There exist numerous types of acting, each with its own history and origins. However, some require more effort than others. Method acting being one of them, is a technique or style of acting in which an actor strives to fortify genuine and emotionally expressive performances by completely cohabiting with the character. It is an emotion-focused technique as opposed to classical acting, which is primarily action-based. Similarly, Faith Hibbs-Clark, a casting director came up with an acting method, “The Acting Science Method.” This method is grounded entirely on scientific principles related to human psychology, behavior, and communication.
Born on December 8, 1969, in England, Hibbs-Clark is a US-based casting director for films & television, body language expert, acting coach, and the founder of a science-based acting method, The Communication Method for Actors. With an educational background in communications and psychology from Arizona State University, Faith Hibbs-Clark served many years as a communications expert and coached trial attorneys, federal agents, politicians, and CEOs in the finite detail of non-verbal communications and body language.
Hibbs-Clark is known for the invention of an original science-based acting method for film and television actors called “The Communication Method for Actors (CMFA),” which is often referred to as the “acting science” method. Acting Science is distinct from other methods in a way that each actor’s action is dependent on how the human brain communicates and neural couples with the person who will ultimately judge the performance. This approach considers “perception” of visual performance and body language to be more important to the receiver of acting communication than what the actor is feeling or thinking. The Communication Method for Actors views acting as a form of deception, which Hibbs-Clark refers to as the ENTERTAINMENT LIE. It relies on the human brain’s unique ability to believe in its own deception for the benefit of the actors’ authenticity in their performance.
Body language coding, which Hibbs-Clark refers to as ‘Emotional Fluency,’ is used in acting science to trigger the actors’ brain into experiencing the performance story as a real-life experience, allowing the actor to communicate that story and its associated actions and emotions as a more convincing form of deception.
Hibbs-Clark created ACTING FORMULAS, which assist an actor in combining the scientific tenets of her method to come up with performances that achieve key psychological and emotional outcomes that impact the mind of the receiver, resulting in more audition bookings and better audience reviews. The method has been praised for its comprehensibility and adaptability to actors of all levels, including newcomers and celebrities such as Emma Stone, Quinton Aaron, and Damien McGinty.
With a degree from Arizona State University, she worked as a body language deception detection expert in the mid-1990s before becoming a casting director for film and television in 1999. After uncovering the tricks and techniques of acting, she opened Good Faith Casting LLC, an Arizona casting company that casts actors for films, TV, and commercials.
Hibbs-Clark has cast numerous films and TV shows for studios such as Disney, Nickelodeon, Lionsgate, Paramount, The Weinstein Company, and Sony. She also speaks at workshops and conferences all across the United States. In 2022, she was a featured speaker at The Southwest Actors Conference & Expo, a premier conference for professional actors in the Southwest region of the United States, speaking about The Transformative Power of Acting Science.
The CMFA method is a strategy that doesn’t only focus on aspects such as character immersion or backstory; instead, Hibbs-Clark works to focus on how the actor is perceived. She once said, “Actors are encouraged to encode and reverse engineer their performances with body language and to use scientific concepts that will help evoke feelings in the mind of the receiver.”
