There is one thing that fascinates me about improv and that is how it is portrayed in Television and Film. This is becoming more and more apparent in recent years because the comedy art form is sort of in fashion. There are some interesting topics that we can gain from these ways they are displayed so every so often we are going to look at different scenes from different shows and films and even podcast.

I find that podcasts are becoming a great source for titbits that can help with articles about improv. Today we are going to look at a point that was made on a podcast interview with Oscar Isaac on the show Happy, Sad Confused that I thought was a really interesting point I wanted to explore in the world of improv.

In a section of the show Oscar talks about how you choose a script when you there are so many on offer. It is a really interesting part of the show because I don’t think I have personally ever really thought about that journey that an actor has to go through when choosing what films to appear in. In the discussion he discusses that it can be a really tough thing to do because sometimes things that read really well do not necessarily make a good film.

Oscar goes onto discuss that he asked actor William Defoe advice on this subject and was told that the way that Defoe chooses the right script it when it is a ones where it is not really about the writing in front of him, instead it is about whether there is space to create within it. This means that there is the ability to really explore something and create something and allow something strange and special to occur. I felt that this was very relevant to the world of improv so I thought I would explore it more.

Sometimes, when you perform improv you can be put into a position where some players are strict to the structure that is being set up to the scene – this can sometimes create a scene where it is easy to start accidentally blocking people as there is someone who is adamant where the scene is going to end up.

It is a really easy accident to fall into in improv, especially when you are given predictable suggestions that you have had time and time again. Instead of going to the same sort of narrative you may create with that suggestion, why not try and think out of the box and try and maybe approach it in a different way. The wonders of improv is that the possibilities are actually endless and this means that there are so many ways that you can create and produce scenes in an improv world. If you allow yourself to the freedom of improv, it means that you allow yourself to explore ideas that you thought were not possible.

If you get a spare hour, I would recommend listening to this podcast as it is a really interesting conversation and you end up learning a lot about the world of being a busy actor like Oscar Isaac.