Acting with Impact: Kimberly Jentzen on Performance, Preparation & Transformation for Actors

In this episode, I sit down with Kimberly Jentzen, an award-winning acting coach, director, writer, and producer based in Los Angeles. With decades of experience, she’s the founder of the Jentzen Technique, which helps actors make strong creative choices and develop emotional depth in their performances. Her method blends influences from acting greats like Sanford Meisner, Michael Chekhov, and Lee Strasberg. Kimberly emphasizes the importance of continuous training, self-improvement, and emotional depth in acting. She shares valuable tips on script analysis, spontaneity, and the need to stretch beyond personal identities for authentic performances. Additionally, Kimberly elaborates on the Jentzen technique, her evolving teaching methods, and her book 'Acting with Impact.' With practical advice for aspiring actors, this conversation is a must-listen for creatives navigating their careers.

Transcript

Joe: [00:00:00] Welcome to Coast to Coast Creatives, a podcast for and about working professional artists within the entertainment industry. I'm your host, Joe Funk. And here, we interview actors, directors, photographers, writers, and many, many more. In this episode, I sit down with Kimberly Jentzen, an award winning acting coach, director, writer, and producer based in Los Angeles.

With decades of experience, she's the founder of the Jentzen Technique, which helps actors make strong creative choices and develop emotional depth in their performances. Learn Kimberly discusses the importance of mindset for actors, emphasizing continuous training, how to stay busy when auditions dry up, and insights into various acting techniques she's developed, like playing the love and uncovering the [00:01:00] wound.

Tune in for a deep dive into script analysis, enhancing authenticity, and enriching one's acting career. Additionally, Kimberly introduces the revised edition of her book, Acting with Impact. Offering resources to both novice and advanced actors, but before we get going, please make sure you are subscribed to this podcast on the platform of your choice.

And if you have a moment to give it a positive review, it would mean the world to me. All right, here we go.

All right. Kimberly, thank you so much for being here today. 

Kimberly: Oh, my pleasure. It's so wonderful to meet you too, Joe. 

Joe: Right before we started recording, we were saying you're going through a massive heat wave out in LA at the moment. How are you dealing with that? 

Kimberly: It's we're dealing with it. We hit 112 yesterday and that is like unheard of.

I mean it used to get The worst it would get would [00:02:00] be 98. It's crazy. 

Joe: Oh, it's, it's nuts. Yeah, I was just, just opened up my weather app and I have Los Angeles saved on there because I lived there for so long. It's 70 degrees here in Atlanta and then I saw 107, 109 in the valley. I was like, is that correct?

I gotta refresh this thing and see, and see what's going on. Unreal. 

Kimberly: It's unreal. It's unbelievable. 

Joe: It's pumpkin spice season. We're supposed to be enjoying some cooler weather sometime soon, right? 

Kimberly: I love. The fall. I love it. I have an apple tree and my apple trees start getting ripe and they'll be ready in October and I get like, I'm not kidding, like maybe 300, 400 apples.

It's incredible. 

Joe: Oh, that's fantastic. I know. 

Kimberly: I know. I planted it 15 years ago. 

Joe: Oh, yeah, I could I could nerd out about fall. I'm already planning. Go up to Blue Ridge Mountains when the leaves start to change, go up there for the apple picking, and the pumpkin festival, and all of that. You were born and raised West Coast, [00:03:00] correct?

Kimberly: Yes, by the beach in Southern California, by two parents who were New Yorkers. 

Joe: Tell us a little bit about your introduction to just overall love of the arts leading into a love of acting, which has eventually led into love of coaching actors yourself. 

Kimberly: So many actors fall in love with acting at different stages in their life.

I have actors that find acting in their 20s. And in their teens. And I was much younger. My parents used to take me to the theater a lot. And I was really, really little. And I think I was around four or five years old. My parents took me to a musical, Fiddler on the Roof, at the Dorothy Chandler. And we were sitting in the mezzanine.

They let me, because we were at the very front of the mezzanine, stand and just lean at the front of the mezzanine. And I think I kind of started to fall in love at that moment. I must have been about four. And then I saw a production of Peter Pan with puppets. And then I told my mother I want to be one of the puppets.[00:04:00] 

My mother is very theatrical and very, she's a celebrity in her own mind kind of person. She's no longer with us, but she was also very ill all my life. And so me and my sister used to wander around when we were little because she was sleeping half the time. She was a woman who confronted cancer in the 60s when nobody knew what it was and survived it.

She was in and out of hospitals all my life. So my sister and I used to just wander around and we wandered over to the recreation department and there was a Theatrical production happening and I auditioned one thing I can say is that we used to have a lot of freedom because You know, my mother was such a sweet woman But she was also had a lot of episodes where she was very ill and so we were not in the house a lot Everybody deals with things differently and my escape was into the theater and I had already fallen in love with it And so I ended up getting my first play when I was like five years old That was my first entry in falling in love It's so interesting that you asked that [00:05:00] because I don't think i've ever been asked that before.

Joe: Oh, no 

Kimberly: No, 

Joe: I started off with with a unique unique question And a very 

Kimberly: very deep one 

Joe: Yeah, I do like to do that. I do like to go there It's good. It's good. It's healthy. It's important. So you first fell in love with You Theater you said you got your first role when you were five years old Acting with other children or was it a community theater where you were with adults as well 

Kimberly: That one was a play with more kids But the next few plays were also mixed with adults by the time I was 11 12 I was doing equity way, you know professional And my first big thing was working with a director who came out to the Jocelyn Center in Torrance.

That's where I was growing up. I'll never forget Richard Nash. I learned a lot of tools from that director that I carry with me even as a coach. I mean, certain things that I tell my singers, I learned from Richard Nash. [00:06:00] It just goes to show you why theater is so important because you get these lessons of depth that you would not get.

And you get these little secrets that nobody talks about, or they just don't know. And that's the power of, and the importance of being in the field. And if you're not booking a lot, then you have to book yourself. Booking yourself means you create productions. Sometimes you can't sit back and wait for people to see you and For who you know you are, you have to step into it and show the world.

Joe: During the time of this recording, it is what we would consider a very slow time within the industry. I'm sure we hear a lot of the same thing from actors, which is they're discouraged that things are really, really slow right now. And I love the idea of, well, then you have to work on your craft. You have to be developing your own content.

What, what are your biggest pieces of advice for actors right now during these Slow and can be kind of depressing times. 

Kimberly: I have a lot of [00:07:00] thoughts about it. You can make a miracle happen. You don't have to live in the world. You can create your own reality. I have a saying and that is not one negative thought.

It's not mine. My mother said that to me. She would say not one negative thought. You just don't have you can't afford it. And then the next thing is is how do you create your own reality? You have to work on yourself. You have to do all the things keep you positive. You have to do those things and then When it comes to the business, you have to find a way.

You have to, you might have to meditate every morning. Maybe you pray. I believe in a higher power. You focus on how do I find a way? And sometimes I believe that you're not working because you're not supposed to be working yet. Failure is a big part of success. It is part of success and it is something that you must embrace.

Because failure teaches you how to move forward. And so you have to fail a lot. You have to [00:08:00] fail. Part of that is making mistakes, learning from them, and growing from that. And then making another mistake, and then growing from that. And making another mistake, and growing from that. Life isn't about win, win, win, win.

Life is about failing, and failing, and finding a way, and failing, and finding a way, and finding a way in, and then finding a way, and then failing, and then maybe, maybe there's a great win. So my thing to you folks is, you better love this, and you better enjoy the process, because if the process is better than even all of the awards you're gonna reap, then you are in bliss and the love of the work and love of life.

Because you're doing what you love. And we are so lucky. And to those that are not here, that are in another world, that are not in Los Angeles, you can make that your Hollywood too. And I tell them that. It's possible to make a mark. And that's the point. How are you contributing your work? How are you [00:09:00] contributing as an artist?

Joe: I think the beautiful thing nowadays is that you can be honing your craft from anywhere and you can also be creating content and be seen through some, a short film that you created and you wrote and you put up on YouTube. There's people that have had massive careers off of something like that and this is an opportunity that didn't exist.

Even 20 years ago. We are living in a really blessed time. 

Kimberly: You opened the door to to talk about training and I kind of jumped into finding a way. 

Joe: But 

Kimberly: I'll tell you this, where do you fail? You don't want to fail in front of people. In an acting class you take on examining experimental risks, but in in the world in the work you take calculated risks, and they are informed risks, and they are also risks from your heart.

You A lot of work, I find, actors will be in their head, they have this idea, but they're not applying it, [00:10:00] or they don't know how to apply it. And that's how, why class is so important, why training is so important. I have some very successful actors that are absolutely brilliant at collaboration. And they're the first to come into class, and they're the easiest to take direction.

And then you have actors who are on the fence about class. Often if they start and they're not committed to that training, they will bring a resistance of fear into the work and into collaboration. And you have to know that when you're working with a great director, you can't bring that energy in. You have to be practicing it because acting class is your practice.

And that means practice is, is what you will bring into the bits, into the business. So if you're late a lot, you're practicing being late. If you are neglectful in your homework, in acting class, which I don't think is homework. I think it's just, oh my god, yay, I get to do this and explore and find it.

Because what you're [00:11:00] ultimately doing as an actor is you're examining what it means and feels like and is to be human. So, if you're exploring that, there's no room for fear and there's no room for resistance. There's only the love of the craft and love of the character. 

Joe: And when you're on that process of examining what it means to be human, you also have to understand the fact that this is a lifelong craft that you're developing.

It's not something where you're going to go, you're going to go to school for acting, and then you're going to graduate, and then you're never going to be in another course again. I remember listening to an interview. Brian Cranston had recently, and he was saying that he was struggling with his acting because he wasn't experiencing anything new.

He was jumping from TV project to film to TV project, and he wasn't exploring the world, and he wasn't in class anymore, [00:12:00] and he missed that exploration, which is so key to an actor in their development. 

Kimberly: Absolutely. Absolutely. Otherwise, you end up doing the same performance over and over again, and if you find yourself every time you apply or begin a piece, if you're always attacking the work the exact same way with the exact same emotions or the exact same choices, you will be getting bored.

Yeah, you get bored with your own work. 

Joe: Yeah, 

Kimberly: then you want to avoid that 

Joe: looking back at your career and your own training do you have a acting class a course an instructor that you worked with that really stands out as This is where I fell in love with the idea of coaching and working with actors Did you have do you have any experience with that?

Kimberly: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I trained with a lot of different teachers And everyone that I trained with, like for years, like I worked with Delia Salvi at UCLA for like the years I was at UCLA [00:13:00] in The Method. But I felt like once I got out of college and I got on a soap with General Hospital, all your memories, your sad stories, They run out and you can no longer count on them.

So I was going on a mad search to find technique because you know the technique, it, there's a, it's a very loving technique, Strasburg, but it's also not, there's not enough tools. In my opinion. Sorry if I'm offending somebody. I hope I'm not. Because you need to use your imagination. So I went on and I also worked with Roy London.

And that was also the method because I was from that. So I thought, oh, that's a logical transition to go to him. And then I was, I worked, I did the Meissner Technique. And that was also, It's extremely great for listening, but it is only a piece of the pie. And I found that script analysis, and a lot of things are missing in that technique.

And I hope I'm not offending anybody with that. So I went on to search, search, search. I worked with Nina Foch, which was the Stella Adler technique. [00:14:00] And I loved her. And I, there I met a couple people that became mentors to me, um, that were huge for me. And one kind of started me as a teacher and I didn't realize it.

And that's Tova Feldschuh. Thank you. Who hired me to help her with memorize her lines and help her with breaking down scripts. And she taught me how to break down a script actually. And, and then she'll do this and I go, okay. And so I got a lot of information from her and then I went on and I was acting and I did a few films and I kept working and I stumbled into George Stanoff's class and George, he was my last teacher.

George changed my life and I always acknowledge him because he inspired me And he inspired me to not only find my voice, but to find answers. And not only to find answers, but to develop technique and tools, too. And it's the Michael Chekhov technique, and it's all imagination. And there were places where all of these techniques left off.

And then I picked up and in [00:15:00] my book, acting with impact, this is the second edition that's getting published. And there's a lot of exercises in the book, but this is the thing where they all left off, I'm picking up. And I feel like I'm the next generation of writing technique for actors and giving you some answers to like, a lot of actors will get the objective and they'll, they'll get in their head about it and they'll, they'll know what their objective is.

But they don't know how to apply it. And I've built some tools that I think you guys will love that help you play that objective. One of them is called root question. The other is fire in the communication. Another one is want versus need and love is a motivator. I have a lot of tools in there that will help actors apply themselves.

Pick 

Joe: one. Let's talk about one. 

Kimberly: Let's do the simple one. It was called playing the love. You cannot completely invest in inspired performance. If you cannot find. The thing that made the character who they are. And part of playing the love, [00:16:00] uncovering the wound is finding the place, the time, the incident that changed that character made them who they are.

So when we're really, really young, there's a lot of bad behavior that characters play and you can't change the script. If you get a script and you get a character and you know, hey, this is going to be a huge project and you just don't like some of the behavior, well, they're not going to change the story for you.

I think actors don't realize that they're not going to change it. You have to commit to it. You have to find a way to commit to this character and stand for them as if they were on trial and the audience is the jury of whether or not they're worthy of their desires. Only you can do that. So you want to get to the core event.

That allows you to have empathy and love for the character. And I have two processes versus neutralizing the judgment so that you no longer judging the character because we need to first [00:17:00] neutralize it. And it's insidious. I have actors who have worked for many, many years who will hire me for as a coach.

And I'll say, Hey, I noticed you're, you're judging the character here. And it won't be a harsh judgment. It's just a label or it's just a, an idea that they think will help them feel more confident about who they're playing. And you can't get any deeper because of it. It's going to be flat and they're shocked.

They're going, Oh my God, I never judged it. Oh, I won't judge. I go, okay. But you can't just stop judging. You have to have a process to let it go. Because people's judgments, they're still sitting there. They're lurking in there, in the energy field. They're just there. So I always do the process with them.

And the process is called uncovering the wound. And it is a process. It takes a few minutes. You don't want to just jump to the wound. You have to understand how it got there in the first place and the journey that character took that it happened. And you do a lot of it in the imagination. It has to [00:18:00] fold right into the script.

We always adhere to the writing because the writing gives you your colors and it gives you the distinctions that aren't you, that you're reaching for, that makes your character interesting. Because if you're only playing yourself all the time, you, you, you, you, the focus is too much on your own identity and you start becoming a cliche of yourself.

And as an actor, stretching is, it's like, a dancer on the floor stretching their legs and stretching their arms. 

Joe: You gotta, you gotta stretch and you gotta do your homework on these characters that you're bringing to life. You gotta, like you said, discover that wound. What about when an actor have their sides for, let's say it's just all a self tape submission that they're doing, and they don't have a lot of background?

on the character that they're portraying. How can they bring that authenticity? And do you find a wound for something that is so, so small as far as the [00:19:00] size that you receive in the character description? 

Kimberly: Let me help you out with two things. The first thing is, is sometimes if you're doing comedy, you don't need to know the wound.

You don't always need this. This isn't like, okay, I start my scene and I'm going to work it this way. Issues show up and then you use a tool. What tool do I use for this? Some actors aren't judging their character at all. And there's no need to go there. Okay. Now I'm going to talk about auditioning. 

Joe: Yeah, please.

You 

Kimberly: have to be really, really solid with script analysis. I teach a script analysis class. I also teach it in my ongoing class. Every class there's somebody doing an audition in it. And invariably an actor will miss something in the reading. Every actor that is trained understands script analysis. It's the untrained actors that think that all they have to do is just read the words.

And the problem with that is if you just read the words, you're going to be acting out the scene and it will be a one dimensional performance. And you will be [00:20:00] setting a groove in the audition that always plays the same emotional tune, the same experience, the same line readings. And actors want to avoid line readings.

It's like famous actors like Jack Nicholson, he'll, he's known to never repeat a line the same way. And it's not that you're not, it's not that like often in comedy, there is a way it may sound for it to be funny and you have to do that, but you're, there's still an organic spontaneity in everything you do.

Even when the lines are written and if that spontaneity is out, your creativity is weak. The most powerful acting in front of me was when there was an element of spontaneity within their essence and experience. They didn't know they were surprised by sometimes their own work. One of my rules was, cause I have my master's in spiritual psychology too, that you never project your own issues on another actor.

And if you're in an acting class, And you're training with somebody who's an [00:21:00] actor, and they're giving you their own notes. Aware of that. You are a separate person, and you deserve your own notes, and every person in the room should have different notes. Now, are you going to learn from every actor? Yes. I would.

If you're in an acting class and you walk away in the middle of a class because you did your work, you'll never grow. Because 100 percent of your growth is also literally. Seeing other people do what you did that messed up when you messed up, but they did it and observing their successes and their failures You know, it's a group experience acting.

It's not hot in a closet It's taught in a room full of a lot of people even in an acting class a zoom class Everybody stays in my class because you're learning from others and even then it forces you to be patient And focus. Well, where's your power? Where's your power as an actor? Your [00:22:00] power is in your ability to focus and concentrate.

So when you're in class and you're focusing on something you don't want to actually do, you are building stamina. Years ago, one of my students was working. with Meryl Streep in, I think it was at Yale, and he had, he had a car and it was kind of starting to drizzle and she would ride her bike. And he asked her, I have a car, I can put your bike in my car and I can give you a ride.

And she said, Oh no, I'm building my stamina. She's smart. Part of acting and part of growth is doing what you don't want to do, facing things you don't want to face and accepting it. I'm an adventurer whenever I have an opportunity to, to try it. If somebody asks me, whatever it is. Try 

Joe: it. Yeah. Yeah, my, some of my favorite experiences are any time that it's just a massive people watching situation.

I remember that, like, the first theater class that I was in, well, the, the [00:23:00] instructor says, like, well, we just want you to go to a public pa place and just find somebody to watch and observe. And you can learn so many details just by taking a few moments to, to just observe another human being. And then maybe later try to try to replicate some of the physicality, maybe some of the emotion that comes behind them.

I think that's a, I think that's a beautiful lesson, a beautiful philosophy that you're putting forward, not just for actors, but for life in general, is just be a open observer and absorb. 

Kimberly: I also want to remind everyone because You know, I've seen a lot of generations now, and I want to say, we have to be more optimistic.

I grew up in the 70s, and we were very optimistic. I mean, I'm sure there was always people, I mean, Vietnam War was ending, there was a lot of people coming back from Vietnam when I was in college, and it was like, there was a lot of darkness, and I remember one of my colleagues in theater arts, he was in the master's program, and he came back, he was going back to [00:24:00] college, and he, I asked him, you know, about the war and he said, your eyes are too innocent.

I can't tell you about this. And I said, okay, but there is a light in the world that we have to feed into. That is beautiful. And it is the experience of life. What do you do every day? And how do you celebrate that? It's such a beautiful thing. You know, do you enjoy yourself? I've gone through a lot of relationships.

I'm single right now. And I've found such a joy with being single. I mean, it is so fun to just do things by myself. And I've been doing it for a few years now, but it's, it's, it's a good thing. It's good. It's like both are good. 

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I always feel that we, we hit these creative ruts in our life where we feel a little bit lost.

And I find that the best remedy for that is to change. [00:25:00] The environment, it could be a physical environment, it could be a relationship environment like you were just describing, but shift your perspective, find, find a new way to look at the world and that will provide you all of the creative motivation you need.

Kimberly: The world can be cruel, but life can be good and it is, it can be hard. I know there's a lot of also actors that get very depressed because this is, it's a challenge to find a way to do this thing. And one of the things you have to do is, I have a saying, and that's the process is the product. That if you're in process, product will be there.

So, one of the simple things you can do is just make sure you walk, walk every day. Take a walk every day. Take a walk every day because it'll take you out of you. But in our own world, you know, it can also make us more kind. Because then we realize kindness is [00:26:00] needed, especially now in this world. 

Joe: Yeah, for the past year, I've been working on a reality show.

And what I've enjoyed the most about this show is that it's given me the ability to travel all across the country. And we're so good at living within our bubble. Living within one state and one city and saying this is what we believe. This is the people that we surround ourselves with. And everything else just becomes other and you lose track of like, no, we're all, we're all human beings.

We all have a soul. We all have fears and hopes and, and love. And it's nice to travel and see that in other people and, and see the joy in people and see the struggle in people too. But just see something that connects us all together. It's really, really important. 

Kimberly: Absolutely. The thing that we have to avoid is when me becomes more important than us.

I think the basis of life is love, so we need to learn how to love [00:27:00] each other, especially now, and love each other more. 

Joe: Yeah, yeah, especially now. We all dread what we're going through right now with election years and the division that it can create and, and just even having that ability to find some unity is, is really important.

My father fought in World War 

Kimberly: II, and he passed in 2021, and he Was very upset about the state of our country. And all I can say is. Everyone go out and vote. 

Joe: Yes, please. 

Kimberly: Don't. Please vote. Please vote. It's important. Please, 

Joe: please. 

Kimberly: Everyone needs to vote. 

Joe: Yes. Let's, let's jump back into, let's jump back into acting.

Okay. So, um, You were, you were talking about all of your experiences studying different techniques, Meissner, Chekhov, Strasberg, and you were talking about how through all these [00:28:00] experiences you picked up where they left off. And you were filling in some of the gaps into what is now your own technique, the Jensen technique.

Tell me a little bit about the Jensen technique, if you can, highlight what you think was missing from those techniques that you bring forward that, that kind of complete them. Thank you. 

Kimberly: That's such a great question. And I have so many answers, but I can say one thing. What was missing was application in the field.

For example, when I was an actor, I had done Meisner, I loved it. I thought it was really effective to make for my instrument, but I get on set and the director would ask me, I need you to go to tiers here. I go, okay. And I go back to my acting class and to my acting teacher and say, I need to go be able to go to tiers.

Because I'm having a problem with that because I used to use sense memory, but it's not really working anymore. And I have to kind of fake it and I don't want to fake it. And they would say, never talk about emotion. And I would get attacked [00:29:00] by everybody. Do not talk about emotion. We don't talk about emotion.

We only talk about actions. And it was very aggressive. And then I go, okay, I won't talk about it. I don't want to upset, upset everyone today. And there were things that were asked of me that no one was teaching. No one, except the method. And they would talk about emotion, that's why I love, I will never turn my back on Strasburg because they talk to emotion, and thank God somebody talked to emotion somewhere.

Yeah. You need a coach that really believes in you. Mm hmm. I, every actor I take on I believe in, you know, and I meet with everyone before I take them on so that I can believe in them, and then I'm in your corner. 

Joe: What do you look for in those meetings, in those consultations with actors? 

Kimberly: First thing is, is do they listen?

Because, that's compatibility. It's amazing how people don't listen. Just somebody telling you instructions, like this is how you drive a [00:30:00] car. I mean, whatever it is, that's, you're exercising your listening. Do you listen? Do you simply listen? I'm, I'm amazed. I remember when I was a young teacher, we didn't have Google Maps and everything.

And, and, and I would be on the phone and I, and I would meet them. I still met with people and I would give them directions on how to get to my studio. And it would be amazed, I would be amazed when people did not write them down, did not listen. And get lost, got lost when it was so simple. And so it's just amazing to me about that.

Just that idea of listening. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kimberly: Second thing is just our connection and um, I can't explain that and you know it when you meet somebody. I mean, I'll take somebody who's never, ever, ever acted in their life. That has this passion. I have two new actors, right? Well, one that had trained a bit. The other one, she's completely a novice.

Completely new. And I'm going to take her on because I know that we connect and I experience her listening. And then I want to give you one more answer to my [00:31:00] technique. 

Joe: Yes, please. 

Kimberly: And that is, I have in the book, it says acting with impact. The subheading is this. It's how to capture the audience's heart, deliver a authentic, multi layered character, and disrupt the industry with your depth and freedom.

That is the product. And when I look at my actors in the field that are working, they're doing that. You have to come prepared always. I have a saying, never come unprepared, unrehearsed, and uninspired. You just have to know what inspires you. And it should be the script, the script should be a source of inspiration, the character should be a source of inspiration.

I think there's also a misunderstanding of what preparation is. It isn't going over the scene over and again the same way over and over again. That's not preparation. Preparation is doing the underpinnings of what is driving the scene, building on the history of the relationship, building on history of the character.

You're gaining insight into that life that you're about to step into. And [00:32:00] yes, it's wonderful if you can memorize the words. I think that everyone should. Before the pandemic, I would hand cold readings to actors and give them 10 minutes and many of them would be off book by the time they got in front of me.

So my thing to you guys is start working on memorization. And don't memorize it rotely. In fact, if you memorize it very blandly, without intonations, just, then you're going to be stronger at that spontaneity of how you deliver your words. Something that helps actors prepare is just reading novels.

Because story structure is very important in understanding how stories, you know, what stories are, how stories are. 

Joe: Yeah, I find getting into a consistent reading practice really helps my creativity. What I've been doing for the past year and a half, two years now is I'm always reading two or three books, but I make sure what I'm reading in the morning is nonfiction.

And it's something that starts to spark [00:33:00] my imagination in, in a very pragmatic, earthly way. And then at night time I read something fiction. I read something that's going to fuel my dreams. Something that's going to give me a movie while, while I'm, while I'm sleeping. So, always having, always having two has, has been, has been a really good technique for me.

Kimberly: Another thing to say is, books on tape count. I love books on tape. If I have a drive, I Oh my gosh, it's so great because in L. A. you drive a lot, you can just listen to a book. And there's like books I put off that my dad would say, you got to read this book. And so, you know, listening to it in the car is really awesome.

And you'll find something. And then this is the other very, very important thing about reading that I learned when I was training, when I was in school, that you have to look up words you don't understand or you don't know. And what I learned even from wonderful Tova Feltchew. Even look up words that you know when you're breaking down a script, because they're gonna be seeds of [00:34:00] ideas and information that you never realize how that word is being used.

Look up words, be fascinated with words. But I just, I love that study and a lot of acting is pondering on things like you're gonna, you know, when you, hopefully you'll read my book. You pick it up and you'll read a few pages and you'll go, wait, wait, I gotta think about this. And already your acting is going to improve.

It will already improve within the first few pages because I'm going to give you some insights about the work may, you may be aware of, but I'm gonna teach you how to even apply it. How to apply it further. And that's why I became a teacher was for application. There was no bridge into the work in the field.

It was just all these techniques announced, figure it out when you're on set. And I didn't want that anymore. I said, I'm going to end this. And I was in my twenties and I said, I'm going to end this. I'm going to make it so that everyone gets it out in the field. 

Joe: Are you going to have an audiobook [00:35:00] version of your book?

Are you going to be narrating it? Yes. Amazing. I, I love it when authors narrate their own work. Those are my favorite audiobooks. When I get a new book on Audible, I always make sure, it's like, is it by the author? Great. 

Kimberly: You know, I'm so, what is the word, prideful about my work. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kimberly: And I don't want anyone to read it but me.

And I think it'll make a difference. Because even when I read out a chapter to somebody. Even my editor, I said, wait, listen to this, and she said, well, it sounds different when you read it. Oh, no, I better, I gotta read this then. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kimberly: So it's been, I have a great editor. She's incredible. Serena Tarika. She, she's a book editor.

She also is a ghost writer. Not for me. I just get notes. I write every word I've written. I write screenplays too, and I'm gonna write, and I have other stories I'm gonna be doing after this. Listen, the hardest thing I've ever written in my life was the first time I wrote this book, Acting With Impact, the first edition.

And I decided two and a half years ago to rewrite it and take it off the market. [00:36:00] It's so much stronger. Not that the first book isn't wonderful, but it's very applicable. I stand by everything I wrote there, but this is a deeper version, and I think it is even more helpful because it's a series of lessons.

Joe: Well, let me ask you, like, did you have a moment when you realized there was a need for an updated version of it? Did you go back and do a reading yourself and you just see gaps that you yourself wanted to fill in? 

Kimberly: I love the book, but I wrote it 13 years ago, 14 years ago, and I wanted to change it, like all artists.

I just wanted, I wanted it, this is going to be my legacy because it is a legacy book. I wanted to change it because in the book, I have a lot of voices in the book too, actors talking about how they use the tool. And I thought, what I need to do is write my voice, how to use the tool even more effectively.

And then I [00:37:00] realized that certain chapters, chapter one, playing the love, it's not strong enough in the first book for beginners. It's great for master's students and advanced. They get it. But I was discovering that the beginners need a lot more. And so as a evolution as an artist myself in teaching and creating tools, my evolutionary process was to get this to the place that even a novice could pick this chapter up and absolutely go there and get there and have layers.

And so That is what made me rewrite this. 

Joe: And you said this, the second edition will be coming out towards the end of this year, early next year? Yes. Okay. Towards, 

Kimberly: there'll be three different ways to get it. The first is digitally, and that's the first version that will be coming out that will be gettable.

The second version will be the audio version. And then after that, the book, the actual hard copy book will be out next year. [00:38:00] I believe teaching and coaching is just as much an art form as acting because there's an artistry and a skillset that you develop and you never stop growing. And as an artist, Coach and teacher.

I have evolved my work. I feel like is strongest. It's ever been and it took years. I mean, I feel and I have to rise up and or talk to an actor and figure it out, you know, so I want you to know that these processes and the book itself is an art form for me. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's why I rewrote it because it 

Joe: totally makes sense.

Kimberly: You'll sometimes you want to do a do over. You want to go. Oh, I've had actors that starred in features. I'll never forget in the early nineties that an actress come to me and say, she just started a big movie. She said, you know what? I wasn't happy with my work. And we took the whole summer re doing every scene and every scene she did in class at the white fire theater where I teach [00:39:00] and she evolved and she grew and she felt better.

So I think that it's not necessarily about whether or not people love you or approve of you. It's your process. and having integrity with who you are within yourself and what you want to put out in the world. And that's how I feel. And that's why I rewrote it. 

Joe: I can't wait to personally pick up a copy myself.

So I, I will be, I'll be one of the first in line to get it. It sounds like you already got a lot of pre orders, right? You have a lot. That's great. That's great. 

Kimberly: And then how to get ahold of me? I have a couple of ways. One is I have my YouTube channel, which is just YouTube. com Kimberly Jensen. I'm going to spell it slowly.

K I M B E R L Y J E N T Z E N. That's Jent. Then my website is my name, Kimberly Jensen. Com 

Joe: I encourage everybody to go and [00:40:00] give a subscribe on YouTube. Go subscribe, join the newsletter through, through the website, and thank you so much for chatting today. 

Kimberly: It's been a, I'm, it's an honor working with you and, and talking with you.

It's, it's been such a pleasure. You're, you open up such amazing questions and. You're just a wonderful human, and I've really enjoyed, I've really enjoyed you. Oh, 

Joe: jeez, thank you. I've, I've enjoyed it too. I was gonna say, you're gonna, you're gonna be in Atlanta sometime within the next year. Absolutely let me know when you are.

I'd love, I'd love to meet up in person, get a coffee, and talk more, talk more about your book. This is kind of a bigger question, so it's, it's, it's, it might be a heavier one to end on, but I always ask people, you've been in this industry for, for quite a while, and you've learned, learned so many lessons.

If you could go back in time and give, A piece of advice to a young Kimberly, a young creative who was just starting her journey. What do you think the most [00:41:00] valuable piece of advice would be? 

Kimberly: That's a beautiful question. Don't take the losses so hard. I'm a very sensitive person and I also had, you know, it was tough growing up.

I used to feel like I was like kind of in the wind without any grounding. I wasn't grounded. And I feel it's really important to put your feet on the ground, hold your own, stand in your own energy, and don't take the losses so hard. They're just, they're just momentary. The next day you wake up and the world is new again.

And to remember that, that if you feel really bad or you feel in any way, Any of the really dark emotions that come up, of course you must feel it because you don't want to bypass an emotion. It'll go inside you and it will fester if you don't let yourself feel. So let yourself have that good cry. Let yourself feel the loss.

Do what you need to do [00:42:00] to release that emotion and then decide how long you're going to feel that feeling. Maybe two days, three days. Give yourself a limit and then wake up when you know it's done and say it's done and step into the light and know that. You're ready for the next thing. I have a saying, and that is, when you can find the lesson, you transcend the pain.

When you can find the lesson, you transcend the pain. There is a lesson to be found. And it's never a blame. They call it growing pains for a reason. And actors never stop growing. We're shaping ourselves. We're, we're like rough edges rubbing up against each other so that we can soften ourselves so we can become the artist we want to be.

Joe: That, that's amazing. That's, that's wonderful. I feel like this whole conversation, I just feel inspired and, and motivated and I'm so thankful that, that we had the opportunity to, to meet and, and talk today. [00:43:00] 

Kimberly: It's been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for having 

me.