AIBU to wonder how busy actors memorise so many lines?

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To think that actors and actresses have super-memories? The question is prompted by seeing an underground poster for a theatrical production of Shadowlands, starring Hugh Bonneville - how on earth does he (and his equally busy colleagues) memorise large chunks of text if they are busy all the time and appearing in theatre and filming?

It’s incredible and I would be dreadful at it.

I can’t even remember what I was going to say mid sentence 😭

It's their job that they've trained for. If they had to do your job all day they'd no doubt be asking how you do it!

I have a very retentive memory (we worked with a foreign customer based of 1000 users in different regions, and I could name most of them by region). But you'd probably be surprised by how easy you found it if it was your only job!

Training. There's not really that much to it, anyone can do it.

Thats their job.

I’m busy but have to learn things for my job so I do it.

Same for them.

I was in the drama society at uni and I had a big part in a play, spent months learning my lines.

I am insanely jealous of anyone with retentive memory. You have a massive gift!

Sorry, what was your degree if you don't mind my asking and did you find memorising your degree stuff as easy as the play?

You can't be serious! Word for word? I mean, how? Huge chunks of text. I know they can do re-takes in cinema, but in theatre?

I think this about singers too. I’m going to a concert tomorrow night and I don’t know how he remembers all the words!! I wonder if that’s why they let the audience join in sometimes? Because they’ve forgotten the words? 🤔

I often wonder how soap actors memorise so much when they have new lines every day.....
I know others are saying its training- but how exactly?!

It’s not so hard even for non-professionals. I was Rosalind in As You Like it once and it was easy enough to learn. I also learned a few epic poems and the entire lyrics of an opera off by heart for an exam (literature degree). I bet if you tried learning a poem you like you’d find it much easier than you think.

I suspect it's a number of things. Given that remembering lines is a skill needed to be a good actor then if you can't do it you're probably not going to get a lot of work.

Soap operas tend to have big casts so even if there's a lot of episodes it's shared out among a lot of people.

Films you get as many bites of the cherry as you need (or the director will tolerate) and plays you're doing the same thing every time and you've probably had a lot of rehearsal time.

Across a half hour episode, it's going to be a few lines per person per day max, surely? Your average school nativity isn't any longer than that.

I'm amazed he fits it around all his other extra curricular activities [redacted for legal reasons]

But yeah - it's his job. I presume you have many skills none of the rest of us could do after years of doing your job?

I think I could do it OK. It’s not like they’re random lines with no context. They make up a dialogue, a story.
When I was at school back in the day, I could recite the Shakespeare play we studied for O level from start to finish.

Remembering lines is not the issue for actors. Inhabiting a character, so the words they say sound fresh and immediate and natural and varied - that's the issue. It's not a matter of memorising, like a recital, it's a matter of inhabiting the role and performing each response to what occurs on stage as if it was just happening for the first time.

When my daughter does shows she ends up memorising the whole script! She has always done this since about the age 5. Amazes me how her little brain copes.

It's a skill, and a photographic memory. I've seen interview with child actors. Drew Barrymore, macaulay culkin and Cole Sprouse when he did friends. They said they easily remembered their own lines and the rest of the cast often correcting the other actors

I saw Rosamund Pike in Inter Alia at the theatre recently and came away thinking the same thing. She doesn’t leave the stage for the entire production and has about 85% of the lines. All acted brilliantly too. I suppose it’s just yes training and lots of repetition?

DD is amazing at memorizing, I think it's partly practice (she's been acting - at her insistence - since she was barely potty trained )

But I am convinced it's also partly that she has severe dyslexia and it's how she coped when she was little (I only realised with hindsight). She would memorise a bunch of books and pick those ones wherever possible so she could read them quite fluently

She's currently learning two scripts and has learnt all her lines swiftly. I''ve been helping her and can still barely remember the opening words

It’s unexpectedly easy! I have a memory so I walk to x point, say y, sing Z. Then I move to A position, look like B emotion and say C, sing D. It’s really really easy when you have done it all your life!

Because it's a skill their livelihood depends on. Like Black Cab drivers in London and The Knowledge. If you do it again and again it becomes second nature.

I suspect it's not that hard. Have you ever taken a drama class?

The only real problem is if the speeches don't have some kind of narrative, logical flow. When I took a drama class in school, one girl gave a mesmerizing performance of the opening monologue from The Adding Machine. It's a long, deliberately dull speech, and she was phenomenal. But afterward she said it was really difficult because it's kind of rambling and disconnected, without any flow or arc.

Kids in school plays can learn lines. It’s not difficult, you just have to keep going over it.

Yanbu

I was thinking about zendaya saying shes doing several movies

It is a lot of work, even if they are paid well