Hand Placement and the Actor

There is one very easy way for an actor to distinguish himself on stage; to stand out from everyone else. There is one thing that will, every time, make an actor’s work look immediately more polished and professional. What is this one thing? Those of you who read the title already know. It’s hand placement. It sounds like such an insignificant thing, but it really can do all of the things I’ve claimed. Knowing what to do with your hands while you’re onstage can instantly transform your performance from sloppy to polished. Will it make you a better actor? No. Will it make you look better? In a big way.

So what is the key to this hand placement thing of which I speak? Well, the biggest key is realism. What Stanislavsky called “public solitude.” Sanford Meisner talked about this in his book On Acting:

“Stanislavsky, no slouch, had a phrase which he called ‘public solitude.’ He said that when you’re alone in your room and nobody’s watching you—you’re just standing in front of the mirror combing your hair—the relaxation, the completeness with which you do it is poetic . . . On stage ‘public solitude’ is what we want. You have only one element to give up to get to the area where your real acting personality is, and that is yourself.”

Public solitude is the key here, the real simplicity with which you carry yourself. The problem many actors have, especially when first learning their craft, is that they do not know what to do with their hands. They have these gangly things called arms which they seem content to leave down by their sides, but then there are hands at the end of those arms, with five fingers on each. Suddenly they’ve gone from two appendages, to four, and finally to fourteen and they now become too many to handle. What do you do with them? Well, what do you usually do with them? For some reason there is a distinction that many actors have that you need to rid yourself of. It is the idea that you move differently onstage than you do in real life. Certainly there are a few things you have to do such as cheat out and gesture, but if you make this distinction too big you’ll end up grand standing for the audience and being too presentational. There shouldn’t be such a big difference in the way you move onstage. It’s just a stage and you’re still a person, on or off it.

Start to notice your arms and hands in your every day activities. What do you do with them when you stand around conversing with someone? What do you do when you’re waiting for a bus? Notice other people as you go through the world. What do other people do with their hands while their talking? Now start to put these ideas into your character. Is your character an open person? Then they probably wouldn’t cross their arms and it’s a general rule not to put your hands in your pockets too often. The real key to improving your hand placement is not to think about it while you’re onstage. Get out of your head, as Meisner would say. Being self-conscious about what your hands are doing is only going to make them look more awkward and call attention to the fact that you don’t know what to do with them. Let them do what they want. That plan seems to work during everyday life. Why wouldn’t it work onstage?

Start noticing what you do with your arms both on stage and off and see if there is a difference. I swear that if you start watching hand placement from the audience perspective you’ll begin to see how much of a difference it can make and how much more professional an actor can become simply by not fidgeting or looking uncomfortable in their own skin. Who’da thunk it, right?

As always, keep striving to better your art and I invite others to share their opinions on this site, which you can do at the submission link up in the top left. Come share your expertise with others. And until next time, Sin Boldly!