How is the transformational acting technique valuable to you?
I think I always had a very good natural instinct, but I was missing all the other elements, kind-of an outline, of what’s going on with your character and how to focus. Really really focussing. I think that’s probably one of my weakest areas. So for me that has been one of the most valuable things about her technique, creating the life, the story of that character, creating the background and the moment of the character.

Sande’s technique is a never-ending process. You keep learning more and more about yourself and how you can go to different places, bring yourself to different places and how you can evolve and make a mistake and keep going.

You’ve taken the private coaching, the intensive and the ongoing classes—what’s the value that each one has brought to you.
The intensive is an intensive, you’re submerged in it. When you go home, you’re still on it. You have to really wrap your head around it. You can’t really do anything else. You kind-of live, breathe, eat Transformational Acting for those couple of days Which is what you’re like when you’re working on a project.

On-going classes are always great to just jump in, especially when you’re constantly doing an audition process–you actually work with other actors, you remember the joy of actually working with somebody to create something.

Private coaching is a focus thing for me, to really get me to sit down and really focus on what I’m preparing and what the character is. The work is specific for each project, whether preparing for a film or an audition and you just want somebody to push you along, push you further ahead.

Can you talk about a specific example of when the private coaching has made a difference in an audition and/or in a role?
It’s hard to remember one specific example. Hopefully it’s a constant thing.

But here’s one. I was analyzing an audition I’d had and trying to figure out why on that day I came into the room but just didn’t DO it the way I had with Sande. And I had to really sit down and analyze it until we figured out that I was very affected by the other person’s energy. Which is actually one of my strengths, that I can work off of what the other actor is giving me, but in an audition situation, it was tripping me up. We really honed in on it and we keep working on it. Once you’re conscious of a problem, you can chill out and focus.

In a work environment, you can be in a the opposite situation in which you don’t get anything from the other actor. Hopefully it doesn’t happen, but sometimes it does. Therefore you always have to prepare yourself and be present because in the end it’s you.