I prepare for auditions differently depending on what it is - what the material is, what the project is, who I'm reading for.
When I first started acting, and we would all sit down and talk about Shakespeare and how great it was. I thought well, I suppose it is.
I had the training at drama school where I studied Shakespeare and Brecht and Chekov and all these period historical playwrights and I think that I responded to the material.
Since I'd developed this fear of not remembering my lines, I took 'Mulholland Drive' as a test for myself. It was a long monologue: no one else speaks.
I work with my acting coach to help me get into character and do pronunciation drills and tongue twisters to help me deliver lines.
The first play that I saw was 'Cyrano,' and I remember going home - I was like nine years old - and trying to learn the monologues.
Shakespeare teaches you how to act. You come out of this process as a better actor. It's just the nature of the words he writes.
Sometimes in my class I have people come in and do monologues inspired by people they know and I always find that to be useful to do specifics about somebody and then you're actually doing a character and not doing some random old lady or something.
I really don't want to go to work every day convincing myself of what I'm saying. I want the material to make me a better actor; then I try to return the favor to the material.
The way I teach people to sing... I have them talk the lyric out until it sounds like something they really believe, like an actor with a monologue.
Maybe Bill Maher should just practice his monologue a few times before the show, so he wouldn't find it so hilarious. But I kid the asshole.
I feel like any single woman of color who's been onstage has a Shakespeare monologue in her back pocket, and a monologue from 'For Colored Girls.' It's just part of what you should have, as a woman of color.
As soon as I have the script in my hand, I'll be up in my apartment room pacing up and down learning it because it's just such a lovely thing to do.
