All in the Line of Duty!
- Posted 19 Apr 2021
A Q&A with actor Daniel Mays.
This week, as part of our career-focused learning, lucky Performing Arts and Drama & Theatre Studies students had the privilege of attending a Q&A session with actor Daniel Mays, giving them the opportunity to gain a real insight into the industry. Daniel has featured in Line of Duty, White Lines, Des and Code 404, amongst many other film, theatre and TV credits.
This Q+A workshop with Daniel Mays has been extremely beneficial, the first part of the workshop has given me a professional insight as to what it means and what it takes to be a successful actor in today’s industry. I was lucky enough to be chosen as a participant to recite my monologue to Daniel Mays and receive professional level feedback. The feedback I was given was some of the best I have ever received and I will build on this further in my career. Overall, a very successful workshop.
The workshop that I was fortunately able to be a part of today was an amazing opportunity and benefitted me in more ways than one. I was able to personally ask Daniel Mays some questions about the industry for which he gave some very detailed and helpful feedback which I will use moving forward in my career. I personally wanted to know about his experiences with portraying strong messages and morals (as I am interested in going into community theatre) through the various roles he has played. He mentioned some great points about working until you are able to choose the types of productions you are in to suit what you want to address, whether that be societal issues or any other cause. After a short break, we came back into the room for the second half of the workshop which consisted of the chance to perform to Danny live, in a one on one setting. I am very grateful to have been chosen to perform a monologue for him as I knew that this was the perfect way to receive feedback from an industry professional as well as it being a very rare occurrence. Danny gave me some extremely positive feedback on my character development but also how I made him feel as an audience member. On top of this he gave me points to work on and examples of techniques I can use to ensure I am getting the most out of my skill set, for example listen to music which fits the emotion you are trying to portray before going on set. I found this the most beneficial point in the workshop as I can now go away and work directly with the feedback I was given. A massive thank you to Danny and the college for making this possible!!
Today’s workshop was a great experience and it allowed me to learn more about acting and the industry. Daniel Mays was incredible to speak to and offered valuable knowledge about acting and I really enjoyed hearing about his experiences working on film/television sets as well as on stage. He also gave out a lot of great advice about acting and the industry about resilience and perseverance which I found really helpful and inspiring. The highlight of the workshop was being able to perform a monologue in-front of him and receiving feedback from him as it was an amazing opportunity to learn more acting skills/tips from an industry professional.
