The experts: actors on 20 ways to look and feel confident – when you’re anything but

From job interviews to presentations, first dates to wedding speeches, how can you give the air of being self-assured if you feel anything but? Actors share their secrets to appearing confident.

Know that hardly anyone feels confident naturally

“I’m not confident at all,” says the actor Maxine Peake. “For me, another part of the acting process is pretending to be confident.” Similarly, the actor and musician Johnny Flynn says: “It’s amazing how many actors identify as introverted.” Flynn says he hates public speaking so much that he sang instead of doing a speech when he got married. “My mum called me ‘incredibly shy’ in front of a massive group of people the other day, which made me want the ground to swallow me up. Performing is like going on a rollercoaster for me; it’s the opposite of my safe space. There is an exhilarating feeling in being raw, truthful and removing any kind of boundaries in front of a group of strangers.”

Embrace nerves

“I always get nervous,” says the actor Maria Austin. She has just finished performing in Agathe at the Playground theatre in London. “There were five of us in the cast and we were all nervous for every performance. There is a sense that nerves are a bad thing, which they can be if you get overly anxious for a long period of time. But it would be great to reframe nerves as a necessary feeling of adrenaline.”

Combat fear with joy

Flynn has had to deal with debilitating stage fright, which he says was triggered by an incident when he was in the play Jerusalem in the West End. In one scene, he was hidden inside a sofa on stage and had to burst out when Mackenzie Crook’s character blew a horn. One night, Flynn managed to knock a shaving scab on his face while waiting for his cue, then began to panic and have heart palpitations for fear he would be covered in blood. When he emerged, it was hardly noticeable, but it started a cycle of anxiety about going on stage.

Flynn dealt with this through a combination of hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioural therapy. “A thought can become your whole being, that is the amazing thing about the brain,” he says. “If you’re inside a negative thought, it can very quickly escalate. My therapist would say: ‘A drop of joy in an ocean of fear neutralises it.’ You can’t actually feel fear and joy at the same time; they’re incompatible with each other.” If you can help yourself move into just the tiniest bit of joy, he says, that will quickly spread: “Like food colouring in a cake, it will turn the whole thing pink.”

Learn how to hold yourself

The actor Gina Bramhill says: “At stage school, you learn how you are perceived by other people – what you give off for free – so that you can then build a character on to that. But you can’t do that unless you understand what you have anyway.” There is “a lot of feeling your feet on the floor. Feeling centred, and releasing your knees, so you’re able to move more easily. If the back of your knees are rigid, then someone could push you over, you’re that unstable.”

At the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, which Bramhill attended, she learned the Alexander technique, “which is where you allow your body to be manipulated into this perfect way of standing, walking and lying down,” she says. “Once you know that, you can play a character with tension in their body. But if you’re coming at a character with a lot of your own tension, it’s really hard to undo that and play a relaxed person.”

Smile

“For public speaking or presentations, smiling is really welcoming,” says Austin. “It puts the audience at ease. If you can smile at people as they are coming in, it makes you more approachable and means that people will naturally want to engage with and listen to you. People should smile more in life.” Don’t be too polished, says Bramhill, as this can be “unrelatable and off-putting”. Instead, “inject some humour and your own personality into what you’re saying”.

Focus on your breath

Breathing is simple yet effective in dealing with nerves, says Flynn, who practises a combination of yoga and qigong for this. The latter “is about moving chi, or energy, around your body. If there are any blockages, that is what manifests in physical tension, fear and anxiety.”

Austin suggests box breathing, where you breathe in, hold, breathe out, then hold again. “Your exhale should be longer than your inhale, which is really grounding, because when you’re nervous you’re not breathing all the way down to your diaphragm – your breath tends to get quite shallow. Whether you are performing or just feeling anxious in the day to day, breathing tends to go really shallow and into the chest. The more we can cultivate a feeling of being grounded, and assure the body that it’s not in mortal danger, the better.” Austin does this before going into an audition and says you can do it anywhere: “No one is going to know what you are doing.”

Project your voice

Breathing is also useful for vocal projection, says Austin. “Breathing deeply helps with vocal control. You don’t want to be running out of breath halfway through a sentence.” Peake likes to sing or hum and do tongue twisters as a vocal warmup: “I’ve got a phrase: ‘Hanging the still stained sheet from the washing line,’ and before I go on every night, just repeat and repeat that.”

Peake occasionally appears at political rallies, where she prefers doing a reading to making a speech. To avoid tripping over your words, “don’t be afraid to take a breath”, she says. She gives the example of Shakespeare, where there are certain beats where you can breathe. “And take your time. People are interested. I think we give our audiences short shrift sometimes. People want to listen and they want to be engaged.”

Loosen your jaw

“Relaxing the jaw is a massive one,” says Bramhill. “We have a lot of tension here.” She recommends a simple massage technique, which involves clenching your jaw tight, then putting your fingers into the space in your cheek between your teeth and your jaw bone. Unclench, make circular motions with your fingers, then open your mouth and say “ahhhh”.

Take in your audience

“Eye contact is so important,” says Peake. Even with a big crowd, this should involve “at least moving your head around and taking everybody in. Some people can get so scared that they can just fix on one point or look above the crowd.” But the audience loves it “when people feel that you’re taking them in. It’s about connection.” Avoid eyeballing, though, says Austin. “It gets a bit creepy when people don’t blink. Talk to a group of people, rather than staring at one person.”

Own the space

If you can, says Bramhill, “become acquainted with the space that you’re performing or speaking in. Get a friend or colleague to stand where you’re going to stand and then go to the very back and see if they can hear you.” When you get on stage, “take your time to own the space”, even if this takes a few seconds, says Peake.

Talk slowly

“Think of the audience as about five or six,” says the actor Anni Domingo, who has just appeared in Swim, Aunty, Swim at the Belgrade theatre in Coventry. “You are telling them some information that they want or need to know. Then you will put it at a pace that people could understand. If you’re too fast, they lose the thread and they get impatient. If you’re too slow, they can’t connect the dots. It doesn’t mean that you are going to be in a voice that’s telling them off or like it’s storytime with mother: ‘Are you ready, dear? Now, let’s begin!’” It’s about getting yourself to a pace where the audience will pick up what you are saying.

Assume that PowerPoint will fail

“When I started out, there was no PowerPoint,” says Domingo, who often gets asked to give speeches. “It’s the bane of my life now. Because no matter how much you’ve set it up, something’s going to go wrong. Be prepared for this and don’t be embarrassed about it – everybody in the room understands that this happens. You just have to be calm and try it again or abandon the PowerPoint. I always have it printed out just in case anything goes wrong.”

Think about body language on a first date

To exude confidence when dating, “show that you’re interested with active listening”, says Austin. “Acknowledge what the person is saying with a nod of your head and make eye contact. Use open body language; don’t just hunch over and look at your knees. As with public speaking, it’s really hard to connect with someone if their body language is closed off.” Bramhill agrees: “Be curious about the other person. Their body language, what they are wearing, then that will spark conversation. If they don’t reciprocate, you’re on the wrong date.”

Walk in to interviews with positivity

“I have so many auditions,” says Bramhill. “I think, more than your average person, I have so much rejection and it’s really hard not to take it personally.” How is it best to approach an interview? “Walk in with a positive frame of mind: I’m here to help you solve your problem, let’s figure it out together.” It is as much about working out if it is somewhere you will feel comfortable working, she says: “Have lots of questions for them up your sleeve.” Bramhill says she sometimes goes into auditions imagining a light coming out of her head: “It’s a bit woo-woo, but feels really nice.”

Brush your teeth

“I always have to clean my teeth,” says Peake of her pre-performance rituals. “I don’t know why. It’s odd you have these little things you have to do.” At her last production, Robin/Red/Breast at Aviva Studios in Manchester, someone threw out the toothbrush she had left in the bathroom. When she realised, just before a performance, she was in “a blind panic”. A spot of dental care won’t do any harm before most public engagements.

Have a sense of perspective

“I always say: ‘Be prepared: if something goes wrong, try to solve it. If you can’t solve it, it’s still not the end of the world. You can redeem yourself,’” says Domingo.

Peake says: “What’s the worst that can happen? I’ve had the worst. I’ve been on stage and forgotten my lines and completely blanked. It was the second preview of A Streetcar Named Desire at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. It was an amazing experience in a way, because I felt the audience really got behind me.”

Don’t go for dutch courage

“Rescue Remedy is like brandy,” says Bramhill. “I find it helps immensely. Tom Hollander gave me and my co-star Iain De Caestecker a cheeky glass of champagne before we did our wedding speeches in [the BBC drama] Us and that did give us a little courage and excitement. But I wouldn’t endorse it generally.”

Dress for success

“Wear something comfortable,” says Domingo. “If you’re going to be giving a lecture and it’s really hot, don’t wear something that’s going to make you sweat and feel uncomfortable.” Be careful shoes aren’t too high or pinching, she adds, to ensure that you are “comfortable in your own skin”.

Imagining the audience is naked is a myth

“I have nightmares where I am naked on stage,” says Peake. “I forgot my costume, I forgot my lines and I’m wandering around and people are going: ‘You really need to put some clothes on,’ and I can’t get off stage. I have never imagined the audience naked, though. I missed the memo on that one.” Austin hasn’t tried this, either. “I have ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] and my brain would find that really distracting,” she says. “But some actors apparently do. Whatever makes you feel most at ease.”

Have a secret

“I think it’s fun to have a secret,” says Bramhill. “If you’re feeling nervous that you’ve got a big presentation, maybe you can wear your favourite colour, or you could wear your favourite pair of pants, or a fun pair of socks.” This will mean you have a little spark that whoever you are presenting or performing for won’t understand, she says. “Basically, wear your lucky pants!”