Acting Verbs: A Working List of Actions and How to Use Them

The director stops the scene and says, “I’m not sure what you’re doing to her on that line.” You know what your character feels. You know what the line means. But “doing to her” is a different question, and you haven’t got an answer.

That question is what action verbs are for. Instead of playing a feeling (“angry”) or a meaning (“he’s explaining”), you pick a verb for what your character is trying to do to the other person with each line or beat: to tease them, warn them, flatter them, corner them. A feeling is hard to play on purpose. A verb gives you something to do.

The short version: choose a verb you could do to someone (“I ___ you”), test it by saying the line while you try to have that effect, and change verbs when the other person doesn’t give you what you want. The list below gives you a vocabulary to start from. The point isn’t to collect words. It’s to have one ready when the first one stops working.

An action is something you do to someone

In the UK, giving every line its own verb is called actioning. Max Stafford-Clark’s theater company Out of Joint describes actioning as assigning an action, or intention, to each line or idea in a script, described with a transitive verb, with examples such as teases, threatens, and distracts.

“Transitive” is the key word. A transitive verb takes an object: you threaten someone, you charm someone. Nick Moseley’s book Actioning and How to Do It, as its publisher’s excerpt explains, contrasts verbs like prod and encourage with ones like muse, cry, or hesitate, which pull your focus back onto yourself. The same excerpt says the technique was developed at the Joint Stock Theatre Company in the late 1970s under Bill Gaskill and Max Stafford-Clark, and that it’s little used outside the UK.

You don’t need to be British, or to action every line of a play, to use the idea. Many American acting classes talk about a close cousin of this idea: tactics, the means a character uses to get what they want. One guide to acting tactics describes a tactic as how your character achieves their objective, which is why the two ideas fit together. Your objective is the thing you want from the scene. Your verbs are the ways you go after it, one line or one beat at a time.

A quick test for any verb: can you say “I ___ you” and mean it? “I flatter you” works. “I am sad at you” doesn’t. “I explain you” doesn’t either. If the sentence sounds wrong, the verb won’t play.

Verbs that won’t play, and why

Bad choices tend to fall into a few traps. A resource on actions and tactics from Cornell lists kinds of verbs to avoid, including general ones (convince, persuade), intellectual ones (decipher), behavioral and existential ones (sleep, exist), and trigger verbs (slap, kiss). In our words:

• Too general. “Convince” and “persuade” describe the goal of almost every scene, so they don’t tell you how. Do you charm them into it, shame them into it, or bribe them?
• In your head. Verbs like “decipher” happen inside you. Nobody across the table can feel them.
• States, not actions. “Exist” or “sleep” describe a condition. You can’t win or lose at them.
• Physical triggers. “Slap” or “kiss” are things your body does. They might be blocking, but they’re not the action behind the line.

Feelings are the other trap. “Angry,” “nervous,” and “hurt” are results. They happen to you when you go after something and the other person pushes back. Pick the verb and let the feeling arrive on its own. If a verb stays stuck in your head, our guide to the psychological gesture shows how to put it in your body.

A working list of acting verbs

A book-length reference is Actions: The Actors’ Thesaurus by Marina Caldarone and Maggie Lloyd-Williams, a book-length thesaurus of verbs grouped by meaning. It’s worth owning if you use this technique a lot. For tonight, here’s a shorter working list, grouped by what each verb is trying to do to the other person. Every verb passes the “I ___ you” test.

To bring them closer

charm, flatter, welcome, comfort, reassure, coax, tempt, entice, invite, soothe, praise, court, beguile, woo

To push them away

dismiss, snub, freeze, rebuff, shun, stonewall, brush off, silence, exclude, cut

To lift them up

encourage, inspire, rally, embolden, cheer, celebrate, energize, galvanize, empower

To take them down

mock, belittle, needle, taunt, scold, shame, humiliate, deflate, patronize, crush

To control them

command, warn, threaten, corner, pin down, trap, steer, manipulate, rein in, check

To get something out of them

question, probe, test, challenge, provoke, prod, nudge, beg, plead with, bribe, bargain with

To play with them

tease, distract, dazzle, amuse, bait, wind up, toy with, outwit, surprise

Notice how different two verbs in the same group can be. Warn and threaten both try to control someone, but a warning is for their own good and a threat is for yours. Being exact about that difference is most of the skill.

A scene, actioned line by line

Here’s a short stretch from Act 1 of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Algernon has found Jack’s cigarette case and read the inscription inside. Jack has been calling himself Ernest in town, and the case is a present from someone called Cecily, a name Jack has just claimed not to know. Jack wants the case back without explaining. Algernon wants the truth, and is enjoying himself.

JACK: Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I wish to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing frantic letters to Scotland Yard about it. I was very nearly offering a large reward.

ALGERNON: Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than usually hard up.

JACK: There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing is found.

ALGERNON: I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn’t yours after all.

JACK: Of course it’s mine. You have seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside. It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.

One possible actioning, line by line. Write yours in pencil next to each line:

1. Jack, “Do you mean to say...”: he scolds Algernon, to put him on the back foot before the inscription comes up.
2. Algernon, “Well, I wish you would offer one...”: he needles Jack, turning Jack’s fuss into a joke at his expense.
3. Jack, “There is no good offering...”: he dismisses Algernon, to shut the subject down.
4. Algernon, “I think that is rather mean...”: he baits Jack, dangling “the thing isn’t yours” to see what Jack will do.
5. Jack, “Of course it’s mine...”: he shames Algernon, calling him ungentlemanly so he’ll hand the case over without more questions.

Notice that Jack’s verbs change as he loses ground. He starts on the attack, tries to end the conversation, and, when that fails, reaches for the strongest weapon a Victorian gentleman has: telling another man he isn’t one. That shift is the scene’s comedy. Played with one general feeling (“Jack is annoyed”) or one general verb (“Jack argues”), the lines blur together. With three different verbs, the audience can watch him get cornered.

These aren’t the only right answers. Another actor might play Jack’s first line as accusing or Algernon’s second as teasing. The test is whether you can play it and whether it gets a reaction from your partner. Our Importance of Being Earnest page shows who speaks in each scene and how big each role is; pick another scene and action it yourself.

When a verb stops working, change it

Real people don’t keep using a tactic that isn’t working. If charming someone gets you nowhere, you try something else: you plead, you bargain, you threaten. Characters do the same, and the change is often where a scene comes alive.

So as you action a scene, watch what the other character does after each line. If they give in, your character has won that beat and moves on to the next thing they want. If they push back, your character has to try something new. Mark those moments. They’re the beat changes, and they’re where your verb should change too. Our guide to beats in acting marks a full scene this way, line by line.

A useful habit is to escalate. If your first tactic is gentle (coax), the next is often firmer (press), and the next firmer again (corner). Or flip direction completely: after threaten fails, beg. Contrasting verbs give the audience something to watch.

Don’t let the verbs become a script

Actioning has critics, and they’re worth hearing. Mark Westbrook of Acting Coach Scotland argues that actioning doesn’t work, because choices built on the meaning of the words can miss the intention behind them, and because a verb decided at home can stop you from reacting truthfully when your partner does something unexpected.

That’s a real risk, and there’s a simple way to handle it. Do the actioning in your preparation, so you understand the scene and have a vocabulary for it. Then, in rehearsal and performance, play against your partner, not against your pencil marks. If they surprise you, let your verb change. The homework is there so you never go blank, not so you can ignore the person in front of you.

Verbs also help with lines. When you know what you’re doing with each line, the words have a reason to come out in that order, which makes them easier to recall. Our guide to finding your objective covers the bigger want the verbs serve, and playing subtext covers what to do when your verb and your words point in different directions.

Practice actioning on your own

You can practice this without a scene partner. A routine to try with any scene:

1. Read the whole scene and write down what your character wants from it.
2. Mark where the other character pushes back or gives in. Those are your beat changes.
3. Pencil one verb next to each of your lines or beats. Check each with “I ___ you.”
4. Say each line out loud while trying to have that effect on an imagined partner.
5. Swap one verb for its opposite and say the line again. Notice what changes.

Step 4 is easier with someone to play against. Offbook gives you that on your laptop: upload the scene, pick your role, and realistic voices read the other characters while Offbook listens through your microphone and plays the next cue when you finish your line. If you want to talk a choice through, Genie, Offbook’s script-aware assistant, can answer questions about a character’s motivation or a specific line, and you decide which verb to play.

For more scenes to practice on, browse the plays library, or pick a speech from our monologues and action it line by line. Our free tools include a cue-script maker and a first-letter memorizer for getting the words solid.

Questions actors ask

What’s the difference between an objective and an action?

The objective is what your character wants from the scene, such as getting the cigarette case back. Actions are the moment-to-moment ways they go after it: scold, dismiss, shame. One objective, many actions.

Do I have to action every single line?

No. Some actors action every line or thought; others pick a verb per beat. Start with one verb per beat, and go line by line only on passages that feel vague or stuck.

Should I tell my scene partner my verbs?

Usually not. The verb is your private tool. Your partner should simply feel its effect. If a director works with actioning as a group, they’ll set it up in rehearsal.

Can an action verb be negative or unkind?

Yes. Characters belittle, threaten, and humiliate each other all the time. Playing those verbs fully is safe when it’s in the scene, with a partner who knows the scene, and when you stay in control of anything physical.

Is actioning the same as the Stanislavski system?

No. Moseley’s publisher’s excerpt says actioning isn’t a Stanislavskian technique; it came out of Joint Stock in the late 1970s. In practice, you can use verbs inside almost any approach.