Stop Acting! Insights on Acting With Kirk Woller

Geoff: 00:00:00

Welcome back to the Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast.

Geoff: 00:00:02

I'm Geoffrey Whitt, and I'm excited today to have Kirk Waller with us again for second episode.

Geoff: 00:00:09

We had a great interview in our previous episode, and we learned a lot about him, his career path, And we learned about his teaching, we're going to get more into that in this episode, but also follow up a little bit more on our discussion about the Chosen.

Geoff: 00:00:24

Welcome,

Kirk: 00:00:25

Thank you.

Kirk: 00:00:26

Uh, honor and a blessing to be back for the second episode.

Geoff: 00:00:30

didn't really go into your bio this time, so if you're wanting to hear it, you'll have to go back and listen to the previous episode.

Geoff: 00:00:36

I know At the end of our discussion, we were talking about The Chosen, and I think maybe heading a little into a potential discussion about Season 4.

Geoff: 00:00:45

what can you tell us about that?

Kirk: 00:00:46

Yeah.

Kirk: 00:00:47

Okay.

Kirk: 00:00:47

As I was saying, uh, I don't know what's going to happen until I get the scripts and read them.

Kirk: 00:00:54

I had no idea before we started season one where Gaius was going to go, at all.

Kirk: 00:01:00

And so every season I'm just as shocked as everyone else to read, Oh, I guess I have a wife.

Kirk: 00:01:06

Oh, I've got a son, wait a minute, I've got two sons with two different women.

Kirk: 00:01:12

. What happened there?

Kirk: 00:01:14

Oh, I'm talking now to Simon Peter.

Kirk: 00:01:16

I'm tying knots.

Kirk: 00:01:17

Uh, whoa.

Kirk: 00:01:18

Okay.

Kirk: 00:01:18

I'm building a cistern.

Kirk: 00:01:21

You don't know until you read it.

Kirk: 00:01:22

So of course, uh, some had predicted that because I have a sick son that I would be the centurion that asked Jesus to heal my son, which I think a lot of people saw that coming and on some level I knew it was coming.

Kirk: 00:01:35

So as I was reading it though, what I wasn't expecting is what happens in episode three.

Kirk: 00:01:40

And that is, I.

Kirk: 00:01:42

Finally tell my boss, no, I'm not going to arrest Jesus, which is a huge, potential mistake for my career, you know, to make such a

Geoff: 00:01:51

Your

Kirk: 00:01:52

yeah, yeah, for as guys, and I had no idea that my boss was going to kill.

Geoff: 00:01:58

Bill Raymond.

Geoff: 00:01:58

Right.

Kirk: 00:01:59

That too was a shock when I read it.

Kirk: 00:02:00

I was like, oh man, people are going to be so upset.

Kirk: 00:02:03

I was upset.

Kirk: 00:02:04

I was like, how, how could that happen?

Kirk: 00:02:06

And anyway, I read them in order every season.

Kirk: 00:02:09

So I've read episode two.

Kirk: 00:02:11

Okay.

Kirk: 00:02:11

I talked with Matt.

Kirk: 00:02:12

Episode three.

Kirk: 00:02:13

Oh boy.

Kirk: 00:02:13

I say no.

Kirk: 00:02:15

Oh, she gets killed.

Kirk: 00:02:16

I thought, that's it, I'm done.

Kirk: 00:02:18

I'm gonna be in jail.

Kirk: 00:02:19

Serious, I was thinking, okay, I must be now in jail and maybe I won't be on the show anymore or something.

Kirk: 00:02:26

So I sat down and started to read episode four.

Kirk: 00:02:28

And right away, Gaius becomes Praetor.

Kirk: 00:02:32

of Capernaum.

Kirk: 00:02:33

I, I was, I never saw that coming in a million years.

Kirk: 00:02:37

I literally had to take a knee and read it like three times.

Kirk: 00:02:41

Like, am I?

Kirk: 00:02:41

No way.

Kirk: 00:02:42

There's no way.

Kirk: 00:02:44

I don't want to be preter.

Kirk: 00:02:46

I like being a premiordinaire.

Kirk: 00:02:49

Um, but there it was.

Kirk: 00:02:51

So that was just, I was utterly shocked by that.

Kirk: 00:02:53

That was a complete surprise.

Kirk: 00:02:55

And then, of course, as I mentioned, the, the scene where I talk with Matthew and Peter, about healing my son and then filming the scene to heal the son was just wonderful and spectacular.

Kirk: 00:03:06

So, yeah, it's a, it's an honor and a blessing and a privilege, honestly, of a lifetime to, uh, embody that story that so many of us have heard for so long.

Geoff: 00:03:16

Yeah.

Kirk: 00:03:17

never saw it coming and I never knew it.

Kirk: 00:03:19

And it's actually better that way as an actor.

Kirk: 00:03:21

You know, Gaius didn't know

Geoff: 00:03:24

a good

Geoff: 00:03:24

point.

Kirk: 00:03:25

So I just found out every season where he was going.

Kirk: 00:03:28

And where is he going to go next?

Kirk: 00:03:30

You know, In many ways, it's better that way.

Geoff: 00:03:32

But he did have quite a journey in season four, that's for

Kirk: 00:03:35

Oh, I think he's had quite a, the whole arc, from the beginning of the series, to guarding the tax booth, to genuinely caring about, uh, Matthew, and him following, Matthew following Jesus, and Just the whole arc that he's taken leading up to that moment where he asked Jesus to heal his son is extraordinary.

Kirk: 00:03:54

Like, what an amazing honor as an actor to embody that.

Kirk: 00:03:59

It's a privilege.

Geoff: 00:04:01

Very, very good.

Geoff: 00:04:02

well, as we promised in this episode, we're going to talk to actors.

Geoff: 00:04:05

We're going to give them some of your wisdom.

Geoff: 00:04:07

You've already done that, but let's talk more about the Waller technique.

Geoff: 00:04:11

Let's talk about what you can offer to actors that's going to help move them forward in their career.

Kirk: 00:04:16

Okay, the first thing I would say, uh, about acting is it's not a mistake.

Kirk: 00:04:22

It's very deliberate.

Kirk: 00:04:24

the great actors make it look like they're just talking,

Geoff: 00:04:26

Uh

Kirk: 00:04:27

and that's because they are.

Kirk: 00:04:28

So don't be misled by social media and get rich and famous type of stuff you see.

Kirk: 00:04:35

Make no mistake, you do not become a heart surgeon overnight.

Kirk: 00:04:39

You do not become a concert pianist overnight, a drummer, a musician, a writer.

Kirk: 00:04:45

None of this happens overnight.

Kirk: 00:04:47

And, because, and that's the allure of the craft of acting is, Oh, I can do that.

Kirk: 00:04:53

He's just talking.

Kirk: 00:04:55

He's just getting mad.

Kirk: 00:04:56

so it, it's, seductively, Looks seductively simple, but it's not.

Kirk: 00:05:02

And so if you really truly want to have a career as an actor, you have to have a technique, period.

Kirk: 00:05:13

I think, not to depress people, but it's actually inspiration.

Kirk: 00:05:16

I think 97 percent of all Screen Actor Guild members make under 10, 000 a year, which means there's 3%, the top 3 percent gratefully that I'm in, they're the ones that work.

Kirk: 00:05:28

And the reason they're in that top 3 percent is because they work hard and they have become good at what they do and they're disciplined and they get up every day to perfect that.

Kirk: 00:05:41

They have dogged determination.

Kirk: 00:05:43

They have a short memory.

Kirk: 00:05:44

It doesn't matter what anybody thinks.

Kirk: 00:05:45

You just keep going no matter what.

Kirk: 00:05:48

But you know, actors waiting tables, but.

Kirk: 00:05:50

If that actor is waiting tables, like, you gotta work.

Kirk: 00:05:52

What are you doing?

Kirk: 00:05:53

Go work on a scene with a friend.

Kirk: 00:05:55

Work on monologues.

Kirk: 00:05:56

What are you reading?

Kirk: 00:05:57

What are you watching?

Kirk: 00:05:58

I have spent the last almost 40 years getting up every day to perfect this thing.

Kirk: 00:06:04

And it's like golf.

Kirk: 00:06:05

You never really do.

Kirk: 00:06:07

I'm always trying to get better.

Kirk: 00:06:09

deepen what it is I do.

Kirk: 00:06:12

So, if you wanna be an actor, buckle up.

Kirk: 00:06:15

Because you're gonna have to have a technique.

Kirk: 00:06:18

And you can't get lucky.

Kirk: 00:06:20

Those 97 percent just kind of bounce around.

Kirk: 00:06:23

They take a little acting class here and a little acting class there, but they don't have a technique.

Kirk: 00:06:27

You got to know somebody's going to hand you black ink on a white piece of paper.

Kirk: 00:06:30

What do you do with that?

Kirk: 00:06:32

How do you take that and bring it to life?

Kirk: 00:06:35

And I've spent all these years, uh, doing just that for myself.

Kirk: 00:06:39

And I've learned from, master teachers.

Kirk: 00:06:41

As I mentioned, Sanford Meisner, there was another influential teacher, Alan Vint.

Kirk: 00:06:45

so Sanford Meisner taught me the ability to be present.

Kirk: 00:06:49

So I just want to go back.

Kirk: 00:06:50

You have to have a technique.

Kirk: 00:06:52

So go somewhere where you'll get a technique, not just somebody who's going to direct you.

Kirk: 00:06:57

You know, I don't do scenes with my students until the very end,

Geoff: 00:07:02

Mm-Hmm.

Kirk: 00:07:03

27, eight sessions in.

Kirk: 00:07:05

That's when we finally get to a scene.

Kirk: 00:07:06

We don't even touch a scene because you have to start with a larger context of what the craft of acting really is.

Kirk: 00:07:13

so that's where we start, and it's a sense of knowing thyself.

Kirk: 00:07:17

Sanford Meisner taught me how to live in the moment, how to be present, how to work off the behavior of the other person, how to be interested instead of trying to be interesting.

Kirk: 00:07:26

Everything is really happening on set.

Kirk: 00:07:28

I'm not a lunatic, but I'm living truthfully under an imaginary as myself.

Kirk: 00:07:35

So Kirk is Gaius, Gaius is Kirk.

Kirk: 00:07:37

there is separation.

Kirk: 00:07:38

I'm not some kind of weird methody crazy person.

Kirk: 00:07:41

I'm just saying it's me.

Kirk: 00:07:42

It's me and my personality, so it's a process of taking that material and making it personal.

Kirk: 00:07:49

90 percent of acting is knowing what you are saying and why.

Kirk: 00:07:55

It's not about playing an attitude.

Kirk: 00:07:57

The worst kind of acting is somebody who has an idea of how the character should sound and walk and talk, and they practice that at home over and over again, and then they get on set and they regurgitate that.

Kirk: 00:08:11

What that really is People will say, and a lot of people know, like, he's a bad actor.

Kirk: 00:08:16

But they don't know why.

Kirk: 00:08:17

The reason they're bad is because they're lying.

Kirk: 00:08:21

Everybody, as a human being, for the most part, can tell when somebody's lying.

Geoff: 00:08:25

Yeah.

Geoff: 00:08:25

They're not being genuine in their expression.

Kirk: 00:08:27

at all.

Kirk: 00:08:28

They're not telling the truth.

Kirk: 00:08:30

The material means nothing to them.

Kirk: 00:08:33

So they have this idea, Of what it should sound like and look like and that's just a lie.

Kirk: 00:08:38

It's not true So that's the mistake most people make is how did you come up with that?

Kirk: 00:08:45

you have to go inside and define what everything means and why and make that personal To to Geoff it can't be an idea.

Kirk: 00:08:54

you've got to make it personal I could give some examples from the show Well, I'll just give one, you know, I have a son.

Kirk: 00:09:02

I have a 16 year old son.

Kirk: 00:09:04

If I just sit quietly with my imagination and imagine him, like I do now, being sick, I get emotional right away because I know what it means to have a son.

Kirk: 00:09:15

So my son is sick.

Kirk: 00:09:18

And I need help, Jesus, because he's sick.

Kirk: 00:09:21

He's dying.

Kirk: 00:09:22

I've tried everything.

Kirk: 00:09:23

So you make things believable for yourself first and foremost and you know My technique is an overall is Sam from Meisner learning to live in the moment Alan Vint There are 12 tools which are basically a series of questions that I had read in all kinds of other books Prior to but he made it all make sense to me So it's those two things.

Kirk: 00:09:45

One is kind of the heart, then we go into the head, and then I have over the years came up with this thing I call, I didn't know what to call it, but I call it a sequential roadmap, and it is basically a drive of going through hundreds of times before I get to set the meanings of every one of my lines, and what I say, and what they mean to me.

Kirk: 00:10:06

So I'm rehearsing basically in my head, not how.

Kirk: 00:10:10

I'm going to do it, but what everything means to me.

Kirk: 00:10:14

And I go over that.

Kirk: 00:10:15

I'm not joking.

Kirk: 00:10:17

Season three, for example, I was in seven episodes.

Kirk: 00:10:20

Uh, I run seven days a week.

Kirk: 00:10:22

I would go through the entire season, scene by scene, episode by episode, two times, two and a half times during my run.

Kirk: 00:10:30

So in general, that's the Waller technique.

Kirk: 00:10:33

But to give something solid to the students out there in this limited time, always ask yourself one simple question.

Kirk: 00:10:41

What would I do if I was in this situation?

Kirk: 00:10:46

The writer gives us a situation.

Kirk: 00:10:47

It's not a scene, it's a situation.

Kirk: 00:10:49

You're breaking up with your wife or girlfriend or somebody you know, like a real dramatic, got murdered, or somebody cheated on you, or whatever the scene is, or somebody's dying and you, what would you do?

Kirk: 00:11:02

What would Geoff do if he was in that situation?

Kirk: 00:11:06

That's where you start.

Kirk: 00:11:07

Because you have to work from yourself, not an idea.

Kirk: 00:11:12

I wasted a lot of time trying to become somebody else.

Kirk: 00:11:16

You gotta become the character.

Kirk: 00:11:18

No, no, don't waste your time.

Kirk: 00:11:20

it's impossible.

Kirk: 00:11:21

However old you are, you got, let's say you're 30, you got 30 years of building a character.

Kirk: 00:11:27

There is no way you're gonna make a character more compelling than yourself with the two or three weeks you have.

Kirk: 00:11:33

It's impossible.

Kirk: 00:11:35

So always

Kirk: 00:11:36

start with that simple question.

Geoff: 00:11:38

You know, what you're saying sounds really simple.

Geoff: 00:11:41

I mean, just do what you would do, act as you would act, think as you would think, and, and because you're reasoning, your reason, your why is known to you.

Geoff: 00:11:51

am I guessing correctly that in putting it into practice, it's not.

Geoff: 00:11:55

As simple for everybody?

Geoff: 00:11:57

As it

Kirk: 00:11:58

yeah, of course.

Kirk: 00:11:59

But you see, that's, again, I like people who can take something that's very complicated and very hard to pin down and make it simple.

Kirk: 00:12:09

Ultimately it is very simple.

Kirk: 00:12:12

Just be you under imaginary circumstances.

Kirk: 00:12:17

The notion is simple.

Kirk: 00:12:19

What makes it complicated?

Kirk: 00:12:21

is ourselves as human beings.

Kirk: 00:12:23

Your, your hang up, my hang ups, uh, how I talk, you know, my ability to really tap into myself.

Kirk: 00:12:30

We spend all day and every day, like, avoiding ourselves, and none of us really listen to other people.

Kirk: 00:12:36

What does it mean to really listen to somebody?

Kirk: 00:12:39

Not, you know, how many of us really listen, how many of us can't wait till the other person stops talking.

Kirk: 00:12:43

So, although I'm doing a lot of talking now, it's the nature of what we're doing, but the idea is listen.

Kirk: 00:12:50

So, you've got to learn how to listen, because we don't do it.

Kirk: 00:12:54

So, there are steps, but ultimately it's very simple.

Kirk: 00:12:57

Yeah, just be yourself under these imaginary circumstances.

Kirk: 00:13:02

No less, no more.

Kirk: 00:13:03

Don't put a spin on the ball.

Kirk: 00:13:05

Don't try to become somebody else.

Kirk: 00:13:07

I want to see Geoff fall in love.

Kirk: 00:13:09

I want to see Geoff talk to somebody who he thinks just murdered his wife.

Kirk: 00:13:14

I want to see how you talk to him.

Kirk: 00:13:16

You take those words, you make them your own, and you talk to him the way you would as yourself.

Kirk: 00:13:23

But it's not easy to be ourselves, because we get in our head about trying to become somebody else.

Kirk: 00:13:27

So

Geoff: 00:13:29

be my preconceived idea of what acting is.

Geoff: 00:13:32

And what I have to do to

Kirk: 00:13:34

That's correct.

Geoff: 00:13:35

become that character.

Kirk: 00:13:36

correct.

Kirk: 00:13:36

And that's why I don't do scene work.

Kirk: 00:13:39

Well, if you

Geoff: 00:13:40

ha

Kirk: 00:13:41

Well, I don't want to badmouth anybody, but I just, I've taken, you know, you do scene work and all they're doing is directing me.

Kirk: 00:13:47

It's not helping me.

Kirk: 00:13:49

It's like, oh yeah, just do it faster, or do the opposite, make an opposite choice.

Kirk: 00:13:54

Like, what does that mean?

Kirk: 00:13:55

It doesn't, there's no context.

Kirk: 00:13:57

that's why I start really wide and go, look, the craft of acting is really simple.

Kirk: 00:14:02

And it's what I'm talking about now.

Kirk: 00:14:04

That's where I start.

Kirk: 00:14:05

Don't try to become somebody else.

Kirk: 00:14:08

Sam Fort Meisner would get mad at me sometimes in a scene.

Kirk: 00:14:11

He's like, stop acting, stop acting, and the first time he said that I thought, oh, he's kicking me out of class or something.

Kirk: 00:14:19

No, but what he was saying, he would always say, just be a human being.

Kirk: 00:14:25

Just be you in this situation.

Kirk: 00:14:28

That's all.

Kirk: 00:14:29

Stop acting.

Kirk: 00:14:30

Acting.

Kirk: 00:14:32

And it really takes time.

Kirk: 00:14:34

is simple, but it takes time to do that, because we have these preconceived notions of what we think it is, because we see the actors, and then many of us want to copy what somebody does.

Kirk: 00:14:43

Like, there was no Gaius before.

Kirk: 00:14:45

That is a creation of me, the writers, and Dallas.

Kirk: 00:14:49

Now somebody will try to maybe play a character and imitate guys, let's say, or imitate Jesus or imitate Matthew, right?

Kirk: 00:14:56

But that didn't exist before.

Kirk: 00:14:58

That is an artist taking the material and interpreting that material and telling their truth in it.

Kirk: 00:15:06

And that's what gets hired, not some slick performance.

Kirk: 00:15:11

It's somebody you believe.

Kirk: 00:15:13

So if you connect it to yourself, Look, if I don't believe it If I don't feel it, you're not going to believe it.

Geoff: 00:15:18

that makes

Kirk: 00:15:19

If I don't feel it, you're not going to feel it.

Kirk: 00:15:21

If I don't think it, you're not going to think it.

Kirk: 00:15:24

So, I have to believe.

Kirk: 00:15:27

You have to find a way to believe the material for the duration of the scene.

Kirk: 00:15:33

Make it personal.

Kirk: 00:15:34

So, it's not acting at all.

Kirk: 00:15:36

It's being.

Kirk: 00:15:37

A human being under these circumstances.

Kirk: 00:15:42

And you make those circumstances believable to yourself.

Kirk: 00:15:45

And that's what I pass along is the process by which and how to do that.

Kirk: 00:15:50

How to be yourself.

Kirk: 00:15:52

How to live in the moment.

Kirk: 00:15:53

questions you ask yourself.

Kirk: 00:15:55

the first tool is identification with character, and it's like, who is this person and how is this person like you?

Kirk: 00:16:03

You've gotta bring yourself to the character and the character to you, you have to identify with who he is, what his journey is, what is he trying to accomplish in life?

Kirk: 00:16:12

Where is he going, what's in his way?

Kirk: 00:16:14

Like, who is this person?

Kirk: 00:16:16

You have to identify.

Kirk: 00:16:18

And that's why 90 percent of acting, in my opinion, is what, what, and why.

Kirk: 00:16:23

Never how.

Kirk: 00:16:24

How is revealed on set when you execute, because you're going to work off, I'm going to work off of your behavior.

Kirk: 00:16:30

How you say what you say.

Kirk: 00:16:32

You're going to change how I feel based on how you're feeling.

Kirk: 00:16:35

That's what makes it immediate and organic and true.

Kirk: 00:16:38

Every single take, you know, the scene where I asked Jesus to heal my son.

Kirk: 00:16:44

I bet you, we did that 30, 40 times from all kinds of different angles,

Kirk: 00:16:50

but you have to be present every single take.

Kirk: 00:16:54

and I will say this, the foundation of acting is the reality of doing.

Kirk: 00:16:59

If I'm going to ask a question, I'm asking a question to get an answer.

Kirk: 00:17:05

So it's not, where were you last night?

Kirk: 00:17:08

It's like, where were you last night?

Geoff: 00:17:10

Right.

Kirk: 00:17:12

And I'm waiting for an answer.

Geoff: 00:17:14

Yep.

Geoff: 00:17:14

You're asking an honest

Kirk: 00:17:16

that's correct.

Kirk: 00:17:17

Nope.

Kirk: 00:17:18

Where were you last night?

Kirk: 00:17:19

Well, I was with my friends.

Kirk: 00:17:21

Well, that's not what I was told.

Kirk: 00:17:23

Whatever the dialogue is.

Kirk: 00:17:25

It's real, so it's living truthfully under imaginary circumstances and the foundation of acting is the reality of really doing something.

Kirk: 00:17:34

Ask the question, give an answer, try to get this person to fall in love with you or out of love with you, whatever the scene is, you really do that.

Kirk: 00:17:44

It's not fake.

Kirk: 00:17:47

people don't understand that about the craft of acting.

Kirk: 00:17:49

So I try to demystify it and really simplify it and get you connected with you, the human being, who you are, who is Geoff, what makes you happy and sad and angry and jealous and surprised?

Kirk: 00:18:05

you got to know thyself because you work from thyself.

Kirk: 00:18:08

If you don't know those things, you're never going to be able to embody a scene.

Kirk: 00:18:12

So you've really got to be connected with yourself.

Kirk: 00:18:16

Idea acting is bad acting.

Kirk: 00:18:18

That's the example I gave a second ago.

Kirk: 00:18:20

I have an idea of how this character is going to be.

Kirk: 00:18:22

Eh, you're, you're going down the wrong river.

Kirk: 00:18:25

it's not the right river at all.

Geoff: 00:18:27

Wow.

Geoff: 00:18:27

Very, very interesting.

Geoff: 00:18:29

Very interesting.

Geoff: 00:18:30

That's, uh, been some really, really good advice, Kirk, and I'm wondering for those listening who, might be wondering how they can learn more, where's a good place to start?

Geoff: 00:18:39

What would you suggest?

Kirk: 00:18:41

Selfishly, I would suggest I have this once a month group mentorship.

Geoff: 00:18:47

is, He's an

Kirk: 00:18:49

a month.

Kirk: 00:18:51

And what I do, the first Saturday basically of every month, is I bring A seasoned vet.

Kirk: 00:18:57

I bring actors, writers, directors, casting directors, uh, I have Beverly Holloway, who cast The Chosen, who I've known a number of years.

Kirk: 00:19:06

it's online, in my Zoom room, I interview this person, Andy Irwin I've had, the Irwin Brothers, you know, Jesus Revolution and all kinds of, you the list goes on.

Kirk: 00:19:16

it's at actorclasswithak.

Kirk: 00:19:18

com, but for 15, you're in the Zoom room.

Kirk: 00:19:23

interview for 45 minutes to an hour, and then we open it up to questions.

Kirk: 00:19:27

So you have direct access to people who are succeeding, who are legitimate, who are successful.

Kirk: 00:19:36

If you want to train with somebody, go to IMDB and see if they've done anything.

Kirk: 00:19:41

You know what I mean?

Kirk: 00:19:41

You gotta vet these people.

Kirk: 00:19:43

Are they credible?

Kirk: 00:19:44

Are they full of it?

Kirk: 00:19:45

Do they act like they know something and they really don't?

Kirk: 00:19:47

You gotta be careful, because there's a lot of stupid people that want to take advantage of you, and I've been taken advantage of over the years as well, and being conned and so forth.

Kirk: 00:19:55

So that's not what's going to happen at Afterclass.

Kirk: 00:19:57

so if you come to that event, like we have one this Saturday, and the guest mentor is my manager.

Kirk: 00:20:04

He's the guy that has represented me for 23 years.

Kirk: 00:20:07

And man, you want to talk to an agent, a manager, and figure out what is, what are you looking for?

Kirk: 00:20:12

What do you want?

Kirk: 00:20:13

How do I do this?

Kirk: 00:20:14

It's from the source.

Kirk: 00:20:15

And so if you start there, you'll hear me.

Kirk: 00:20:19

And we interjected.

Kirk: 00:20:20

Things all the time about the craft.

Kirk: 00:20:21

You'll get to know me a little bit more.

Kirk: 00:20:23

You'll hear these guest mentors and slowly but surely, maybe things will make sense and you'll say, you know what?

Kirk: 00:20:30

I want to take this further.

Kirk: 00:20:31

And then I have, I do either one-on-one sessions or two on one.

Kirk: 00:20:36

So it's two students, one student and me, or two students and me.

Kirk: 00:20:41

And in about 28 sections, approximately, everybody's different.

Kirk: 00:20:45

You'll have a craft.

Kirk: 00:20:46

You'll have a technique that you can use the rest of your life, but you gotta build it.

Kirk: 00:20:50

it's like a gym, man.

Kirk: 00:20:51

you gotta work out every day.

Kirk: 00:20:52

You gotta maintain it.

Kirk: 00:20:54

You have to get up every day.

Kirk: 00:20:55

You'll have a craft, but I'm not guaranteeing that you're going to be good at it.

Kirk: 00:20:59

I'm not guaranteeing you're going to get a job.

Kirk: 00:21:01

That's going to be about your discipline and your desire.

Kirk: 00:21:06

Oh Yeah.

Kirk: 00:21:07

I mean, it's, it's all about that.

Kirk: 00:21:09

you just have to have dogged determination.

Kirk: 00:21:11

it sounds cliche, but success is literally your only option.

Kirk: 00:21:16

I said, I am going to make a living as an actor.

Kirk: 00:21:20

And I have not wavered from that from the very beginning.

Kirk: 00:21:23

My goal, I said this earlier, was to be so good that I can't be ignored.

Kirk: 00:21:29

And I'm not a party smoozer guy and player and all this stuff, I just said, I can't do that, I'm just going to be good.

Kirk: 00:21:37

I'm just going to be really good.

Kirk: 00:21:39

And if I do that, if I keep my focus on being good, everything else will take care of itself.

Kirk: 00:21:45

And that's proven to be true for me.

Geoff: 00:21:48

Well, I think that's been, that, last minute has been a big enough nugget of advice that is worth the whole interview for actors who are listening

Geoff: 00:21:57

thank you so much.

Geoff: 00:21:59

very, very helpful and I think some direction as well for many people, as they are perhaps wanting to move forward in their career or start.

Geoff: 00:22:07

their career, and I encourage them to look up the resources that you've just mentioned.

Geoff: 00:22:11

We'll certainly put the links in our show notes, so if anyone wants to, to find them easily, just take a look at our show notes and,

Kirk: 00:22:19

You can always email us, too.

Kirk: 00:22:20

It's just hello, like hello, at actorclass.

Kirk: 00:22:24

com.

Kirk: 00:22:24

If you have a question about something, you can also reach us through, thewallertechnique.

Kirk: 00:22:29

com.

Kirk: 00:22:30

You know, it's all kind of connected, but if you have questions or you want clarity, but I'll just say this in closing.

Kirk: 00:22:36

You have to have a technique.

Kirk: 00:22:39

Do not waste your time.

Kirk: 00:22:41

If you're not going to want to get a technique and you're not going to want to work hard, it is a very competitive business.

Kirk: 00:22:46

Those in the top 3 percent have earned it.

Geoff: 00:22:50

uh huh.

Kirk: 00:22:50

not an accident.

Kirk: 00:22:52

Somebody can sleep their way to the top, but trust me, when they have that big role and they stink, they never work again.

Kirk: 00:22:59

The people that are there are good.

Kirk: 00:23:01

It's why they're there.

Kirk: 00:23:02

So make that your focus.

Kirk: 00:23:04

It's not about fame or fortune.

Kirk: 00:23:06

I would dig fortune, but fame, no, no, thank you.

Kirk: 00:23:10

I just want to be good at what I do.

Kirk: 00:23:12

So anyway, I just want to encourage you to get out there and go for it, man.

Kirk: 00:23:15

It's possible.

Geoff: 00:23:16

Thank you so much.

Geoff: 00:23:17

Really appreciate your advice and it's been a pleasure having you today we've enjoyed meeting you, enjoyed talking with you, and uh, look forward to catching up sometime

Kirk: 00:23:26

Thank you very much.

Kirk: 00:23:27

Honor and a blessing to be here.

Kirk: 00:23:29

Thank you for having me.

Kirk: 00:23:30

Good luck everyone.

Geoff: 00:23:30

God bless.

Kirk: 00:23:31

God bless

Kirk: 00:23:31

you.