How actors remember their lines

This resonates.

As a frequent public speaker and coach of others in public speaking, the top priority is to just deeply understand the material. The second priority is to create the habit write like you publicly speak (i.e develop a style).

You put these together, and you have no choice but to explain it the way you’d have written it anyways. This enforces resilience against interruptions and allows for improvisation.

But this is hard. It requires two great efforts: to deeply understand the material, and to craft a speaking/writing habit that makes for powerful, public speaking.

It doesn’t surprise me then, that actors do the same.

I've taken some Meisner technique workshops, and this is what changed my view of acting:

“Acting is the ability to behave absolutely truthfully under the imaginary circumstances.” The Meisner Technique is a brick-by-brick process designed to get you out of your head and into your gut. For that to happen, you must learn to put your focus and attention on the most important thing: the other actor."

Actors under this don't pretend, they are. A lot of actors will practice their lines with just reading and reciting, no attempt at tone or inflection -- just flat recitation -- because if you aren't responding to the other actors you are just pretending. A lot of the warmup exercises are based around just responding to the other person in front of you. And they are a great way to get better at talking to people -- that's why I took the classes. Stella Adler has a great quote: "Growth as an actor and as a human being are synonymous.”

I find it so much easier to remember lines with the other person in front of me - I don't memorize random facts well. They always have a connection to something else and I have hop from stone to stone of thoughts sometimes to remember what I was trying to sometimes.

Loved this quote from Michael Caine

You must be able to stand there not thinking of that line. You take it off the other actor’s face. Otherwise, for your next line, you’re not listening and not free to respond naturally, to act spontaneously.

Mmmm. I think I intuitively study like this, but I often have issues recalling the original word. For example - remembering “shy” for the dwarf “Bashful”, my brain will cycle through heaps of synonyms trying to pick which one is right (while not not making a fool of myself).

My random thoughts : human memory is more like linked lists, rather than hash tables

At some point i was bored and wanted to learn by heart a pretty long poem (Lermontov, Demon). I was able to recite it for 15 min straight t normal talking speed, but if you d ask me to start in the middle, i wouldn't be able to. I had to come back to a known point, and go on from that

As someone who acts in their spare time, I think the article is missing three things.

First, actors do actually have to mechanistically memorize their lines in addition to understanding them. There are plenty of instances where you need to recite a long string of words in precise order because that's what's in the script, not because there is some underlying logic that makes the word choice self-evident. While early in the rehearsal process it doesn't matter, in fact it's a good thing to play around with the script, by the end you need to have everything locked down. There is more to theater than just conveying a character's state of mind - people depend on spoken cues, particularly for blocking, and maintaining timing is critical.

On the flipside of that, theater is inherently a variable thing. No two shows are going to be exactly the same. A prop may not function correctly, someone else may mess up a line, the audience may laugh more or less at a joke, etc. You need to be able to adapt in the moment, which means you can't simply remember your lines, you need to be present in the moment. That's the real reason you need to understand your lines. As an aside, it helps that the audience typically does not have the script memorized, so as long as things on stage are progressing naturally, mistakes tend to go unnoticed.

Finally, I think people grossly overestimate the difficulty of memorizing text. We invented language long before writing, and it is extremely optimized for being easily remembered by illiterate peasants. Think about how many songs you know - there are probably hundreds if not thousands you could easily sing along to even if you haven't heard them in years. Think about how many movie quotes you can recall to interject a random pop culture reference into a conversation on the fly. Crack open a book you read 10 years ago to a random page and see how long it takes you to know exactly where in the story you are. You might mistake a word here and there, perhaps switch the order of some lines, but you'll remember the bulk of it without putting in any effort at all. Actors reread their scripts dozens of times, they put as great deal of effort into practice, and their success depends upon this effort, of course the end result will be more polished than baseline memory, but the difference isn't that big.

One glaring difference between acted speech and real speech is actors don't interrupt each other. Real conversations are often a bit of a mess.

The tl;Dr is they do it by a massive investment in time and brainpower, mechanistically or not. Michael Caine contextualises it as living inside the characters mind.

We can recall bashful by context is true. The depth of context an actor has to carry is far beyond that, it seems to go to motivation, intent and meaning in deep ways.

The trope of an actor asking the director "what's my motivation" when they're a redshirt and die in scene 2 may actually be .. true: everyone probably has to know why they say what they say to remember to say it well.

This reminds me of Borges’s short story Pierre Menard, author of the Quijote in which a 20th century author called Pierre Menard steps in the shoes of Cervantes so much so that he actually re-writes Don Quijote, line by line, not because he wants to copy it, but because it makes sense to him at the moment when he writes it. A bit difficult to explain but it’s a must-read! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the...

Wow! Brilliant Read. I love how our mind loves to read and visualize scripts and it's like in between infinite thoughts going within. The time we repeat we think in some different way thinking "Oh yeah! Now I understand this more".

Curious to know from the people who have read a lots and lots of text or books or watched movies.

Anecdotal: for the specific case of "freshly written standup comedy routine", mental palaces [1] have proven effective, at least for me.

Once you remember that "your next joke is about x,y,z", it's pretty easy to remember the joke itself.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

As an aspiring actor in 1990, mastering the art of memorizing lines accurately has been a journey of both discipline and discovery. Initially, I struggled with the sheer volume of text, often feeling overwhelmed by the task. However, I soon realized that understanding the context and emotional underpinnings of my character was crucial. I began by breaking down the script into manageable sections, focusing on the motivations and relationships within each scene. I still felt repetition was my ally; I would recite lines repeatedly, both silently and aloud, until they felt second nature. Additionally, I found that visualizing the scenes and physically moving while rehearsing helped to cement the dialogue in my memory. Techniques like recording my lines and listening to them during commutes or integrating them into daily activities proved invaluable. Collaborating with fellow actors also enhanced my retention, as it allowed me to react organically and authentically during practice sessions. Over time, these methods coalesced into a robust strategy, enabling me to deliver my lines with confidence and precision, fully embodying the characters I portray.

Someone recently told me that they couldn't remember and recite historical stuff because it wasn't like math, which they could reconstruct from first principles. I replied that if you can begin to understand something you can begin to remember it.

Somebody needs to write a play consisting of random words as a test of this ;)

I've trained voice actors for over 20 years, and the visual cortex being constantly activated as you are forced to stare at the words is a major problem for most actors.

We have a variety of techniques for helping with this, but the one that works the best is "micro memorization": take a single sound group (linguistically, a speech chunk) of 2-6 words and repeat them with eyes closed. Anything longer and a small bit of anxiety ("am I remembering the words correctly?") creeps in and destroys naturalism. Eventually, the brain becomes attenuated to sharing meaning, not just words, and that becomes a habit that can be used when warming up a script you've never seen before.

Also, just as a single multi-syllabic word follows a pitch and stress pattern, so do individual speech chunks. Speaking each chunk in the most natural /default pattern is difficult to learn to let happen naturally, and this exercise also builds skill in that area.

If you enjoyed this article I’d recommend checking out the book _Moonwalking with Einstein_ by Joshua Foer. Great read and fascinating dive into the lives and practices of individuals that participate in memory competitions.

Oh, this is how you learn to draw. It's not copying or memorizing an arrangement of edges, it's learning how edges represent the shape, form, texture, and motion of an object. When you can draw something (particularly without reference), it's because you intrinsically understand that object's mass, volume, surface, and relation to other objects and its environment.

I wonder if/how this applies to memorization of long works that are not exclusively dialogue.

Growing up, I knew a pastor who had memorized the entire New Testament. It wasn't a trick. You could drop your Bible open at any page, start reading half a sentence, and he could continue on from there as long as you wished. He really did have the entire thing committed to memory.

When I asked him as a curious 12-year-old how he had done it, his answer was long on wisdom, but short on tactics. He said, "Don't overestimate what you can do in a year, but don't underestimate what you can do in a decade."

Maybe that's the difference? Actors need to memorize their lines quickly, while he had as much time as he cared to use?

Tell a professional the goal, not prescribe the steps. It works for convincing dialogue between actors and effective product delivery from developers. You could stretch this to avoiding micromanaging.

Somehow reminded me of how Michael Scott remembers things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSi41cNvmXQ

Funny. Perhaps that’s the only way to do it. At one point in my life, I was part of a theatre troupe playing small locations for obscure plays. On one occasion, there I was in the scene and my line coming up in 30 seconds. A twinge of fear as I realized I had no clue what to say. The fear rose steadily, culminating in abject terror till one of the other actors turned to me and cued me up - at which point it all just flowed.

Awareness of self outside of what you’re playing just destroys that flow state. It’s like that whether I think about the shuttle, the table tennis ball, or acting.

So it seems like a corrollary of this would be that people do not remember what they do not understand and what they can not place in context, which could explain a lot of human behavior. If you do not understand something it mostly does not exist for you, you never remember it and never think about it. This is why complexity is used to hide and deceive.

But there is a huge difference between film acting and theatre acting. In film you just memorize your daily lines. What I find magical is how these actors go into character and deliver a line naturally for that character. I assume for serious work they practice with their own acting coach behind the scenes and then also practice during the shoot according to the directives of the director. Here Nuri Bilge Ceylan shows how to eat walnuts https://youtu.be/G6_pwltI85Q?si=2NXm1HP54YbAhepV It looks like the delivery of lines are the least important part. (In Turkish, but you'll get the gist of what he is saying.)

It makes me remember Pedro Pascal and how he memorized scripts: https://people.com/pedro-pascal-reveals-tedious-way-he-memor...

"You use the first letter of each word in these sort of towers, these columns I guess," he said. "And then it's this very, very tedious way of making yourself learn the line."

Reading the comments here on HN, I think it's safe to say that you need a combination of mechanical repeating and learning by heart.

But do actors do this because it helps them remember the lines better or because it's essential in order for the delivery to sound natural and not memorized. It has to be something that the actor, impersonating the character, would have said without being prompted. So if you can internalize the character, then the script is a logical result of what that character would naturally say--reducing the amount of exact memorization needed. But I'm not sure that it's necessarily that it improves memory itself. (Not saying it doesn't but there's a confound here, from a scientific perspective, that isn't easily disentangled).

My experience with learning chess openings is comparable : repetition is necessary but not sufficient. You need to "work" on each line, thinking deeply about each one and trying to find associations either between them or with things you already know.

I wonder what the equivalent is for musicians who work without scores? Getting into the feel and emotional direction of the music you are playing?

The following remark in the article reminded me of one of the points raised in a video[0] on the "Answer in Progress" YouTube channel:

"Deep understanding involves focusing your attention on the underlying meaning of an item or event, and each of us can use this strategy to enhance everyday retention."

The AIP video is motivated by Sabrina's (video creator/presenter) frustration around having a memory that "sucks":

"I can't remember a lot of the things I have done. I can't remember a lot of the things I'm supposed to do..."

One of the points raised in the video was:

"The most important thing for memory when an event is happening is to pay attention to it."

Which seems to be consistent with the view expressed in the article.

If memory is a topic of interest to you, you might find the AIP video a worthwhile watch:

After investigating memory related research and conversations with people who have memorization related experience (both theoretical and practical) an attempt to memorise & recite 3,141 digits of pi in front of a theatre audience is made...

(And, even if it's not a topic of interest, Sabrina's approach to both research[1] and presentation generally makes the result both informative and entertaining.)

---- footnotes ----

[0] "i memorized 3,141 digits of pi to prove a point": https://www.youtube.com/embed/KAjkicwrD4I

[1] As a university graduate with a focus in math, economics, & statistics, who often develops software tools during video creation process.

I recently was asked to take over the role of Deputy Governor Danforth in The Crucible a week before opening. I accomplished it -- barely -- largely through rote memorization. Yes, I also had to imbue the words with appropriate intent and emotion, which I did not achieve by rote, but in a way it was comforting to have those specific words to start with, rather than make up some of my own that might or might not actually convey the proper intent, and almost surely not nearly as well as a luminary like Arthur Miller. As I see it, it's those words that establish my character, not the other way around.

I like how Patrick Stewart puts it [1], as "dead letter perfect", which is apparently the default expectation in British theatre more so than, say, film acting.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2007/jul/29/theatre2

Interesting - as a singer I always memorize words by ... well, just by memorization. When I've been in (amateur) theatre stuff I've always been struck by how much more difficult it is to learn words that don't rhyme, but it never occurred to me that there might be other techniques apart from plain old repetition

Along similar lines, Louis CK said he does not write down his material (or at least, did not until recently). He explained that _knowing_ rather than _memorizing_ makes it come out more natural.

The same strategy works for transforming a written essay into a memorized talk in front of an audience.

The words "cart" and "horse" spring to mind, in that order.

Ok, so this interestingly connects in my mind with how older religions see it as important to teach their holy texts by heart (e.g., Jews learning the Bible, or Muslims learning the Koran): this article's claim seems to support the idea, that it should lead to a better understanding of the meaning of, and behind, the text.

At least some actors do do the initial memorization by repetition, which also tells us something about memory: the process is to try to recall lines 1-10, then repeat with lines 2-11, then 3-12 etc. At each step it may be necessary to look at a line but then hide it again before performing the act of recalling.

This illustrates two things about memory: attempting to recall is the thing that causes you to remember, and also that to enter longer term memory is necessary to recall from that, rather than short term memory. Which the above process does by thrashing short term memory with too much data to fit.

This doesn't get you to perfection, probably the process described in the article is necessary as there next step.

When I was beginning acting, I was mostly afraid of this, memorizing the script. But then after getting experience from fellow actors and reading up on method, I realized how easy that part is. You anyway approach the script slowly, first maybe even using your own words. This way the words flow naturally later on. I was never afraid of the script, just about inauthentic acting, which really can happen. You have to deeply immerse yourself in the emotional world.

As a long-time Anki user (and memory enthusiast), I would like to offer some caveats for those transferring actors' memorization techniques to study techniques (programming languages, chemistry, math etc...)

This deep understanding of a script is achieved by actors asking goal-directed questions, such as “Am I angry with her when I say this?”

1. Do embed emotions. For example: Go's CamelCase for exporting variables implies capital letters want to be loud.

2. Do invoke experience. Don't merely read and write code, teach it and activate multiple sensory inputs and multiple contexts!

Deep, elaborative processing enhances understanding by relating something you are trying to learn to things you already known

3. Do chunk it. Instead of creating new standalone memories, chunk it with other programming languages' syntax.

In summary, while engaging with the material is important, it is not sufficient for passive tasks (how many times have you read a book and forgotten the main points?).