fully immerse yourself in the role. Let go of self-judgment and focus entirely on the character's objectives. Draw on your own emotional experiences to find authenticity. Loosen up physically by releasing tension and allowing natural movement. Commit fully to your acting choices with conviction. Personalize your props and costumes so they feel like your own. Interact with your scene partners, don't just perform at the audience. Extensive rehearsal makes the words and actions second nature. With practice, you can learn to get out of your head and inhabit any character with ease. The ability to act truthfully is within you.

Introduction

Acting can often feel unnatural and performative. Even experienced actors struggle with imposter syndrome and feeling like they are "faking it" on stage or in front of the camera. However, there are techniques actors use to get out of their heads and authentically inhabit a character. With practice, anyone can learn to stop feeling like they are acting and truly embody whatever role they take on.

Let Go of Self-Judgment

One of the biggest reasons we feel like we are acting is that we judge ourselves. We worry about looking silly or getting something wrong. This self-scrutiny takes us out of the moment. The first step to feeling more natural is to quiet your inner critic. Allow yourself to fully commit without caring how it looks from the outside. With practice, you will feel more comfortable taking risks and letting go.

Accept Imperfection

Nobody gets it right 100% of the time. Give yourself permission to mess up. View mistakes as opportunities to improve, not reasons to quit. The more you accept imperfection as part of the process, the less self-conscious you will feel.

Focus on the Character, Not Yourself

Rather than worrying about what people think of you, shift your focus to inhabiting the role. Forget about your personal insecurities and bring your full attention to expressing the essence of the character. This helps get out of your head.

Have Compassion for Yourself

Talk to yourself with kindness and encouragement, not harsh criticism. If negative self-talk arises, remind yourself that these are just thoughts, not the truth. Over time a more supportive inner voice will help you feel less self-conscious.

Find Emotional Truth

In order to stop feeling like you are acting, you need to connect authentically with the emotional reality of the character. Technical acting skills are not enough. You must be able to access real feelings and experiences to bring truth to your performance.

Draw From Your Life

Think of times you felt similar emotions to what the character is experiencing. Use your own memories to find genuine feelings. Even if the circumstances are different, the underlying emotion can connect you to the role.

Actively Imagine

Don't just conceptualize what the character is going through. Visualize the context and describe sensory details to yourself. The more vividly you can imagine the scenario, the more visceral your emotional response will be.

Focus on Objectives, Not Emotions

Rather than trying to force certain feelings, focus on your objectives in the scene. What does the character want or need? Pursuing concrete goals will naturally generate authentic emotions.

Loosen Up Physically

Physical tension inhibits natural, free-flowing performance. Releasing bodily tightness helps you feel more comfortable being yourself in front of others.

Release Excess Muscle Tension

Notice areas of unnecessary tightness like a tensed jaw or hunched shoulders. Consciously relax the muscles and feel that tension melt away. Releasing physical tightness relieves mental tightness.

Incorporate Movement

Get out of your head by moving your body. Warm up with stretches, shakes, or breathing exercises to relieve tension. Use space actively within a scene to physically respond to the other character.

Allow Yourself to Fidget

Let go of the urge to control your body completely. Small natural movements like gesturing with your hands or shifting your weight remind you to inhabit the role, not just portray it.

Increase Your Focus

When feeling spaced out or self-conscious, we can seem disconnected from the role. Harnessing your concentration immerses you in the moment.

Breathe

When you catch your mind wandering, pause and take a few deep intentional breaths. Oxygenating your body and brain helps renew your focus.

Pick a Focal Point

Choose a visual point on your scene partner or in the audience to return your focus when distracted. Having an anchor for your attention keeps you present.

Find Motivation in the Text

Study your lines thoroughly to understand what motivates the character emotionally at each point. Knowing why they say each phrase will keep you invested line to line.

Commit Fully to Your Choices

In a performance, conviction is key. Boldly committing to your acting choices, no matter how outlandish, makes them feel real. Tentativeness comes across as artificial.

Don't Hedge

Rather than diplomatically suggesting ideas, passionately advocate for your interpretation. Present choices decisively as the truth of the moment. Own it.

Don't Apologize

Never undercut your performance by laughing at yourself or apologizing after trying something bold. That signals insecurity. Stand by your choices confidently.

Don't Rely on Approval

Trust your instincts without needing reassurance from others. Make your own strong choices and commit to them fully regardless of reaction.

Tailor the Role to Yourself

Trying to transform completely into a character different from yourself can feel inauthentic. Wherever possible, tweak the role to suit your natural personality and background.

Find Common Ground

Look for ways the character's viewpoint overlaps with your own. Highlight shared attitudes, behaviors, or motivations. This allows you to voice lines in your own words.

Use Natural Speech Patterns

Rather than trying to copy speech patterns unlike your own, say the lines how you would naturally say them. Let the character speak in your cadence and dialect.

Try Improv

On your own, improvise lines in character using your spontaneous thoughts and reactions. Then incorporate improvised dialogue that felt honest into the written scene.

Rehearse Extensively

The less familiar you are with the words and actions required, the more you will have to consciously focus on the mechanics. Only thorough rehearsal allows you to stop thinking and just be.

Memorize Your Lines Cold

Know the text so well you never have to grasp for a line. Fluency with the words enables you to focus on authentic delivery.

Drill Problem Spots

Identify tricky lines, transitions or blocking that trip you up. Isolate and repeat those sections until the trouble spots become smooth and natural.

Let It Marinate

Don't force memorization. After an initial study session, put the script aside and let it sink in over time. Let go of actively thinking about it so the lines become embedded.

Run the Whole Show

Practice individual scenes but also do full run-throughs regularly. Performing the entire arc will strengthen your immersion and continuity.

Personalize Props and Costumes

When costumes and props feel like someone else's clothes and things, it's harder to fully inhabit the role. Make them your own.

Choose Pieces that Resonate

Select costume elements that you connect with personally, like your own style of shoes or jewelry with special meaning. These meaningful details can help you feel like yourself.

Make the Costume Yours

Before playing a scene, take time to get comfortable wearing the costume. Wear it around as your own clothing, not a costume, so it feels like a second skin.

Explore Meaningful Props

Improvise imagined personal backstories and uses for your props. If they have a pretense of belonging to you, handling them will come more naturally.

Interact, Don't Perform

When you are focused on the other actors, not the audience, it is easier to lose yourself in the fictional relationships. Live truthfully in the moment.

Listen Actively

Don't just wait for your next line. Truly listen and respond organically to your scene partners. Let go of trying to control the scene and allow authentic interaction.

Make Eye Contact

Keep your focus on the other characters in the scene, not the audience. Making meaningful eye contact increases connection and grounds you in each moment.

Support Your Scene Partners

Be present to help create everyone else's performance, not just deliver your part. This fosters being immersed together in the reality of the scene.

Let Go of Self-Judgment

One of the biggest reasons we feel like we are acting is that we judge ourselves. We worry about looking silly or getting something wrong. This self-scrutiny takes us out of the moment. The first step to feeling more natural is to quiet your inner critic. Allow yourself to fully commit without caring how it looks from the outside. With practice, you will feel more comfortable taking risks and letting go.

Accept Imperfection

Nobody gets it right 100% of the time. Give yourself permission to mess up. View mistakes as opportunities to improve, not reasons to quit. The more you accept imperfection as part of the process, the less self-conscious you will feel. Remember that even the most acclaimed actors make mistakes. Don't let a flub or awkward moment undermine your self-confidence. Keep going and trust that with experience errors will become fewer.

Focus on the Character, Not Yourself

Rather than worrying about what people think of you, shift your focus to inhabiting the role. Forget about your personal insecurities and bring your full attention to expressing the essence of the character. This helps get out of your head. Immerse yourself in understanding the psychology and motivations of the character. When waiting in the wings before going on stage, take a moment to consciously embody the physicality of the character. Doing so will help you maintain that embodiment once you are actively performing.

Have Compassion for Yourself

Talk to yourself with kindness and encouragement, not harsh criticism. If negative self-talk arises, remind yourself that these are just thoughts, not the truth. Over time a more supportive inner voice will help you feel less self-conscious. Don't compare yourself to other actors or judge your abilities as lesser. Every performer brings their own unique talents. Focus on cultivating your own strengths. Be especially compassionate with yourself as a beginner. Learning any new skill feels awkward at first. Trust that self-consciousness will lessen over time.

Find Emotional Truth

In order to stop feeling like you are acting, you need to connect authentically with the emotional reality of the character. Technical acting skills are not enough. You must be able to access real feelings and experiences to bring truth to your performance.

Draw From Your Life

Think of times you felt similar emotions to what the character is experiencing. Use your own memories to find genuine feelings. Even if the circumstances are different, the underlying emotion can connect you to the role. Before a performance, take some time to reflect back on your own experiences that relate to the character's journey. If your character is grieving a loss, recall a time you grieved. If they are falling in love, remember the sensation of your own past romantic infatuations. Mining your real life will provide the felt-experience needed to convincingly portray fictional circumstances.

Actively Imagine

Don't just conceptualize what the character is going through. Visualize the context and describe sensory details to yourself. The more vividly you can imagine the scenario, the more visceral your emotional response will be. For example, don't just intellectually know your character is cold. Imagine standing on a frozen tundra with ice stinging your hands and frigid wind piercing your bones. Describe the sensations out loud to make them more tangible. This immerses you in the moment.

Focus on Objectives, Not Emotions

Rather than trying to force certain feelings, focus on your objectives in the scene. What does the character want or need? Pursuing concrete goals will naturally generate authentic emotions. Ask yourself why your character feels the way they do. What are they trying to accomplish in the scene? Anger arises to overcome an obstacle. Sadness signals a loss. Tuning into the roots of the emotions will prevent superficial acting.

Loosen Up Physically

Physical tension inhibits natural, free-flowing performance. Releasing bodily tightness helps you feel more comfortable being yourself in front of others.

Release Excess Muscle Tension

Notice areas of unnecessary tightness like a tensed jaw or hunched shoulders. Consciously relax the muscles and feel that tension melt away. Releasing physical tightness relieves mental tightness. Periodically scan your body while rehearsing and let go of any unnecessary areas of contraction. adopting a habit of periodic full body relaxation helps maintain a supple instrument.

Incorporate Movement

Get out of your head by moving your body. Warm up with stretches, shakes, or breathing exercises to relieve tension. Use space actively within a scene to physically respond to the other character. Don't feel glued to one spot. Allow the natural impulses of the character to move you through the performance space. Let blocking arise from following your genuine impulses.

Allow Yourself to Fidget

Let go of the urge to control your body completely. Small natural movements like gesturing with your hands or shifting your weight remind you to inhabit the role, not just portray it. Try not to suppress all your habitual physical mannerisms. Find opportunities to incorporate natural movements that suit the character within your performance. This will help it feel less staged.

Increase Your Focus

When feeling spaced out or self-conscious, we can seem disconnected from the role. Harnessing your concentration immerses you in the moment.

Breathe

When you catch your mind wandering, pause and take a few deep intentional breaths. Oxygenating your body and brain helps renew your focus. Make breath awareness part of your preparation and recovery between scenes. Just a few deep inhalations can recentre you.

Pick a Focal Point

Choose a visual point on your scene partner or in the audience to return your focus when distracted. Having an anchor for your attention keeps you present. Pick one friendly, sincere face to make eye contact with. Tuning into the reactions of someone truly engaged with your performance can reignite your own engagement.

Find Motivation in the Text

Study your lines thoroughly to understand what motivates the character emotionally at each point. Knowing why they say each phrase will keep you invested line to line. Look up words you don't know and research references you are unfamiliar with. The more intellectually connected you are to the script, the more authentically you can deliver it.

Commit Fully to Your Choices

In a performance, conviction is key. Boldly committing to your acting choices, no matter how outlandish, makes them feel real. Tentativeness comes across as artificial.

Don't Hedge

Rather than diplomatically suggesting ideas, passionately advocate for your interpretation. Present choices decisively as the truth of the moment. Own it. Say your lines like you fervently mean every word. Even unlikely lines can sound convincing if you speak with total assurance.

Don't Apologize

Never undercut your performance by laughing at yourself or apologizing after trying something bold. That signals insecurity. Stand by your choices confidently. Resist the urge to downplay moments that feel emotionally risky by undermining them. Let yourself remain vulnerable. The audience will embrace it.

Don't Rely on Approval

Trust your instincts without needing reassurance from others. Make your own strong choices and commit to them fully regardless of reaction. Be willing to make choices the director or fellow actors may not expect or agree with. Make them anyway with conviction. A committed choice is always more engaging to watch than a watered down compromise.

Tailor the Role to Yourself

Trying to transform completely into a character different from yourself can feel inauthentic. Wherever possible, tweak the role to suit your natural personality and background.

Find Common Ground

Look for ways the character's viewpoint overlaps with your own. Highlight shared attitudes, behaviors, or motivations. This allows you to voice lines in your own words. Rather than rigidly adhering to the script, improvise paraphrases that sound more natural coming out of your mouth. As long as you retain the meaning, make the phrasing your own.

Use Natural Speech Patterns

Rather than trying to copy speech patterns unlike your own, say the lines how you would naturally say them. Let the character speak in your cadence and dialect. Don't adopt speech affectations that feel foreign to you. While staying true to the period and circumstances, allow your innate voice and rhythm to come through. This increases authenticity.

Try Improv

On your own, improvise lines in character using your spontaneous thoughts and reactions. Then incorporate improvised dialogue that felt honest into the written scene. Explore creatively tweaking the script to better suit your perspective. How might you phrase this in your own words? Improvising allows you to make the role your own.

Rehearse Extensively

The less familiar you are with the words and actions required, the more you will have to consciously focus on the mechanics. Only thorough rehearsal allows you to stop thinking and just be.

Memorize Your Lines Cold

Know the text so well you never have to grasp for a line. Fluency with the words enables you to focus on authentic delivery. To memorize, read your lines out loud and connect with the meaning and motivations under the words. Mere rote repetition won't suffice. You need to fully understand what you are saying.

Drill Problem Spots

Identify tricky lines, transitions or blocking that trip you up. Isolate and repeat those sections until the trouble spots become smooth and natural. Ask your director for help unpacking passages you find confusing. Don't hesitate to clarify anything you don't fully comprehend. It's crucial that you understand context and subtext.

Let It Marinate

Don't force memorization. After an initial study session, put the script aside and let it sink in over time. Let go of actively thinking about it so the lines become embedded. Make memorizing your part a gradual background process. Passively carrying the script around to reference will be more effective than cramming.

Run the Whole Show

Practice individual scenes but also do full run-throughs regularly. Performing the entire arc will strengthen your immersion and continuity. Running the full show, even for just yourselves, gives important opportunities to smooth transitions between scenes. Don't neglect rehearsing how to cleanly enter and exit the stage.

Personalize Props and Costumes

When costumes and props feel like someone else's clothes and things, it's harder to fully inhabit the role. Make them your own.

Choose Pieces that Resonate

Select costume elements that you connect with personally, like your own style of shoes or jewelry with special meaning. These meaningful details can help you feel like yourself. Suggest favorite accessories or clothing items you already own that align with the character. The familiarity can boost your confidence.

Make the Costume Yours

Before playing a scene, take time to get comfortable wearing the costume. Wear it around as your own clothing, not a costume, so it feels like a second skin. Consider asking to take your costume home between rehearsals. Living with the pieces will increase your sense of ownership.

Explore Meaningful Props

Improvise imagined personal backstories and uses for your props. If they have a pretense of belonging to you, handling them will come more naturally. Pick up any prop you will use and freely experiment with ways to interact with it. Discover quirks like fidgeting with part of the prop that inspire how your character might utilize it.

Interact, Don't Perform

When you are focused on the other actors, not the audience, it is easier to lose yourself in the fictional relationships. Live truthfully in the moment.

Listen Actively

Don't just wait for your next line. Truly listen and respond organically to your scene partners. Let go of trying to control the scene and allow authentic interaction. Listen for any subtle nuances to their delivery you may have missed before. Let their choices inspire your spontaneous reactions.

Make Eye Contact

Keep your focus on the other characters in the scene, not the audience. Making meaningful eye contact increases connection and grounds you in each moment. Beware of letting your glances drift outward. Purposefully return your gaze to your fellow actors. Tuning into their expressions fosters reacting, not acting.

Support Your Scene Partners

Be present to help create everyone else's performance, not just deliver your part. This fosters being immersed together in the reality of the scene. Don't leave your scene partners hanging. Provide the energy and responsiveness needed for them to truly inhabit their roles. Your give and take pulls them into the moment with you.

Get Out of Your Own Way

Often the biggest obstacle to feeling natural on stage is our own thinking. Stop overanalyzing your acting and trust your instincts. Relax and allow yourself to get caught up in the story. With practice you can learn to silence your inner critic and lose yourself fully in any role.

Don't Judge, Do

Rather than observing and evaluating your performance, simply act. Avoid pausing to consider how well you are doing. Just pursue your objectives without judgment and assessment. Stay immersed in character, not stepping out to critique yourself.

Fake It Till You Make It

Even if you don't initially feel confident, pretend you do. Act as if you completely belong in the role. Eventually through rehearsing this self-assurance, it will become real. Don't wait until you feel ready. Push ahead boldly now.

Remember No One Notices Mistakes

Trust that any errors you make will largely go unnoticed by the audience. They want to support you, not scrutinize mistakes. Keep going with gusto after a fumble and the audience will follow your lead. What feels glaring to you is hardly noticeable to most.

Have Fun

Don't take yourself too seriously. Approach the work playfully looking for moments of enjoyable connection, humor and discovery. Performing should be delightful, not a grind. When you remember to experience joy in the work, self-consciousness melts away.

Conclusion

Feeling like you are acting arises when you are too stuck in your head judging the performance. By shifting focus away from yourself, committing fully to the role and really connecting with scene partners, you can get out of your own way. With practice overcoming this feeling of fraudulence, you can learn to authentically inhabit any character and performance with ease. Just remember to trust yourself. The ability to act truthfully is already within you.