“The first thing Mme Ouspensk[aya] asked us was to get up and walk,” he wrote. A student simply walking around the room with no other guidance would become self-conscious, and as they realized they were being observed, this simple act of moving naturally would become impossible. Next, she asked them to walk while thinking about something. Immediately, the class saw the improvement: Having a purpose made natural behavior easier to create, even while you were being watched. “Always have a reason/problem,” Strasberg noted her saying. An actor needed “a cause for appearing on the stage.”
