There’s a question I get in almost every acting class: Do you substitute, or do you use your imagination?
My answer is always the same, whatever works for you. But at my acting studio in Los Angeles, we teach imagination first because it’s foolproof.
Substitution is limited. You’re pulling from a finite well of personal memories and experiences, and eventually you run out of material that fits the conversation (scene) in front of you. Imagination has no ceiling. You can imagine anything: any life, any circumstance, any relationship, which means you’re never boxed in by what has or hasn’t actually happened to you.
That doesn’t mean substitution is off the table. I have no problem with actors using it. The catch is you have to believe it, completely, for it to do anything for you.
I’ve had actors come to me who say they substitute like they’ve built out a whole backstory, swapped in a real person or memory to fuel the conversation. And then action gets called, and nothing happens. They don’t feel anything. The work doesn’t land.
Why? Because they don’t actually believe the substitution. It’s an intellectual choice instead of a lived one, and the casting director can tell the difference immediately. A substitution that isn’t fully believed is just a note in your audition sides, not a source of truth for your performance.
Imagination is a muscle, and like any muscle, it gets stronger the more you use it.
So work it every day. Pick a scenario you’re genuinely interested in, such as a place, a set of circumstances, a completely different life, and put yourself inside it. Live those circumstances. Sit with it, build it out, let it become real to you.
Do this consistently, and something shifts. You stop reaching for your imagination under pressure and start trusting it, because you’ve already proven to yourself it’s there.
Substitution can work, but only if you believe it without hesitation. Imagination works every time, because you’re the one building it from the ground up. That’s the difference between hoping you’ll feel something on “action,” and knowing you will.
