Actor Roundup

James Patrick Stuart (Valentin, GH) “You don’t memorize the whole thing, you break it into sections. If I have a three-page monologue, what I really have is nine one-third of a page monologues, and I memorize those in sections. Nobody can memorize three or four pages at the same time! You have to break them down into smaller, more manageable sections and then put them together in the last part of the process.”

Mishael Morgan (Amanda, Y&R) “As long as I know what I’m talking about and understand it, I’m pretty good at keeping the dialogue in my head. My other trick is, I usually learn my lines the night before, but if I have something long, I need at least two days to commit it to memory. I take a little more time with it because I like to sleep on it for two nights, so I can really understand the story. By the next day, it’s a little sharper and then by the time I tape, I’m ready.”

Jennifer Gareis (Donna, B&B) “I have a Dictaphone and now that my daughter is 8 and she reads pretty well, she reads the other people’s lines, and then I read my lines — and then, since you’re always driving in L.A., I just use my Dictaphone — hands-free, of course. As I drive around town, I listen to it and within just a few trips, I’ve got it down.”

Lauren Koslow (Kate, DAYS) “It’s really not a trick, it’s repetition. I memorize by rote. I go over it and over it. It’s muscle memory to a degree, so I do say the lines out loud and go over them, over and over, so I know the words, and then I can deal with the intention.”

Roger Howarth (Austin, GH) “One word at a time. I think you have to go in between the bigger picture of the big idea and on a granular level, words — and if you can’t remember the words, sometimes just the letter. I’m not above saying to myself right before I say a line, ‘This is the line that has three p’s in it,’ and then you say, ‘Preventing me from paying a porcupine’, and you remember it.”

Aaron D. Spears (Justin, B&B) “Besides running lines three times with your scene partner, there is an app called Line-Learner, where you can record your lines, and you can record the person who is saying the lines to you. It then allows you to have a gap where your lines are, so you hear the other person’s lines and then there is the gap and that’s where you recite your lines, to make sure you know what it is you are saying. And it continues that way for however many scenes you’re in.”

Diamond White (Paris, B&B) “I break it up into sections and whenever I feel that I’ve memorized the first part of it, then I’ll add the second part. I also look for key words which trigger a memory, so if there is a section where I am talking about going to Steffy’s house, that’s going to trigger my memory to know that we’re probably talking about her baby or her family, so for me, it’s about key words and learning it in sections.”