For years, I've had the privilege of training professional actors and directors, often working across linguistic and cultural boundaries.
As a director I don't believe it's practical for actors to focus on playing the emotions. At times, that can feel impossible. So instead of searching for feeling, I encourage actors to focus on doing. All very basic, simple and concrete. Doing provides a foundation for the actor to build their imagination upon. Their performance is solid, and perhaps the audience is no longer seeing actors, they are, in some ways, seeing themselves.
