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.
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.
I work with my acting coach to help me get into character and do pronunciation drills and tongue twisters to help me deliver lines.
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.
