How to Memorize Lines Faster: Science-Based Tips for Actors

Are you tired of the endless struggle to remember your lines before a big audition or performance? In this episode of Acting Smarter Now, host Lydia Nicole sits down with memory coach and Jeopardy champion Joyce Hshieh to reveal the scientific secrets behind effortless script memorization.

Joyce shares her unique process for bridging the gap between cognitive science and the craft of acting. You will discover why passive review is failing you and how to implement retrieval practice to make your lines stick. We dive deep into state-dependent learning, explaining why the environment where you practice is just as important as the words themselves. Whether you are dealing with a dense monologue, repetitive lines, or learning disabilities like dyslexia, this conversation provides a roadmap to help you go off-book with total confidence.

Beyond just memorization, Joyce explains how to analyze the intentions behind every word to enrich your performance. We also discuss essential brain health tips, including the vital role of sleep and aerobic exercise in memory consolidation. If you want to transform your acting career from undiscovered to unstoppable, mastering your memory is the first step.

Chapters

0:00 Intro and the sacred nature of acting
3:15 The feeling of being present in a scene
6:00 Why Joyce Hshieh became a memory coach
9:30 Bringing science to the acting craft
12:15 State-dependent learning and environment
15:45 How to conduct a mock audition
18:30 Organizing your script into bits
22:15 The truth about Stanislavski and beats
25:00 Retrieval practice vs passive review
28:30 Using the Pomodoro technique for focus
31:45 Memorizing with dyslexia and learning disabilities
35:15 Connecting character intention to the text
39:00 How to handle repetitive lines in a play
42:30 The intersection of memory and acting coaching
45:45 Brain health: Sleep, exercise, and alcohol
49:15 Advice and techniques for older actors
52:30 Navigating diversity and making your own opportunities
55:15 Joyce Shei’s Jeopardy experience and confidence
57:00 Understanding spaced repetition
58:19 Final thoughts and call to action

If this interview helped you, please subscribe to the channel and share your thoughts in the comments below. You can find more of Joyce’s work at offbookit.com and follow Lydia Nicole for more acting career advice. Support the show by buying Lydia a coffee through this lin, 

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#actingtips #memorization #actorslife #scriptwork #actingcoach
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Whenever you're learning something, the environment where you learned it, how you learned it, it becomes encoded as part of the memory. Welcome to Acting Smarter Now.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

I am Lydia Nicole, actor, producer, and your acting career coach, here to help you cut through the noise, own your craft, and transform your career from undiscovered to unstoppable. I have a question for you today. Is it hard for you to remember your lines? Do you know the best way to memorize your scripts? Well, today that changes because my guest is Joyce She, actor memory coach and founder of Off Book It. Oh my goodness, she is dropping such gems for us today. So without further ado, let's go to the interview. What do you love about acting?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Oh wow, that's a big question. I love getting to explore humanity. That seems lofty, I guess, but I guess how I've described it before is like acting is like being alive in the most potent way where you get to live even the littlest moments in a way that is like heightened, that uh you notice things more and it it's like being alive in in more than alive in a way. Um I think that's the thing that actors uh like about it because um there's this energy to it where there's the energy you are bringing to it from kind of embodying moments, experiences, but also if you're doing it in front of an audience, you get that energy from them too. So yeah, I I guess that would be my answer. Just being this like alive in a heightened, m more potent way. Yeah. Do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_02 3:22

I do. I love acting. I think it is just it's everything. I I just you know acting to me is is sacred. It's like you're communing with God on a different level. You know, because you have to be at one with the people, you have to be at one in the situation, you have to be at present in such a different way. You know, in life, a lot of times we check out. You can't check out when you're acting. You you just can't. There's too much going on, there's too much at stake. You have to breathe with the other actors. And I find all art forms are like that, especially in performances, right? So I did stand-up comedy for 14 years, and it was the same thing, only different in that they are they are with you in a different way. And so when you are doing stand-up and the audience is with you, there is nothing like it. It's like when you're in a scene and you are in the zone, there's nothing like it. And it's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't know that process, right? Because what what zone are you talking about? They don't know. They have no clue. But you as an actor know when you are hitting those marks, when you are right there, you are so present and so transparent that it's it is electrifying, you know, and when you see it captured on the screen, it doesn't matter how many times you watch it, it is still captivating. You know, it's like, oh my God, um, one of my favorite movies is Out of Africa. And the work that Meryl Streep does in it, I've seen that movie so many times, and I still cry at the same place because it still is affecting me. She was so present that it's still affecting me. Where sometimes you'll watch a piece of a film or television, and when you first see it, you go, oh my God, that's so good. And then you watch it over and over again, and you're able to see the cracks. You're able, oh, it's not, you know, it's not that, you know. But when somebody is present in that moment, it is amazing. And you have such a gift that you are giving actors by helping them to memorize in a different way. I love it. I I love how deep you go because you're not just giving us your idea of what we should be doing. You have gone scientific on us. You have you have gone deep and deep and deep in order to help the actor memorize it so it's not painful. It because memorization sometimes, if you don't have a process, it is horrible.

unknown 6:35

It's horrible.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Yes. What made you decide that you were going to niche down on helping actors to memorize?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah. Well, I saw it all around me. I mean, I struggled with lines myself, but I saw it was just a very, very common problem among the actors that I was around. And it was just normalized most of the time that this was just a struggle and that this was the way you were supposed to do it. It's just expected that you're supposed to memorize lines, but there's never any sort of training on it. There's never, there's maybe a few tips here and there, but they're contradictory a lot of times. A lot of the advice out there is just not very good. Years ago, I, you know, even though I was an actor, I was interested in a lot of other things as well. You know, I was reading a lot about the brain, psychology, memory, history, philosophy. Um, I was very into trivia at the time. I was going to bar trivia with friends, and um, I ended up being on Jeopardy. That's part of my biography. Um, so I picked up a lot of things about how the brain works, how it remembers things best. And I realized that there was a lot of stuff out there that most people don't know about, um, let alone actors, just anybody. It's not even in academia, a lot of this stuff where you would think it would be. But a lot of this stuff is is very simple and simple to implement. And I I just saw that there was a bridge here. Someone needed to bridge this gap. And I felt like I was in a position to do that. Where, you know, you do sometimes see memory experts out there, but they're sort of teaching it in a sort of uh general way where they're teaching about how to memorize lists or or names and faces and things like that. It's more general purpose. Um, but I I felt like I understood the experience of an actor, like we were saying, where it's about performing, it's about being present in the moment. And that is a very specific thing that is unique and unlike any other thing. And uh performance had to, that the craft of it had to be at the heart of a memorization process that was going to work. And so I saw I it needed to be married in a certain way so that it really, really served actors as best as possible. So I felt like I was able to synthesize something that really had those pieces together, where it brought the science of memory and learning together with the craft of acting.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

There's something that you do, which I found fascinating, in that when you're memorizing your lines, you should be up and you should be in a situation or in an atmosphere that's going to mimic where you are going to do the material. How did you come up with that?

SPEAKER_00 11:34

So, this is based on a specific phenomenon of again, it's back to the science, uh, this phenomenon is called state-dependent learning, where the finding is that whenever you're learning something, the environment where you learned it, how you learned it, it becomes encoded as part of the memory. So if you practiced something and learned something in a space that is very different from the space where you're going to be performing it, there's going to be a disconnect. And when you go to perform, you won't be able to recall it as well. An example to make it more specific: like there's a there's a famous study out there where they took people, I think it was scuba divers, they had people memorize a list of words underwater and then they tested them either underwater again or on land. And the people that learned the words underwater, when they're tested underwater, they they recall those words better. They were they performed better underwater versus on land. So it shows you that the environment you're in, it affects your recall of it. So what when it applies to actors, of course, if you were practic memorizing your lines on the couch, sipping coffee, that does not mirror how you were actually going to perform. So if you were trying to uh do a self-tape, for example, and you memorize your lines on the couch, well, then when you get up and try to do the self-tape, the lines you start blanking. They just go out of your head. And you're like, what happened? I thought I had them, right? And it's because if your environment is completely different and you didn't practice the elements of your performance, also the technical things that are there too, right? Like the lighting, the camera, your eyeline, all of that stuff. If you're able to practice that stuff and have that be part of the memorization process, you're in a much better position. So uh, for example, yeah, for auditions, I always say, you know, do a mock audition before your actual audition.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

When you're doing a mock audition, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Like practicing actually in your self-tape. Or for example, if you were doing a Zoom audition, you're preparing for a Zoom audition, do it on Zoom. Have somebody pretend to be your reader on Zoom and set up your lights, however, you're gonna do it. Like whatever you're gonna wear that day, everything so that you practice it and you're used to it and it's part of your being, like we were saying, like presence. This is a sensory, physical art form, right? Practicing every element of physically, emotionally, sensor, sensorially, whatever the word is. It gets you used to that. And so if you if you practice that way, you're you're less likely to be thrown by those things when you actually have to do it for real. And uh you'll be more calm, you'll be more relaxed, you'll be more present because you already did it before, you're already used to it, and all of that just helps so much.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

You also talk about um when you start, when you get the script or you get the sides to organize it, which I've never heard anybody say before. Organize the script. I was like, what? And so can you uh you know expand on that? Because I I think that is, you know, first of all, I'm loving your process. As I'm learning about what it is that you teach, I'm loving it. But that at the very beginning, when you get that script, you have to organize it.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah, so I think of it like when you get a script, a fresh script, it's kind of in a chaotic state. And uh organizing it, a process of organizing it is sort of like making order out of chaos. And usually what that process looks like is breaking it down into smaller pieces. If you have several pages and it's kind of sprawling, and it's hard to know where how how does this go from one thing to the next. But if you break it down into beats, that's you know, the the thing, the practice that a lot of actors are taught is breaking a script into beats, and that is a very, very useful practice. So uh usually what I do is yeah, breaking things into beats and labeling them. Uh, it gives your memory these footholds to hang on to. It gives it structure, it gives it a foundation so that it keeps things in the right order. So now it's not just this mess of words. It's it starts here, it goes here, next it goes here. So there's a logical progression to it. And now it starts to make sense. And when it makes sense, it's easier to remember. It gives you this spine that that just holds everything together. A big monologue or paragraphs, I find this is especially important for that, because again, usually when you get a monologue, right, it's just a giant paragraph of text and it's just a wall. It's like how how do you even sift through it? Like what is going on in there? But if you organize it, if you break it down into phrases, that's that's another way to break things down. There's beats, but then you can also do phrases for these paragraphs. Again, it just makes it clearer for your mind. So if you can break it into like one phrase per line, so then you see one idea at a time. Your mind can take in one idea at a time and see how they link together. Again, it just gives you an order, it gives understanding that that makes it easier to remember.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

So we don't want to do it by rote anymore. We don't want to do it where we're reading it and reading it and reading it and reading it. We want to chunk it, we want to be able to do the beats, or as I heard you say to someone, bits, do it in the bits, as Stanislavsky said. You know, take the bits of it and then work through it, and not necessarily memorize it all from beginning to end, but maybe memorize one scene and then go and memorize another scene. Why does that help us more than just trying to take it all? And, you know, it's like when I was listening to you, I kept thinking about the elephant. There's a thing that says, How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Doesn't matter where you start to bite it, but it's one bite at a time. And and what you were describing reminded me of that, you know, just start with one bite.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I totally agree with that. And that is so funny about like you mentioned Stanislavsky. So, you know, he's the one that came up with this idea of breaking a script into beats. We call it beats, but apparently it's a it's like a misnomer misunderstanding. It actually, the the word, I think it's because they were Russian and people, you know, English speakers probably misunderstood what they were saying. I think they actually meant bits. So if you see newer translations of Stanislavsky's works, they use the word bit instead of beat, and it's like breaking it into bits, smaller bits. So he in his uh writing, he gives this uh turkey metaphor, where it's um like if you think of a play as a whole, as a giant turkey, but you can't just eat it whole, right? You have to carve it up first. So um he's describing like, well, first you you carve it into the breast and the legs and the wings, and and then, but even that you have to carve it up even more because you know you can only do one bite at a time, like you said, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? What's interesting is for him it was about the acting, but this also serves the memorization as well, because it it gives you that understanding, that detailed understanding, moment-to-moment understanding, also, so that you see how every every moment connects to the next. And again, it it serves the acting, it serves the story, the your understanding of the story, but it also helps the lines stick better.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

And you also talk about the retrieval practice that you don't know what you know until you test yourself. Explain it to us.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

So, again, this is a cognitive science principle where retrieval practice is shown to strengthen memories. And this is in contrast to what's called passive review. What passive review would be is just reading your lines over and over again on the page. And the problem with that is when you're just sort of passively reviewing things, just reading things, it tricks your mind into thinking that you know something because you recognize it, but recognizing it on the page is not the same thing as actually knowing it. And the the way to actually know whether or not you know something is to actually test yourself. And that's what retrieval practice is. It's like a it's a hard line, like you either know it or you don't. But the act of actually coming up with the lines from your memory, retrieving it from your memory and getting it out, recalling it, that in itself strengthens the memories so that uh you're likely to um retrieve it more easily the next time. So yeah, it's sort of strengthening. It's if you want to think of a metaphor like uh lifting weights, so that effortfulness of coming up with the memory and recalling it and getting it out strengthens it.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

And you talk about okay, taking it in bits, working on it, but not over exerting yourself with it. And and as I was listening to you, I was thinking of this is a great place where the pomaduro technique would be effective. So you work on a piece for maybe a half an hour, you put it down, you come back, you know, the pomaduro technique for people who don't know is you are focused on something for 25 minutes, five minutes you and you set your timer, and then five minutes you get up, you go do something, you dance, you drink water, you go pee-pee, whatever you have to do, go get out of that space where you have been working on that thing. And then you then you come back for another 25 minutes, you do it again, and then you stop the clock at, you know, you start it back at five and take your break. And I think sometimes as actors, I know I used to do this. It's, you know, you're staying there all day trying to get it in your head. And um, as I was listening to you, what what came to me was as a kid, I would always panic in memorizing and not even scripts, but just having to memorize for a test. That followed me when I started memorizing scripts. You're in anxiety about it. You're not, you don't breathe because you're like, I don't know if I'm gonna remember this. The pressure is on, you know. And and for me, what broke that was being fortunate enough to audition. A lot in a period of time. So I didn't have time to panic because I had to memorize something and then go to something else and then go to something else pretty quick. So I had to pick it up. I have dyslexia, and that used to mess with me. And I want to know how does somebody who has a learning disability, how can they use your technique to help them in a different way than the old way that they've been taught, you know, and feel confident about the technique?

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Yeah, those are great questions. Yeah. Dyslexia is quite common. I'll say I'm not an expert in dyslexia or learning disabilities, but I have come across that a lot of the things that I do teach, these learning techniques that are, you know, working with your brain and how it naturally learns things. I know a lot of people with learning disabilities also use them well. It also works for them, or it's been used in, you know, programs for people with dyslexia and things like that. So they apply to people with learning disabilities as well. I think, especially for the people with dyslexia, you know, what I was talking about, getting up early on and actually doing the scene rather than spending a lot of time feeling like you just have to memorize things by rope. But actually getting away from the script as soon as you can and trying to get it into your body, into your uh, into the story, into the acting, I feel like is probably going to serve people with dyslexia a lot because it doesn't just uh get them stuck looking at a page, right? If you're able to get it more into the story, that is probably would be really helpful for people with dyslexia. Do you do you think so, given that I think so?

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Absolutely, I think so. I mean, when you spoke about the bits or the beats, that was always something when I started breaking down my script and started doing the things, it made it much easier for me to learn because I wasn't stuck on the words. And you speak about visualizing the material so it makes it easier for you to take it in. And as someone who has dyslexia, the thing that always got in my way was the fear that I wouldn't be able to do it. But when I relaxed and it wasn't about the words, but about the intention, about what I wanted, and I'm using this sentence or I'm using this a paragraph to get what I want, then it helped me a lot because I wasn't stuck in words. I was, like you said, in the action of it. What is it that I want from my partner? And then the most important thing for me was how do I serve the piece? Not about me memorizing, but how do I serve the piece? So that is a thing that, you know, that's helpful for actors.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yes, yes. I I totally agree with that. And that's amazing that you you have that experience. Because yeah, I totally agree. When you understand the intention, when you have an action, when you have a series of actions where you're trying to achieve a thing, it's it doesn't, it isn't words anymore, right? It's not just abstract words on a page, it's totally embodied. It's it's more than that. It's a it's a it becomes more alive, it's uh it's more physical, it's not just abstract words. And uh, I think that's where actors get tripped up, is when they want to separate it. Like they want to do memorization over here and acting over here, and instead of combining them together, which is what serves the acting and the performance the best. And it makes it easier, it makes it more fun, it makes it more creative, and it's less painful when it's just words and you're just kind of mindlessly trying to go through it. It's it just doesn't stick, it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

You spoke with an actress or you worked with an actress where you did a one-on-one with her, helping her with a play that she was doing on Judy Garland. And I I found it so fascinating how you were able to help her pick out certain words that she could really get her teeth into. When she says more, she's talking about her wife more. When she talked about darling, she was talking about her dentist, and how you were able to help her connect not just the words, not just the intention, but to actually find something in a lot of the words that she could really fly with, you know, that she could just go, you know, so instead of her, if she's saying honey, she has a she has a reason why that word shows up, you know, and and and to who it shows up. If she's saying darling, she has a reason why she's saying darling. And one of the things she said, which which I loved was that in the piece that she was working on, there were repetitive lines. Like she had to say the lines over and over again. And sometimes in in scripts, especially in plays, we are being told, okay, you're gonna say this line, and then in act two, you're gonna say this line again, and then at the end of act two, we want that line again. And how you helped her not to get stuck on it's the same line, but what do you want from it?

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah, definitely. So this is uh getting into more of those detailed challenges of um getting the word-for-word memorization down, which can be challenging, but I I find is often the most rewarding because if you take the time to actually dig into why is the character using these specific words, you can find a lot of interesting insights about the character that are even more juicy and rich than what you originally had. Especially if you have a really good writer who wrote it with intentionality, you can find a lot of these really nice gold nuggets. The example that you were talking about with um, I was working with my client, she did this play where she was playing Judy Garland and she had scenes where she would often say a line like three or four different ways, you know, throughout the scene. It's she's saying some variation of, I don't want to go back on stage. And and she has to remember each variation, you know, word for word, and how do we distinguish them from each other? That was a challenge that we we had to figure out. And what I did with her is we sort of tried to map out an arc, you know, why why does she start and she says it this way? I'm not going out there, and the next time you you can drag me, you know. I don't remember the exact words, but you you know what I'm saying. Uh I don't want to go back. So what we had to figure out what's the progression, what's the story that's happening to her through this scene? Is she starting out and you know, maybe she's just frustrated, but she gets increasingly more um like uh she needs to fight, or or is she giving up here and now she's just curled up in a ball crying or something, whatever it is, you know, having to figure out the uh the progression, how they link together. That was kind of the key for us figuring that out. But I I think that enriches the process, right? So it's not again, it's not just words, it's figuring out what's underneath the words and why is she saying it this exact way at this moment, why is she saying it a different way the next moment? And how do they link together? You know, how how does she get there?

SPEAKER_02 33:15

What struck me is you're not just helping her memorize, but you're also guiding her as an acting teacher of sorts, because memorization is one thing, but layering in, okay, why are we saying it this way? You're now in the coaching space, which is phenomenal. I mean, if someone works with you, they're not only getting a memorization teacher, but they're getting an acting coach. You're not just sitting and going, okay, the line is this. You're like, hey, what is she talking about here? How does that affect the character? So I just want you to know, I get it. I appreciate everything that you bring to what it is that you teach the actors. That yes, part of it is memorization, but another part is layering it in as an acting coach does, you know, because an acting coach will say, okay, what's what's the change here? Where does the beat change? And what do you want? I know you said, you know, I'm not going out there and now you got to say it again, but what do you want this time? And so I I I just appreciated the process that you were doing with her that she shared with us, the audience. I thought that was phenomenal. And so I wrote a couple of things down because I found you had so much to share. So there were four things that I heard you say. The first one is organizing the script, the second one is analyzing it. So I'm chunking it, I'm breaking it down in bits. Now, why do I need to analyze it as an actor before I can memorize it?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah, so so that is kind of what we were talking about with figuring out your intention, what's going on here, that enriched understanding of the scene, the story, your character, all of that helps the lines stick better. What you're saying about, you know, memory coaching plus is really acting coaching, what I do as well. They are married together because this is for performance. And so it has to, it has to be married together. Um, so yeah, that that's part of the analyzing process where figuring out moment to moment, why is it going from here to here? You know, what what is my character doing that is taking me from here to here to here, linking those things together. It is interesting doing it through through the lens of memorization. I think of it like when you have a hole in your memorization where you don't know what the next thing is, that tells you that you're probably missing something. There's something to dig into there. There is something uh story-wise, character-wise to look at there that you're probably missing and to figure out the bridge, whatever it is. What is that moment about? What am I doing there? Uh often if you if you have a memory gap, it's because you don't know what you're doing there. I that's why I like it when actors make mistakes. You know, when when uh you're practicing a scene and they they make a mistake, they go up on the line, and it it tells me, oh, there's something, let's look at it. Let there's something to figure out there. There's a gold nugget there. So I think of them as opportunities rather than mistakes so much. It's a good thing. I think that's a nice like uh mindset shift to have as you're practicing, as you're memorizing, to think of mistakes as opportunities to explore the character more. That is kind of part of the analyze uh process, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

So you have a course that you teach memorization, but you also do one-on-ones where you will work with people and their their scripts, the plays that they're doing. What's the difference between the course and the one-on-one with somebody?

SPEAKER_00 37:42

So, with my course, I teach you my process. I give you the skills and the tools so that you can learn this method and this skill on your own. And so then you have that as a thing in your arsenal, a tool in your toolkit that you can bring with you anywhere. So that's the course. With private coaching, we can get more specific about your individual needs and also your individual project. I can kind of guide that more with more specificity and more of a tailored approach. So every script is different, and depending on what type of text it is, you know, what genre it is, also what what are the demands? Like, is it uh for an audition that you have in tomorrow or in a couple days, or is it a full-length play that you have a few weeks? That can change the strategy that we have. So I can get more specific, more strategic in the one-on-one coaching so that it's really kind of tailored to you and your project, your script. Certain language is kind of weird, and so it kind of uses a few different tools that you can sort of lean into. You can kind of play around with things, but um yeah, you just get more guidance with the coaching.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

So, as someone who has dyslexia, I would do the course, but then I would want you to walk me through a script because I learn better hands-on. Like I can watch stuff, and sometimes I'll watch it over and over, but it doesn't help me until someone is actually walking side by side with me and saying, Oh, this is what is, and then I can ask questions. So I love the fact that you offer both because for someone like me, I need both. I need the first part so that I can understand the language, so that I can understand what it is that you're doing. But I need that one-on-one guidance so that I will then be able at some point master what you have taught me. So I like that. I think what you bring to the table is amazing tools to help the actor. And it's something that we as actors don't really give enough credence to is the memorization, how we take it in, how we are able to sit with it, how we marinate in it. So I I love the technique that you bring to it, the memorization tips, how to do it different. You also talk about things not to do when you are memorizing, making sure that you get enough sleep. Stay away from substances that are going to mess up your cognitive process. What else is there that actors should stay away from when they are memorizing, when they're taking in that kind of information, especially if it is a lot of text?

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Yeah, yeah. What you touched on, so there's a lot of things that can affect your memory. Like you said, sleep. Sleep is actually so important for your brain, for your memory, um, because when you sleep, memories get consolidated and strengthened. And anything that disrupts sleep is going to disrupt your memory. So uh staying away from alcohol is actually a big one. Alcohol massively disrupts sleep. So don't memorize lines and drink wine. I would say stay away from that. If you have a big audition, don't drink the night before. If you're gonna be on set, don't drink the night before. Yeah, so drinking is a big one. Um, making sure you're getting seven to nine hours of sleep every night if you can. Um, you know, people think that they can skimp out on sleep and just like keep working, and but that's usually working against you. Exercise is actually really great for your brain and your memory, also. When you do aerobic exercise specifically, it generates this protein. It's called BDNF, and it acts like fertilizer for the for the brain, and it helps with memory, it helps with learning. Doing activities that challenge your coordination is also really great for your brain health. Uh, juggling um martial arts, yoga, dance. I've heard that dance is amazing for your brain, actually. And there's studies now where that as a hobby has uh is associated with like a lot lower rates of dementia, people that that dance on a regular basis. So that's like a great thing, especially for older, older people out there uh to pick up dance or to do dance on a regular basis, because it's like we're saying it's challenging your coordination, your learning things, but it's also like a social activity where it's just really great emotionally. And yeah, so all of these activities are are good to incorporate for brain health. Back to the sleep thing. Actually, you can actually use sleep to enhance your memorization of lines. So I often recommend go over your lines, practice your lines before going to sleep, or also a good time is soon after you wake up. Those are kind of the two heightened moments where you can get kind of a boost from this sleep effect. So, especially right before going to sleep, it's because it's like you have you're giving your mind this stuff that it can now work on while you sleep and consolidate and strengthen. It's like giving your mind the material to work to work with. So I think a lot of people have have found that a lot of actors have found like, oh, I did my lines and then I slept and I woke up and it was just it was there now. Like it would, they just found that they could recall their lines a lot better. So yeah, I I definitely say like use that to your advantage. That sleep, that right before sleep time, do a session of practice is great.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

So for older people, because you were talking about older people, and and I have a lot of older friends who have left the business, consider coming back to the business, but the thing that keeps them from jumping back in is they go, Well, I can't memorize like I used to. You know, oh, I don't know if I could memorize all the material. How would your technique help them?

SPEAKER_00 44:43

I have a lot of students that are older actors, and what you were saying that is very common, this anxiety, like, oh, I'm I'm too old to memorize the lines as well. I can tell you, I I have several students that are older that they they found these techniques worked for them. And they're up in their 60s, 70s. You know, I I I have um a testimonial from a woman she was 74 at the time when she joined my course, and she was able to memorize a really dense play. It was like a really intense uh like legal drama, where she had this big monologue and and she said that she had never felt more confident on the stage after after you know using these techniques to memorize her lines. So these things apply, they they work because they work with the human brain. It's just how the human brain works. These these things can definitely help with that. Yeah, instead of rote memorization, which some people are able to get by with that, but as you get older, that that usually doesn't work as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

What do you do for relaxation? I like listening to music, I like taking baths.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Um, I do yoga, I really love yoga. Music, I feel like is a good good relaxer. I like to read, you know, watch TV too. Yeah, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Oh my god, I have some I love photography, I love painting, I love. I love dancing, I love music, I love, I love uh getting together with other artists and talking about art. So this for me is like a treat to be able to talk to you about art and your process and what you do. That is fabulous. I love it. That that stirs me up, it gets me excited. It's that that's what I like. That that's what I like. It's like, oh yes, tell me more, tell me more. So I I really, I really appreciate it. I have a question for you as far as you are Asian American. Are you Chinese? Uh my background is Taiwanese. Oh, Taiwanese. Okay. So when you were coming into acting, how difficult was it? We're we're veering off a little bit, but I think this is important. How difficult was it for you to step into acting and own what it is that you were doing, being a minority?

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Yeah. Um at the time, it was somewhat difficult because this was even before, you know, there's there have definitely been gains for Asian Americans in movies and TV. You know, Crazy Rich Asians was really successful, and Fresh Off the Boat was a successful TV show for a while. But when I, you know, was acting, it was kind of before all that. So it was kind of like a void. Like you don't know, there's only a few people in the industry that are actually successful Asian American actors. So I guess I didn't focus on that as much, but it was difficult because it was like there's just the reality of the industry is going to see you a certain way because you're Asian. And uh a limitation of can they see you in certain roles? And it's like kind of a it's hard to deal with that because it's you don't have control over that, right? It's just it's just their perception of of what they think you can be or what they think you can be in. But I feel like I feel like that's changed quite a lot since then. There has been a lot of progress in in that, I think. And I I certainly admire a lot of the Asian American actors and comedians and stuff that have made so many strides in the past several years and and done amazing, amazing work and have really paved that path and opened up the eyes of you know what Asian American characters can be. I think that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

Yeah, I'm curious because I'm a little older than you, probably are a lot older than you, but as a woman of color, there weren't a lot of parts uh available and to, you know, to keep pushing what I have found is you don't wait for permission. The reality is it's not our game, and so we have to make our own game. Not to go, well, there's nothing for me. No, there's something for me. Maybe it's not maybe it's not over there, but over here, we're gonna play this game. And and I think that is what has changed. Not so much that they are giving us the opportunity, but more of us are taking and making our own opportunities. And I just want to say that to people who feel like, well, there's not a lot of parts for people like me, because that is nonsense. You know, the the beautiful thing about today is that we don't have to wait. We can take our phones and we can make content and we can do what we want to because those those projects that become big that are of color. Um, I I started in 78 in Hollywood. And every 10 years I would hear, oh, it's gonna be great for Latinos this year. Oh, this is the year. You know what? No, it's not. It's you gotta make your way, you gotta figure it out. Because as people of color, performers of color, actors of color, we have to see ourselves as victors, not as victims. You know, and and this is general for actors who are walking as victims. I'm waiting, I'm being passive. Your your program, you talk about not being passive in learning. And and as actors, we can't be passive in fighting for our roles. You know, something about you said, I am going to go on Jeopardy, and I am going to just take it on. And you did, you you won three nights in a row. So there was something in you that didn't buy into people like me don't go on these shows, you know. So it just it just says something to me of of your character, of your tenacity to go, you know. I'm smart, I can memorize stuff. I know I I know I could do this. I want to know what made you decide that you were gonna go on Jeopardy.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Oh, what made me decide? It was kind of on a whim, honestly. I was watching Jeopardy on a regular basis because I was doing bar trivia with friends. It wasn't that serious, really, but I saw they occasionally put out a call like, hey, we're looking for more contestants, take our online quiz. And I just did it on a whim. I didn't really think much of it, uh, what would happen. But I ended up passing. They emailed me and invited me to do an in-person audition. And so I went to that again, kind of like, okay, this is cool. And then they invited me to be on the show, and I it was a big surprise at the time, but that was when I was like, oh, I I got I should win. I should try to win this thing. Um, but it wasn't like I I had seriously uh worked my whole life to be on this show, but it wasn't something I shied away from. It was something like, hey, why not?

SPEAKER_02 53:09

You had the confidence because you were playing bar trivia, bar trivia stuff that you something in you felt confident, like, hey, I'm gonna try this. Why not? You know, I think that's that's important to get our confidence up.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

And I totally agree with what you were saying about uh minorities like making their own content, making their own way. That that's what I feel like YouTube and the internet has really opened up for a lot of people, those opportunities where you can just make your own opportunities and not being passive and not waiting for gatekeepers that are never gonna open the gates. Yeah. Just uh yeah, having having the confidence, like you said, the confidence and the drive to create your own stuff and and do your own thing. I I certainly feel that way when it comes to creating off book it and and doing what I do. There wasn't somebody out there that was doing what I was doing. I didn't see people doing that. And I felt like this is something I can do. I can I can help actors with this need. It's very well needed and it's neglected. And yeah, I felt like I had the confidence to do that.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

What do you want actors to know about what you teach that I didn't cover?

SPEAKER_00 54:35

I think we touched on one thing, but we didn't name it. But this is a good thing to know. So you kind of mentioned about taking breaks, the Pomodoro technique, which is great. I love Pomodoro. But um, this technique, this learning technique out there, it's called spaced repetition. And this is about strengthening memories and strengthening retention specifically. So for any actors out there who they struggle where they learn a scene, but then maybe the next day they forget it like very quickly. So that's a problem of retention. So uh space repetition can help with that. And space repetition is kind of the antidote to cramming, like we were talking about cramming your lines where you are just trying to go over them over and over constantly, constantly, and then you're just getting exhausted and you're like, no, I just need to keep pushing through, just go over it more and more and more. That's actually not as efficient and as effective. Um, but space repetition, how it differs is that you would say learn your script, you take a break, you come back to it and do another repetition. So you review the material, you take a break, you review the material, take another break, review the material again. And with each spaced interval, so each break, you gradually increase the break between. So giving your mind kind of um a little more of a challenge each time by making the breaks a little longer. And so it kind of strengthens the memory and strengthens retention so that you're able to hold on to the memory for longer. So I that that was one thing I think we didn't go over into uh detail as much, but I hopefully I gave people enough with that that that it helps them.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

I love it. So people can find you at offbookit.com. Of f o k I T dot com. And if they go to that website, you have a master class that they can get a little bit more information on what it is that you do. And then the next thing is to take the course and then go ahead on and book with you a one-to-one so that they get to not only they have the information, but now they're actually able to practice it with somebody who's looking at them, who's guiding them, who's strengthening their muscle in the memorization way. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

Yes, that that is the path if people want to uh learn more from me for sure.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

Awesome. And how can they find you online in addition to your website?

SPEAKER_00 57:40

I'm on Instagram. You can find me at OffBook It. So yeah, follow me on Instagram. I I post pretty regularly. So yeah. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 57:49

I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting you and learning about what you teach and also a little bit about who you are. Um, it it has been such a joy, and I look forward to working with you on a script one day soon. Cause I I love I love, first of all, I love that you love what you do. That's the most important thing because there's a lot of people out here teaching stuff, but I don't get that they love it. I get that they want the money from it. And so I love that you you are enamored by memorization and helping, and we can find this and you can do this. And to me, that's what life is about is about finding your purpose and just loving, sharing it with other people. There's nothing like it in the world when you see somebody doing something and it brings them joy, and just watching some of your videos and listening to you talking about the process. I notice you get giddy. There's a little bit of giddiness to you, and then you do the. I love that. I love that. And I just want you to know that uh you are amazing, and I thank you for sharing this process with actors. And as much as I can, I'm gonna ring that bell and let people know that you are out there doing what you do because we all need it.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, Lydia. I I appreciate you so much for inviting me, and I appreciate your passion and love for acting. I feel like I can definitely feel that from you as well. How much uh you love and and enjoy the work and the the humanity of of it all. Yeah, absolutely. It's it radiates off you.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

It's great. Joyce just handed you some great tools to help you memorize your scripts, and we need that help so that we can knock it out the park when we get on set. Now, don't just watch the video, go back and take some notes so that you can own what you just heard and you can apply it in your work. My name is Lydia Nicole, and you have been watching Acting Smarter Now, where we don't just talk about the dream, we work it. If today's interview opens something up for you, drop it in the comments below. I want to know what you think. And you can also help this show by buying me a coffee. The link is below in the description. And don't forget to subscribe to this channel so you don't miss any upcoming episodes. And until then, go be unstoppable.