STOP LAUGHING? Drama?

Question:Sometimes I just start laughing for no reason while I'm acting and I laugh way too much.

How do I teach myself to stop laughing while acting?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Sometimes I just start laughing for no reason while I'm acting and I laugh way too much.

How do I teach myself to stop laughing while acting?

Me and my friends usually sit backstage together, in complete silence, and meditate. We just breathe, think about our characters, and learn to go off of each other....Also, try to really be IN to the story line. If you know exactly what is happening, and there is a funny line, and you can laugh, LAUGH. If not, the meditation really helps me before rehearsal and the play.

Good question!

Almost everyone cracks up once in awhile while acting, even the biggest names in the business! Just look at blooper reels to figure that one out. The difference is that on stage you can't cut and re-shoot the take, so maintaining a serious demeanor, or more appropriately, the demeanor of your character, is essential!

In order to get all the laughs out, try to get into a "zone" before you go out on stage for your first scene. I usually sit by myself in the dark in complete silence for about 20 minutes and try to "imagine" things around me in the darkness to fit my character. If I can create my own little world for my character in that 20 minutes, in pitch black, I can sure as heck do it on a stage for 3 hours in front of people. It's called Sensory Deprivation. If you can create something from nothing, creating something with other actors, scripted dialogue, props, and motivation is a cinch! This will also better put you "in character", and if your character is not supposed to laugh during a scene, you will be physically unable to do so.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

When you're on stage, do your best to focus your attention on the other actors who are there with you. Before each scene, spend some time thinking about your character's relationships with the other characters. Do you love them or hate them? Are you afraid of them? What do you want from them? Are you trying to convince them to do something? Are to trying to prevent them from doing something? The more attention you have on your character's objectives and relationships, the more connected you'll be to the emotional truth of the scene and the less likely you will be to burst out laughing (unless your character is supposed to laugh).

Try to think briefly about something very unfunny to knock the giggles out of you. Starving children, cancer, war, etc. It usually works for me.