Tony Award-winning actress Lena Hall shares profound insights about the acting process, from combating self-tape burnout to finding chemistry with costars like Jon Hamm on Apple TV’s Your Friends and Neighbors.
This episode covers:
- Perfectionism can sabotage performances when actors overthink. First takes often capture the most authentic instincts
- External success doesn’t guarantee internal peace. Hall experienced her darkest period while winning a Tony Award for Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
- True chemistry between actors comes from mutual openness, trust and a willingness to be vulnerable
- Playing characters with mental health challenges requires finding universal humanity rather than focusing on clinical labels
- Jon Hamm creates a supportive environment on set by being open to collaboration and mutual feedback
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Episode Preview: Embracing Cold Reads & Releasing Self Tape Perfection with Lena Hall (Your Friends & Neighbors)
Lena Hall: The problem is, I feel that when you get overly into your head, then your intuitions stop doing what they do so well. Our intuitions can take a scene and interpret a scene in the purest sense. Your first few takes are gonna be the best. As you go further into wanting to fix it because you keep watching back, you lose a sense of your initial response to the scene and it becomes more robotic, or more “acted.”
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