3 Communication Tips from Academy Award-Winning Actor Daniel Kaluuya

"My job is to train my instinct." One of MANY pearls of subtly profound wisdom Daniel Kaluuya dropped for us earlier this week in his conversation with Dr. Stacy L. Smith for our #LiveinFrontofaStudentAudience series at the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. He was specifically referring to his process for choosing roles and developing his characters. But this advice applies to all of us.

My job is to train my instinct.

What I love about this sentiment is that it honors our call as storytellers to lean into both (1) our natural, authentic "self," and (2) the discipline it takes to be an effective communicator.

Here's how #AcademyAward winning (and low-key effing brilliant) actor Daniel Kaluuya thinks of it, and how you might apply it to your own craft:

  1. Be yourself — and also do a (metric) shit-ton of work.

    The idea of having to "train" an instinct may seem counterintuitive. But think about it: when you watch a film like Judas and the Black Messiah, you don't want to see someone impersonating Fred Hampton. You want to see a skilled craftsman interpreting Fred Hampton's life and impact. But Kaluuya's interpretation did not begin on Day 1 of filming: he did months of work reading Black Panther literature from the 60's, driving around Chicago with people who knew Hampton, taking opera lessons to build vocal muscles he'd need to play an epic orator like Hampton. These are the preparations of a pro who knows/trusts himself - AND who honors his audience by doing real work.

    Audiences want you to be yourself, not an impersonation of something or someone else (and they can always tell the difference). That said, I've worked with many speakers - myself included - who use the notion of being authentic interchangeably with "winging it," which is actually just an excuse not to do the hard work of researching, shaping, testing, reshaping, and rehearsing one's message. And, audiences can always tell when you haven’t prepared.

  2. Be “decisively ambiguous.”

    For Kaluuya, this means knowing both how his character intends a line AND how his scene partner might interpret it. It's about genuinely considering what your audience is bringing to the table, getting hyper-clear about your meaning, and learning to live in that Third S P A C E (see what I did there?) created between the two of you. Note: this is different from what I see a lotttt, which is communication AT an audience, rather than being in dialogue WITH that audience. Learn more about how not to commit that communication sin here.

  3. If you’re not so familiar with your message that you get sick of it, you don’t know it well enough.

    Kaluuya says for any new project, he'll read the script "every day until I get sick of it. That's when I know it's in me. And the character can take over." This is another sneaky, almost-contradiction that applies to communication across the board. Knowing the core of your message SO well that your brain is not occupied trying to put pieces of it together in real-time allows you to be fully in the moment with it, and your audience.My former mentor/colleagues Chris Anderson, Helen Walters, Cyndi Stivers and Briar Goldberg built this approach into the speaker coaching ethos at TED Conferences. Whether you prefer to memorize your talk completely, or you feel more comfortable with bullet points and an off-the-cuff delivery, the deep familiarity with the precise message you want to share is non-negotiable.

I have admired Daniel Kaluuya's performances and on-screen magnetism since Skins (which I'm re-watching now after discovering he also wrote several episodes). Listening to him talk about his work, it's clear that he's mastered the craft of being fully himself, while also being fully for his audience.

In answer to the question of how his 2018 Best Supporting Actor Oscar changed things for him, he quipped, "It's like getting named 'Employee of the Year'...it's special - like, really special. But I still have to keep showing up to work, ya know?" And lucky for us, showing up to work for Daniel Kaluuya means really Showing. Up.

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