Acting Entrepreneurs

Last night one of the TV channels showed an old interview from 2004 with Hugh Jackman. It was from the show “Inside the Actor’s Studio” and James Lipton asked the questions.

I didn’t know Jackman had a background in musicals, but there was also many other new things I learned. I vagely knew about the Alexander Technique as a way of becoming more relaxed in your movements, but I had not put it in the context of English upper-class behaviour as Jackman did. When doing the “Kate and Leopold” movie, he had to take classes in how to act as a gentleman. He pointed out that the manners require you be not stiff at all but as a way of being very agile but also polite and really listen to others. To be present and aware. Mindfulness.

In schools in Sweden today it’s really popular to talk about entrepreneurial learning and teaching where you focus on what you need to learn to become an entrepreneur. To me, the pedagogics is very similar to problem-based learning (check out this teacher’s approach to entrepreneurial maths). However, maybe this needs to be combined with more theatre lessons where all the entrepreneurs-to-be learn how to better observe other people (and perhaps also animals) in order to really get to know them, and also become better listeners. Very good competencies for successful entrepreneurs wanting to co-produce products with customers and to be really good managers.