Why do I get nervous on camera?
One of the things I often work on with actors is anxiety and tension when working on camera.
It is completely understandable. Being watched while you are trying to do something well can be exposing, and the knowledge that what you do is being recorded can add another layer to that feeling.
But I think it is useful to separate two slightly different kinds of nervousness.
One can begin well before the camera rolls.
The other can arrive at the moment it does.
And I think they need to be understood differently.
Before the camera rolls
For many actors, the nervousness begins long before anyone says “action”. In fact, for some people, it may actually reduce once the camera starts rolling.
I think a large part of the nervousness before a take comes from a fear of the unknown, sometimes combined with a desire to control what is about to happen.
But there is something important to recognise here: being nervous because you are about to step into the unknown isn't necessarily a bad thing.
In fact, it may be a very natural response to what you are about to do.
When a scene is filmed, you don't know exactly what the other actor is going to do. You don't know exactly how you are going to feel. You don't know what might occur to you in the moment. And you shouldn't necessarily know all of those things.
Some of the immediacy that works so well on camera comes from precisely this uncertainty.
If you have already rehearsed your performance so specifically that every thought, reaction and movement has been decided in advance, you may find yourself trying to reproduce something rather than actually experiencing the scene.
That doesn't mean preparation isn't important. It is. You should prepare as much as you need to in order to feel that you can play the scene, respond to direction and deal with whatever happens.
But there is a difference between preparing yourself to play and preparing a performance that must happen in a particular way.
I have come to accept that feeling of nervousness before a take as part of the job. I'm about to step into something that doesn't yet exist.
That's scary.
But that's the job.
So rather than trying to get rid of that feeling, I try to hold it lightly.
What I don't find useful are all the thoughts that can attach themselves to it: self-doubt, negative predictions, imagining everything that could go wrong, worrying about what other people will think.
Those thoughts can take you down a series of emotional roads that don't help you do the work.
The nervousness itself may be perfectly natural. You don't necessarily have to follow every thought that comes with it.
When the camera starts rolling
For me, this can feel quite different.
Sometimes the anxiety actually increases once the camera is rolling. When that happens, I think it is often because I have started trying to stay in control.
Suddenly the camera, the crew and all the technical apparatus of filmmaking can begin to feel like a threat.
It can feel as though all of this equipment and all of these people are there to catch me out. To see whether I can do it. To record some great failure.
And when that happens, I become much more aware of being observed.
The result can be a performance that relies on predictable choices. I start doing the things I already know will “work”, rather than remaining open to what might happen.
Those choices can easily become acting tropes rather than something instinctive and alive.
When I edit footage of actors, I sometimes see this happen very clearly. The clapper board comes in. Something changes. The actor suddenly becomes more controlled. Their face, body and reactions become more deliberate.
It is almost as though the awareness of being recorded has caused them to start managing their performance.
And ironically, that is often the very thing that makes the performance less interesting.
So what can you do about it?
The first thing I find useful is to remind myself that everyone around me is there to support the work.
The actors, director, camera department, sound department and the rest of the crew are not waiting for me to fail. They are all there because they want the scene to work.
The same is true of the camera.
When you're nervous, it can be surprisingly easy to see the camera as something threatening. But there is another way of looking at it.
You can actually enjoy being in the middle of all that machinery.
The second thing is to notice exactly when your nervousness changes.
For me, it can be around the marking of the slate, or when I hear “action”. Those moments can start to feel as though they are the point at which I suddenly have to become good.
I find it more useful to concentrate on what I'm actually doing during those moments rather than what they represent in my head.
The slate is just being marked.
The camera is already there.
I'm already working.
I don't suddenly have to become a different person because someone has said “action”.
If anything, this is the moment when I want to open up, not close down.
Trust the mistakes
One of the most useful things I have learned is to trust what happens when things don't go according to plan.
Some of my better moments on camera have come from something going wrong, from a mistake, or from a director saying, “Let's just try this.”
Those moments remind me that my job isn't to deliver a performance so precisely worked out that any deviation ruins it.
My job is to create the conditions within myself where I can play when the camera is rolling.
One exercise I sometimes use is deliberately to let go of something that I know is working.
Choose one moment in a scene where you feel you have found something good. Then, when you get to that moment again, commit to doing something different — without deciding in advance what the different thing will be.
It can feel surprisingly risky.
But it isn't really.
You are not destroying the scene. You are simply reminding yourself that the success of your performance doesn't depend upon a handful of moments happening in exactly the way you planned them.
Some choices will be stronger than others. That's fine.
The important thing is to discover that there is more where the original choice came from.
And remember: the moments you are trying so hard to reproduce were probably born out of instinct in the first place.
There is a very good chance that there is more instinct where that came from.
So perhaps the answer to camera nerves isn't always to try to become less nervous.
Sometimes it is to become more comfortable with the fact that you are about to step into the unknown.
Prepare yourself.
Then let go.
Let yourself react to what actually happens rather than what you planned to happen.
You might find that some of the best things in the scene are the things you couldn't have planned in advance.