How Acting Techniques Can Supercharge Your Public Speaking

When it comes to public speaking, most people think about the words they’ll say. But great speeches aren’t about words—they’re about action. As a professional actor turned speaking coach, I help people use acting techniques to make their presentations more dynamic, engaging, and memorable.

I am here to help you lift your words off the page and really bring them to life just like actors do, without you having to suffer through years of acting school like I did (lol just kidding, acting school was the best time of my life. But also... IYKYK). But this isn't about me -- this about you!

So here's a couple of acting techniques that you can start using TODAY to supercharge your next speech. These two techniques are the secret sauce actors use to bring scripts to life and that you can use to truly captivate your audience.

Here they are: Objectives and Actions.

What’s an Objective?

In acting, an objective is what a character wants in a scene. It’s their driving force, their reason for being on stage. And guess what? The same applies to public speaking. When you’re giving a speech, you need a clear objective—something you actively want from your audience.

Super Objectives vs. Scene Objectives

In acting, we have something called a super objective—the overarching goal that drives everything a character does. Then, within each scene, they have smaller objectives that serve that bigger goal.

For speakers, your super objective might be something like inspiring people to take control of their health or convincing a room full of executives to invest in sustainable energy. Every moment of your speech should feed into that big goal, but you’ll also have smaller objectives for different sections.

How to Define Your Objective

A strong objective should be:

• Audience-focused: It’s not just about what you want to say, but what you want your audience to feel or do.

• Active: It should be something you can see happening in real time.

• Clear and measurable: You should be able to tell when you’ve achieved it.

  
  

For example, instead of saying, “I want to educate my audience about climate change,” a stronger objective would be: “I want to get them so fired up that they stand up and shout.” That way, you know exactly when you’ve hit your mark.

And here's the thing (this is key): They may not actually ever do the thing you want them to do. THAT'S OKAY. That means you are always working for it, trying to get them to do it. Which gives your speech life, and gives you energy and fire! So it's okay to pick objectives that are a little extreme or abstract. In fact, I encourage you to do so.

Actions: The Key to Bringing Objectives to Life

An objective without action is like a car without gas—it’s not going anywhere.

Actions are the things you do to achieve your objective.

In acting, actions are verbs. Instead of just saying lines, actors plead, challenge, reassure, or provoke. As a speaker, you can use these too.

Some examples:

• If your objective is to make the audience laugh, your actions might include joking, exaggerating, or winking.

• If your objective is to inspire action, you might urge, motivate, or dare them.

  
  

Workshopping Objectives: A Real Example

Let’s take a real moment from a recent coaching session. My client was preparing a speech about resilience and initially said their objective was to “share their story.” That’s a great starting point, but it’s not quite active enough. So, we refined it:

Original objective: “I want to share my story.”

Refined objective: “I want to make my audience feel so inspired that they stand up because they can’t help but take action.”

See the difference? The second one is something they can actually see happening. If people are leaning forward, nodding, or even standing up, they know they’ve achieved their goal.

How to Apply This to Your Next Speech

1. Define your super objective – What’s the big takeaway you want your audience to leave with?

2. Break it down into scene objectives – What do you want from your audience at each moment?

3. Choose your actions – How will you do this? Will you challenge, encourage, joke, or provoke?

4. Watch for results – Are people reacting the way you hoped? If not, adjust your actions.

   
   

When you approach speaking like an actor—focusing on what you want from your audience and how you’re going to get it—you’ll go from just delivering a speech to truly performing it. And that’s when you create something unforgettable.

Give it a try in your next talk, and let me know how it goes!

~ Jenny Austin Bassett

Public Speaking & Storytelling Coach

Characters Public Speaking