The Acting Podcast

Ep. 29: Cooking Your Self-Tape

Show Notes: Season 1!

Show Notes: Season 2!

Show Notes: Season 3!

BGB Master Teacher Sydney Walsh teaches Risa how she makes steak, shares insight on mushrooms as she cooks them LIVE, and connects it all to your audition + self-tape practice. “You can follow the recipe and still be deeply creative.” Just like cooking… as an actor, you must create space and time to prepare a meal and allow it to simmer and grow into something delicious. This goes for your self-tape or audition as well- being fully present in order to allow your imagination to inform what you create and be in the process of making something new each time. You must allow each “take”- each dish- to unveil itself in the moment, accepting and inviting that it will be different and fresh every time, trusting the process of cooking it, and thus enabling a more profound, pure, and inventive creation. Listen in to this inspired conversation for a whole bunch of “aha” moments! And check out all of Sydney’s classes on her BGB PAGE!

“What does food mean to you and how does it correlate with art, life, community, and being nurtured?… I think there is something about cooking and acting… being in real time, making something, and watching it change and grow, that’s the ultimate creative act. With cooking, it takes time, you have to slow down and have intention. This is the same with acting; we have to be present, being in the slow process of discovery, and letting it become something right in front of us.”

‍– Sydney Walsh

“I just grew up at a time where I couldn’t name one female director…or not a single woman would get on stage to accept a producer award at the Oscars…representation matters because if you don’t see it, you don’t know that you can do it. Being a woman on the other side of the camera was not something that I ever saw.”
-Ellyn Jameson

“Then the desperation went away and I had an ease in audition rooms that I’d never had before because I had a life outside of wanting someone to pick me.”
-Dominic Burgess

“It happened entirely because I was following the path that was put in front of me without a tremendous amount of judgment around it. And I’m a judgy motherfucker…if I can do this, anyone can.”
-Johnathan McClain

“Walk into every room, and everything you ever write, and everything you create, and just make it you, just authentically you. And most of the time, the people who’ll respond to it will love it because you’re being yourself and there’s only one of you in the world. And it feels amazing when you put yourself forward and people reward you for it.”
-Caroline Lindy

Guests & Resources:

HERE’S MORE about BGB Master Teacher, Sydney Walsh.

Credits:

Producer:
BGB Staff
Tech + Design:
Andy Abelow
Music:
Sam Dewees + Andy Abelow
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