Do You Need To Study Acting To Be An Actor Or An Actress?

No, you do not need to study acting to be an actor or an actress, however, studying acting and getting a bachelor’s degree in drama acting, performing arts, or theater arts will definitely assist you to learn acting technical skills, thus, giving you the required experience to gain better-paying roles.

As an actor, you need to gain experience in several skills to be a professional actor such as but not limited to physical stamina, proactivity, literacy, reading, speaking, learning different dialects, creativity, memorization, projecting your voice, persistence, dedication, and discipline, as well as some personality skills that gives you the ability to communicating with a variety of people in the field and helping to build a good career resume.

Table of Contents

• Do All Actors Go To Acting School and Performance Arts Study?
• What Do You Learn By Studying Acting In A Performing Arts Degree?
• What Qualifications Do You Need To Study Acting and Performing Arts?
• How Will Actors Get Benefits From Studying Acting and Performing Arts?
  • Expand acting experience
  • Expanding the acting job opportunities
  • Expedite positive results in auditions
• Conclusion

Do All Actors Go To Acting School and Performance Arts Study?

Nop, not all actors go to acting school nor have an acting diploma certificate and this is due to the fact that successful actors with no acting diploma depend on their talents which they improved it to a professional level, and that doesn’t mean to be a successful actor you need to depend on your talent only without studying acting, not at all, because studying acting will not only decrease the time of achieving your goals of being a professional actor/actress but will also facilitate the way to your goals.

Anthony Hopkins, Meryl Streep, and Kourtney Kardashian are real examples of professional actors/actresses with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, they have studied acting and became so famous and successful in their acting life, and as I stated that many other famous actors did not have any degree in acting or performance arts but each have their own story to tell about their career path.

What Do You Learn By Studying Acting In A Performing Arts Degree?

As an actor, getting a degree in performing arts will educate, develop, and enhance mostly the below skills:

• Theatrical acting.
• Mime acting.
• Dancing skills.
• Music knowledge.
• Opera.
• Musical theatre knowledge.
• Magic and Illusion performances.
• Spoken word skills.
• Puppetry.
• Circus arts.
• Other performance arts are specialized forms of fine art, in which the artist performs live their work to an audience.

Studying acting in a performing arts degree is basically involving two parts:

• Actual practical performance.
• Theoretical and academic studying.

Having said that, studying acting in such a field will ensure you to have knowledge from both practical workshops and lectures from day one, and in this way, you are expanding your experience and knowledge far beyond an amateur actor who’s depending only on his talent to draw his career path. Putting in mind that these combinations of teaching are varied between universities.

It’s also important to mention that many universities out there offer options to take the experience from an art performing work during your studies, this is a very good opportunity to develop and enhance your skills within a professional context which will give you a good start upon graduation.

Most of the performing arts programs offer foundation courses on various disciplines, accordingly, the students will have the chance to select a particular specialization, hence the students will have a dedicated degree in the particular pathway they chose from the three main branches of performing arts (drama, dance, and music).

If you (as a student) looking to keep your options open or willing to learn more other variety of subjects, some universities offer their students the chance to study acting in performing arts besides studying other subjects in a term called (joint honors degree), and usually, this degree is part of humanities, for instance, English literature, and the good thing about this option is the student could transfer to a single honor programme at the end of his first year if he requires.

What Qualifications Do You Need To Study Acting and Performing Arts?

To become a performing arts actor you need to have certain skills either gifted with them or you have worked on your own skills by yourself and improved your ability, such skills include but are not limited to literacy, reading, speaking, creativity, learning different dialects, memorization, projecting your voice, and persistence…etc, however, if you have the enthusiasm to become a performing arts actor and willing to take this way as a career path, you may consider studying in an acting school to get an acting diploma, you will learn all the skills that professional actors have and become successful in performing arts.

To get into studying performing arts you need to have the below qualifications:

• 5 GCSEs A-C, including maths and English, and at least two A levels.
• A level of theatre studies or drama is desirable, but not essential.

So in the end, studying a course in performing arts would most probably be a BTEC Diploma in Performing Arts.

How Will Actors Get Benefits From Studying Acting and Performing Arts?

Expand acting experience

As an actor, you need a good boost at your career starting point, studying acting at a performing arts university will definitely give you that powerful boost, why? because studying performing arts is basically a form of art in which the actor learn how to use their bodies, voices, or inanimate other objects to convey artistic expression, unlike any other visual arts where their artist, for example, paint a painting or sculpture a creative subject, studying acting in performing arts involve disciplines of performing a play, for instance, live in front of a live audience.

Expanding the acting job opportunities

Having a good boosted start after graduation, you will have a ready experience to work in any type of acting project such as but not limited to movies, short films, live theater productions, TV commercials, theme parks, TV shows … etc, you would need to work first as an extra actor and gradually taking main roles.

Expedite positive results in auditions

Production companies all over the U.S, or even in other parts of the world hire actors on a regular basis, so competition for acting is very high, so while you are a performing art graduate you have a better understanding and experience of audition and acting, your chance logically is better to gain positive results in such auditions.

Conclusion

Studying acting is a starting point if you really want to take your career path to a serious level, however, it is very common that you become a famous actor without graduating from any acting school but by applying and studying in a dedicated Fine Art & Acting University is still a good career-boosting option, you will get exposure to professional people and set up a network of colleagues and contacts, you will also benefit to building your resume as your teachers will always push you and motivate you to do more practical acting techniques and how to apply them on stage.