Learn the situation.

When preparing a scene learn the situation don’t memorize a scene.

Learning the situation allows your brain to assimilate the words as they are linked to what is happening in the scene. 

Learning it is quite different from memorizing.

If you learn what is going on – how you’re getting what you want, the facts, relationship, time, place – you’ll have much more to hold on to when you’re acting. 

If you memorize it you’ll probably just be holding on to the words. It’s not enough. 

You should always play the situation.

The situations in TV shows are iconic and usually each scene can be characterized simply. Such as: girl flirts with boy, bad guy threatens, good guy speaks the truth, a couple argue in passive aggressive, two doctors do their job, etc. 

Trying to act a scene you’ve memorized instead of a situation you’ve learned is more difficult. It is a scene, but describing it as a situation puts you in rather than trying to act something someone else wrote in someone else’s story. 

Once you make it a situation – which it is – then you’re making it yours.

The language we use reflects our method. 

Sharpen your approach and the naming of it. This isn’t semantics. It’s a question of clarifying what’s best practice.