RADA graduate with 20 years of experience coaching students and professionals alike.

Find out more about John

• When did you start practicing? How did this passion find you?

  I was lucky to be accepted to the National Youth Theatre at aged 17. That summer changed my life: I was blown away by the talent on the course and started to understand that acting could be taught, learnt and improved upon. Some actors were already at drama schools and that made them seem like reachable destinations, not distant gated kingdoms.

• Which artists or works affect you the most?

  I’m a big fan of independent films – Thomas Vinterburg and Ben Wheatley are both favourites and I feel lucky to have worked with both of them. I spend most of my working life in high-end television and I thoroughly enjoy well-made television that takes me to the heart of an unfamiliar world: Succession, Silo, Severance are all recent favourites. I promise don’t only watch television that starts with an ‘s’! I’ve learnt the most from working with Oscar winners like Joaquin Phoenix (Napoleon), Olivia Colman (The Crown) and Colin Firth (Kursk). They all approach their work differently but all achieve sublime results.

• What are the qualities and skill required to succeed in this area?

  Acting requires resilience and self-belief – particularly when auditioning. It had been a privilege to coach so many actors through this process having had the benefit of going through it myself and then sitting on the other side of the table on audition panels. There are so many simple things that auditionees get wrong or take for granted that can easily be ironed out or improved. I have been fortunate to train and work in the US and the UK and actors over here work on themselves less after graduating from drama school. I work with several established actors on honing their craft and on building confidence in Shakespeare or accents or screen work.

• What is the most valuable advice you can give to help someone stay focused on creative projects?

  Turn your phone off, set yourself completion deadlines and believe in yourself – so many other people will doubt you – so you absolutely have to back yourself!

• How would you describe your passion; how does it make you feel?

  Well, I have been an acting coach for longer than I have been an actor! The National Youth Theatre had a big ethos of giving back and learning by teaching when I started out, so I was leading workshops and courses before I left RADA. Both jobs – acting and coaching - give me different kinds of creative fulfilment.
  
  When I’m acting that’s something precious that’s just for and about me. When I’m coaching it’s a huge pleasure to help others build confidence in their own work, understand where they might be holding themselves back and learn how to step into their own power. I prefer the term ‘coach’ to ‘teacher’: I’m not a guru, I’m working alongside the actor, as an actor, striving to make the work better together.

• What creative achievements are you particularly proud of?

  It has been a privilege to work three times at The National Theatre: it’s the building that sets the bar for artistic achievement on stage. I thoroughly enjoyed playing Anthony in Anthony and Cleopatra at The Globe and leading a new Richard Bean play called Reykjavik at The Hampstead Theatre. On screen I’ve been thrilled to work with some great directors: Christopher Nolan, Michael Bay, Richard Curtis, Sam Mendes. I’ve learnt the most from the brilliant actors that I have worked opposite. Acting is a continuing apprenticeship – you learn from every job you do.

• Have you ever been surprised by a student; by their ability or quick progression?

  Every student has ability, my job is to help them understand how to use it best in the environment that they want to succeed in. Nobody can guarantee success in getting students into particular training programmes – but I can help students understand the level that is required to get to that final round and what each student needs to do in order to get there. Some students are really far along in their journey when they come to me: many have just missed out on a drama school place and are looking to find that extra insight that will get them over the line next time. Others might need more of a foundation establishing in order to get them there: I will advise on speeches from my extensive library, work through existing coaching packs of mine on approaches to text or working safely with emotional triggers to land the intensity that a particular speech demands for example. Every student is different and every one of them surprises me.

• Being a Superprof is an art! What is your secret?

  It’s no secret that I get just as much out of working with each student as they get from me: after twenty years in the business it’s rewarding to see the joy and ambition of younger actors coming into their own: it stops me from getting complacent! I’m also a big believer in only paying for what you need: I teach in blocks of five lessons with a review point at the end of every block in which I lead an assessment of whether more work is really needed – or whether the student now actually has the tools to go away and work on themselves. It’s important to me that students don’t get trapped in a perpetual teacher/student cycle. It can be bad for self-belief and creative freedom. My job really is to give every student what they need as quickly as possible so that they can get rid of me and get rid of the costs involved. When you think that drama school now costs around £9,000 a year, spending £500 on ten hours of coaching to get there seems a sensible investment.