During an audition or reading, are hand or body movements too distracting?
What works best is to move in a way that seems natural, but that also seems to be an extension of your character — or, if you’re speaking, your point. This is easier said than done. When actors get body training (if they get good training), there are two goal that must be achieved in sequential order: 1. To learn how to have a neutral body and how to be comfortable having a neutral body. In other words, if the role calls for it, you should be able to be completely still. But you should be able to do this without feeling uncomfortable or constrained. It’s hard to act when you’re uncomfortable, and it’s harder still to hide your discomfort from the audience. But once you learn to keep yourself neutral, you’ll no longer engage in gratuitous “ticks” — personal quirks that contradict what you’re trying to do with your character. 2. Character movement. Real people generally aren’t completely still. So once you’ve learned to make your body neutral, you can then layer a character-specific so
