How to Stop Being Self-Conscious as an Actor

If you’ve ever been onstage or in front of a camera, you know exactly what I’m about to describe: Not knowing what to do with your hands, a sudden awareness of the way you’re standing and how uncomfortable it feels, subtly glancing at your audience to gauge their reaction and wondering if you’re really cut out for this acting thing mid-scene.

Feeling self-conscious, either during an audition or a job, is a real bummer. Not only does it feel horrible, it kills your confidence and damages your performance. I’ve lost countless jobs thanks to overly self-conscious behaviour. But I’ve also landed plenty of great jobs and, when I have, it’s usually because I’ve managed to quiet that pesky inner critic that tells us we look or sound weird every time we get up to do the thing we love most.

We do our best acting when we “get out of our heads” but what does that actually mean and how do we do it? In this article, I dig deeper into what feeling self-conscious is, share some of the ways I’ve managed to overcome it and how it has helped my career. Hopefully you’ll find some helpful tips on how to stop worrying and start enjoying because once you do, your acting improves tenfold.

How to get out of your head while acting

For a lot of bright-eyed first year students at drama school, myself included, the biggest hurdle is “getting out of your heads and into your bodies.” Actors, particularly young actors, are often set on the path because they were told they were good at it during high school – which is probably true – however the number of compelling actors is quite small and the depth of training at a high school level only goes so far.

Once we break the chains and burst into the industry or into first-year drama school, suddenly we’re surrounded by brilliant performers. We start watching more plays and films, and learning more about what makes a good performance which can lead to something called the “Dunning Kruger Effect.“ This is the idea that when we start learning a new skill, like acting, our ignorance of how much it takes to be good actually makes us better at it. Then, as we start to learn just how complex and layered the skill is and we start to see more professionals do a better job at it, we get worse because we start to overthink it. Have you ever wondered why it felt so much easier when you were younger? The Dunning Kruger Effect is why.

This middle section is where we feel most self-conscious and it is, unfortunately, somewhat unavoidable but it doesn’t have to haunt the rest of our careers. Once we reach the final section of the effect, after we’ve put in enough time and effort, we regain our confidence and suddenly we’re pros.

Mindful Movement for Actors

In case you’re wondering, most of drama school is just yoga. So much of it is about your breath and your body, and now that I’m years out, I finally understand why. We all know the value of deep breaths when we’re feeling stressed but nowadays there is a lot of genuine science that backs up the benefits of the mindfulness that yoga requires.

The pros out there know that acting is nerve wracking, so why not incorporate practises like Fitzmauris and Feldenkrais into acting training? Both of these practises combine breath work with movement and are designed to put you more in touch with your body and your emotional landscape.

Here’s the catch, though. You have to maintain a daily practise, be it yoga, Fitzmauris, Feldenkrais or some other form of mindful movement for a while. A few deep breaths before a stressful audition has never made me feel less self-conscious. Like with a lot of things, the true benefits of mindful movement reveal themselves with time and consistency. So start today, if you haven’t already – it’ll pay dividends for those cracker jobs and auditions coming your way.

Write it down – Journaling for Actors

Another giant of mindfulness is journaling. The first article I wrote for StageMilk is all about Morning Pages and how useful they are for actors. In short, writing down your thoughts, reflections and ideas as much as possible gives you a greater sense of who you are and how your mind works. As with movement, keeping this up for long enough will make you a more grounded and confident performer.

But here’s the catch…

Remember the Dunning Kruger Effect? Mindfulness is a skill, too. The more you do it, the harder it becomes to grasp the essence of it – at least for a while. I’ve kept up mindfulness for a few years now and I still experience an odd phenomenon where the harder I try to be mindful, the harder it gets to achieve it. This applies to acting too, the harder we try to give a good performance, the more likely we are to give a bad one. My advice? Focus as much as you can on the act itself and not it’s benefits. If you’re doing yoga, just do yoga. If you’re journaling, just journal. Be present. And don’t judge yourself when you aren’t present. This is ultimately what you’re trying to achieve with mindfulness – presence. It’s a tough gig but it’s worth it.

Just feel it

Unless you get some sort of really complicated surgery that severs whichever part of the brain that produces emotion, you can’t eliminate self-consciousness completely. You’re going to get nervous, you’re going to doubt yourself; sometimes just before the audition, sometimes in the middle of a take.

The best thing you can do in these moments is to let yourself be self-conscious.

Don’t try to stop it halfway, acknowledge how it feels, let it move through you and eventually it’ll change into something else. If you’re in the middle of a scene, let it inform your performance – I know that sounds crazy but it’s much better than trying to hold it down, manufacturing some other emotion and becoming stifled. With enough practice, you’ll find that allowing yourself to feel self-conscious, or any emotion, makes it far less difficult to deal with. It’s a feeling; it’s part of being human. You can’t always fight it so you might as well join it.

Stop caring

Okay, this one is perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned from being an actor for a number of years and it’s quite nuanced. Stick with me on it – when have I ever let you down before?

A casting director once said to me that they can smell desperation a mile off. I’ve been in plenty of audition rooms and it’s true. You can tell when someone is desperate. They’re often pacing, fidgeting and talking nonstop. It’s offputting to be around and the casting panel can sense that, too, even from a self-tape.

So, I suppose we should shrug off this acting thing and treat it like a cat – the less attention we give it, the more likely it is to want our affection.

Another casting director once said to me that they can tell when actors don’t care about the role. You can also tell when someone is being too cool for school: they’ll be slouched in the chain, arms folded, rolling their eyes or tapping their feet impatiently. Also a pretty sour vibe to be around and who in their right mind wants to work with someone who doesn’t care about the project?

I didn’t know what to do with these very contradictory statements for a long time but I found I agreed with both of them, and it was during an audition in early 2026 that I finally got it.

I was back home in Perth when I got the casting call for a musical that I quite like. I’m not a trained MT performer but I thought “why not? This’ll be a good experience if nothing else.” I did my prep, put down my tape and had fun doing it then forgot about it.

It was Christmas time and I was with my family, which was more important to me than the musical. Cut to a few weeks later and I have my first callback. “Cool!” I thought, “Another chance to sing and act for some people.” Again, I did my prep and went in for the audition. Now, I can hold a tune and I love singing for people but I didn’t come close to some of the voices I heard through the door while I was waiting. I didn’t let it get to me though; I stayed relaxed and, when I was called in, stayed my usual friendly self.

I was pretty frank with the musical director; I told him I wasn’t a master vocalist or musician – I could read music but I learned songs mostly from listening to them. He was at once understanding and when it came to singing, I found I was laughing and smiling all the way through the songs: it felt so good to sing loudly in front of people! Then, when it came to the scene, I gave one of the best performances I think I’ve ever given, and the panel told me so. I was out of my head and utterly present – it was just so much fun. Three callbacks later though, I landed the job.

You have to care about the audition and the job itself; what you shouldn’t care about is the outcome of the audition.

Whether it’s a self-tape or an in-person audition, the casting panel want to see that you enjoy acting – all of it – from the preparation to the audition itself. They also want to see who you are, not who you think they want to see. I really think the best way to achieve this state of mind, alongside regular mindfulness and seeing lots of films and plays, is to have other stuff going on outside of your auditions.

You need things to look forward to: hobbies, self-driven projects and other commitments to occupy all that downtime between jobs. This means that when the audition does come along, it doesn’t matter so much whether or not you land the job because you’ve got so much to look forward to in your ordinary life. People can tell when you’re enjoying your life and it informs your acting; it gives it an ease and an electricity that I don’t think can be manufactured.

Conclusion

I’ll leave you with a cracker quote from Christopher Bayes, a legendary clowning master who teaches around the world:

“You have to care so much that you don’t give a f****.”

Care about the audition, about the joy of acting, about the things you love doing, about your family and your friends, and suddenly it doesn’t matter where you’re putting your hands or how you said that line or how the audience are reacting – what matters most is the moment.

Hope this helps. See you around the traps!