KNOW WHO YOU ARE (OR AT LEAST WHO YOU SEEM TO BE)

The first part of preparation is knowing where you are, knowing where you are starting from, who you are, what you've got to work with. Do an honest, thorough self-examination, an inventory of your strengths and weaknesses, your mad skills and your more problematic areas. Try to stay away from, or at least not linger on, Judgement of yourself as a person -- particularly on some Good/Bad scale.

For instance, are you tall or short? I am tall -- excessively tall, some might say: 6'5". Sometimes it has worked in my favor: the tall, bossy husband in "Very Good Eddie," the leader of a group of tall Aryan henchmen in "Die Hard With a Vengeance." Sometimes it has worked against me. Very early in my career, I auditioned to replace the actor playing Starbuck in a successful off-Broadway production of "110 in the Shade." The audition was on their stage, a raised platform set up in a ballroom of the old Hotel Dixie on 42nd Street, now the Hotel Carter. I got a call from them that night thanking me and telling me that I was the best person they had seen that day, but -- I was just too tall for them to light. (Cue: sad trombone.)

Similarly, I often use the example of Danny DeVito, whom I saw off-Broadway in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" before he became famous. Surely, well-meaning adults had told him "Danny, you're no glamor-puss. You're five feet tall, for Pete's sake. You have no chance in this business." Thankfully, he didn't listen -- because his height works for him. It makes him very specific -- as my height makes me; and just as it is critical in your acting choices, specificity in your look can be a godsend in this Business. If a movie director has a character who appears in the beginning of a film who doesn't recur until near the end and he needs the audience to instantly recognize the character when he reappears, he needs an actor who is very specific, very particular-looking.

So whether you are tall or short, or very tall or very short, it's not good or bad: it's just what's so. It is just part of what makes you you and not somebody else. It is what you have to work with.

What else do you have to work with? Are you plump? Portly? Obese? Are you slender? Skinny? Wraith-like? Are you blonde? Brunette? Redhead? Are you Asian? African-American? Are you funny? Quick-witted? A total scream? Are you muscular? Or not so much? Are you gorgeous? Or not so much?

A word about Beauty. It may have been a joy forever to Keats, but he kicked off at 29 and Beauty becomes a lot more difficult in your 30's and 40's. Axiomatically, Beauty is also in the eye of the beholder. You may think you're nothing special, and the director or casting director may find you to be a knockout. Or, sadly, vice-versa.

The standard of Beauty -- if there is such a thing -- is also different in the Theatre than it is on film or television. Many more people can play "beautiful" onstage than onscreen. Acne scars that disappear from the fifth row in a stage production can be problematic when one's face is forty feet high on a movie screen. Relatively plain women have had long stage careers frequently playing beauties.

And just as leading men of modest height may veto taller leading ladies or taller featured men, leading ladies may well be loath to have another woman in the production whose beauty might put them in the shade. So Beauty, although it is usually a distinct advantage -- particularly for women and particularly in television and film -- can sometimes be a hindrance.

In the glory days of soap opera, Beauty was about all you needed. As a day player on some soap, I remember watching a gorgeous young male actor who had just been signed to a contract role on the soap opera do his first scene. He was appallingly bad. He didn't have the skills for a seventh-grade class presentation. But he was very good-looking.

In a strange way, Homeliness can be almost as much of an advantage as Beauty. You never have to worry about out-shining the star, and in the host of attractive actors, you will stand out. You will have the specificity, the particularity that the director may well be looking for. Steve Buscemi (who is not only a brilliant actor but one of the nicest guys in show business) is a rather odd-looking duck, but he has had an extraordinary career in film and television.

Almost as much of an advantage (and one without any downside) is Funny. On his deathbed, the actor Edmund Gwenn acknowledged that his last moments were difficult, "but not as difficult as playing comedy." The writers of "My Favorite Year" turned this into the snappier "Dying is easy; comedy is hard." And there is a certain truth to it. We will all at some point master the art of dying; not everyone can master the art of Comedy. However, if you, as they say, can "do funny," you have a huge leg up on other people.

There are many components to comic acting: Timing. Inflection. Focus and misdirection. Facial expressions or lack thereof (deadpan.) Takes. Double-takes. Physical comedy. Slapstick. Prop comedy (Lazzi.) Shticklak. And on and on.

There are many different ways to do funny, as you may gather either from watching a particularly inventive colleague try various approaches to make a line or scene work or from watching an actor and director debate how best to get the laugh. Getting the laugh is often the objective, and a good comic actor knows how to do it while still telling the story and without destroying the suspension of disbelief. Most good comic actors will have a similar approach to getting the laugh. What separates a great comic actor from the good ones is his or her surprising/unexpected approach to the line or the scene.

I personally think you either can do comedy or you can't. Since the journey of a professional actor usually begins with funny bits to amuse your parents and progresses to being the class clown, most actors have a taste and a talent for comedy. If you are not sure about your comic chops or you want to improve them, study with improv comedy troupes such as the Upright Citizens Brigade in NY or LA, Second City in Chicago or the Groundlings in LA. Or you can simply watch and re-watch performers who make you laugh. Study the masters. (I personally worship at the shrine of Mel Blanc and the Looney Tunes animators.)