Merging Acting and Psychology to Transform Communication – Exclusive Interview with James Westphal
- Apr 16
- 10 min read
James Westphal is an actor, coach, and creative development specialist who works with professional actors on their acting and audition technique and provides public speaking and communication coaching for individuals and groups across business, leadership, and public-facing roles. With his first-class degree and training from a leading drama school, ongoing stage and screen work, a Master’s in Psychology, and extensive teaching experience at top drama schools and conservatoires, James also coaches internationally for leading companies. Founder and CEO of James Westphal Creative Development, providing effective help and guidance for people who speak for a living, his mission is to empower people to connect, lead, and speak with impact.
James Westphal, Actor & Public Speaking/Communication Coach
Who is James Westphal?
I’m an actor, public speaking & communication coach, and a multi-hyphenate creative.
As an actor, I’ve worked professionally on stages such as London’s Arcola Theatre, Off-West End venues, Chichester Festival, and extensively across the UK, touring new plays. When it comes to theatre, I am particularly interested and experienced in originating roles in new work.
On screen, I’ve worked for ITV, appeared in feature films, and an array of award- winning short films. I also create, write, and direct my own work on screen and for the theatre.
As an acting tutor, I lead the Part-Time Foundation in Acting at one of London’s leading Drama Schools, ArtsEd, and am an associate tutor and lecturer at many other drama schools around the UK.
As a public speaking and communication coach, I have worked with companies and individuals such as Media Arts Lab (Apple’s dedicated marketing agency), the CEO of Capital.com, Senior Leaders at TESCO, Senior Data Scientists at TOYOTA, the global development company DAI Global, and charities including The Bike Project. I also coach individuals across business, science, publishing, and marketing, as well as extensively one-on-one with CEOs and executives with my company, James Westphal Creative Development.
At the core of this work is one thing, empowering people to connect, lead, and speak with impact.
All of my coaching work is underpinned by my training and experience as a professional actor, my Master’s in Psychological Sciences, and leading communication techniques. Which essentially means, I’m not just interested in what someone says, but in how they say it, and how they think, feel, and behave when saying it.
What inspired you to focus your work on helping people communicate with confidence and impact?
Acting was the starting point. As an actor, you quickly realise that what makes a performance compelling isn’t ‘perfection’, it’s presence, honesty, and connection. But, outside of performance, I saw so many people trying to communicate in ways that were either overly controlled or overly “correct,” and ultimately disconnected. There is sometimes an idea of what we think good communication is, and it sometimes leads to restricted, disengaged, and personality-less communication. Or in ways that lack confidence and ownership.
At the same time, I became increasingly interested in the idea of confidence and ownership and what the seemingly repeated mental blocks were that were holding people back. This began my interest in psychology, particularly how fear, perception, and internal dialogue can manifest in our behaviour. Again, paralleling Acting, your best work comes when you are outside of your head and focused on someone or something other than yourself. I noticed that a lot of people in their professional lives focus far too much on themselves when communicating.
I had a hunch that principles and techniques actors use to access truth under pressure could be incredibly powerful for professionals speaking in meetings, interviews, or on stage. As well as underpinning this with psychological evidence to root it in something tangible. That’s where the shift happened, and the work started.
I realised that, much like performance, communication isn’t just a skill that needs to be worked on and honed, but is a psychological and emotional experience, too. If you can change someone’s relationship to that experience, you don’t just improve their speaking, you change how they show up in their life and work.
How do your backgrounds in acting and psychology influence your coaching approach?
Acting gives me the tools to work with behaviour, voice, body, presence, timing, and emotional truth.
Psychology gives me the tools to understand what’s driving that behaviour and what cognitive patterns may be shaping habitual tendencies in communication (whether conscious or subconscious).
Lots of communication coaching focuses on surface-level technique, “stand in a certain way,” “use your hands,” “structure your message like this.” That has its place, but it often doesn’t stick because I don’t think it addresses the root cause. Sometimes it is more internal, people’s fear or what they are telling themselves.
Similarly, it is very often the nervous system misfiring. Sometimes it is more external - they feel confident and know who they are, but that isn’t quite translating when they communicate. Their body and voice are betraying them. These are the first two strands of my work. The third strand looks at how we can integrate this inside-out approach with the outside-in approach in a way that is streamlined and synchronous.
What common challenges do you see professionals face when speaking in public or leading conversations?
The biggest one is a lack of embodiment. Lots of people know their stuff, in fact, lots of people are ‘experts’ in their field, but the way they show up and communicate doesn’t convey, embody or translate that expertise.
The other one is people becoming hyper-aware of themselves, how they sound, how they look, whether they’re being judged, and that internal noise pulls them out of the present moment.
Another is over-catastrophising, which exacerbates the fear. This is something of a habitual pattern that has been ingrained, sometimes it’s a lack of experience or exposure, and sometimes it is a big fear of failing. Whatever it is, at its core, it’s a shift in attention and the ability to try and fail.
Can you share how your coaching transforms someone from nervous to confident in front of an audience?
The key thing here is that the transformation isn’t about removing nerves. Many, many people get nervous. I get nervous before I do most things. I think there is an assumption that if you are good or accomplished at something, it means you don’t get nervous. This is a fallacy. So, the work is about two things.
Understanding what it is that is causing the nerves (cognitively and psychologically) and what the reaction is (physiologically).
Changing how someone relates to them.
Nerves and excitement are physiologically very similar. The difference is in the interpretation and what we are feeding our brain, leading up to, during, and after a situation that feeds the nerves.
So we start by reframing that experience, and then we build practical tools around it, like breath work, attention control, and structured repetition in a safe but challenging environment. From there, we focus on presence and grounding and crucially taking the attention outward instead of inward (which automatically happens when nerves kick in).
When someone learns to put their attention on something else, perhaps what they’re saying and who they’re saying it to, rather than how they’re being perceived, lots starts to shift. The voice settles, the body opens up, and you become far more engaging without “trying” to be.
From here, once we’ve established more of a calm and controlled baseline, we can build upon that work and work on boosting confidence levels.
What unique outcomes can clients expect from your one-to- one coaching sessions?
Clients often come in expecting to improve their speaking, but what they gain, I think and hope, goes beyond that.
They become more decisive, more grounded under pressure, more comfortable being seen and heard, have more of a sense of ownership over themselves and their communication, know how to use their body and voice to signal what they want to signal, and overall feel more confident.
Practically, that might look like:
Delivering presentations with clarity and authority
Handling difficult conversations with composure
Speaking more naturally and less “scripted”
Feeling in control of their voice and body
Conveying a sense of ‘authority’ and credibility.
Communication with control and ownership, and in a much more engaging and impactful way.
But the deeper outcome is a shift in identity, from someone who manages communication anxiety to someone who can use communication as a strength. Essentially, people go from self-identifying as someone who struggles or hates public speaking. To someone who can and will do it much better than before.
How does your group coaching help teams enhance communication and collaboration?
A lot of the work I do is with individuals, one-on-one. But group work brings a fresh and exciting dynamic. People are being vulnerable and experimenting in front of each other, which can bring a more electric atmosphere.
Group coaching allows people to see how others interact in real time. It builds a deeper sense of trust and awareness within a group/team. People are able to see, in real time, how other people in their groups listen, interrupt, hold back, or dominate. That awareness alone is incredibly powerful. It brings a sense of concentrated time to group awareness and sensibility that you don’t always get when you work 1-2-1 with someone.
As a group, we build shared understanding, awareness, and support amongst areas like:
Clear, direct communication
Active listening
Confidence in contributing ideas
Constructive challenge without conflict
Reading social cues of when to lead and when to give other people the opportunity to take the reins.
It creates a culture where people feel more comfortable speaking up, which leads to better collaboration and better decision-making overall.
What’s one myth about public speaking that you most want to debunk?
Confident speakers don’t feel nervous. I mentioned this earlier, but it is a real misconception. This goes for anyone who is seemingly confident or accomplished in any skill, whether it be communication, sport, performance, music, etc.
Almost everyone feels some level of nerves. It’s a natural response to being seen and evaluated. The difference is that skilled communicators don’t interpret that feeling as a problem. They don’t try to eliminate it, they accept it, work with it, and adapt.
Once people understand that, it removes a huge amount of pressure. Because suddenly you are not alone in your nerves. Even the most confident people get nervous.
Tell us about a breakthrough moment you’ve seen with a client that exemplifies the impact of your work.
I worked with a client who was terrified of speaking in public. He suddenly found himself in a position where his work was gaining traction, and he was asked to give a presentation to demonstrate and share his expertise in front of a live audience of 200 people, which was also going to be streamed live to many more people. Understandably, this was a huge deal for him, and he came to me to try and build confidence and get his public speaking and presentation skills to match his extensive and accomplished career and knowledge.
In a few sessions, we shifted his thought patterns that were exacerbating nerves, we worked on physical and vocal tools to enhance his presence and engagement, and we looked at structure and storytelling within presentations to make them engaging and memorable.
His feedback to me that stuck out the most was that he had gotten to a point where he now ‘looked forward’ to it instead of dreading it. That, for me, was a really special and memorable moment, and I was just glad to have been some help on his journey.
How do your acting coaching sessions support performers and professionals differently from public speaking coaching?
Acting sessions, by and large, are mainly rooted in the technique and craft of acting and working on sharpening and refining audition skills. There is sometimes a slight overlap if there are issues with confidence. But on the whole, it remains very separate.
My public speaking and communication coaching, whilst drawing on some core principles of acting, differs quite a lot. The main one would be that it is not necessarily about ‘playing’ a character or accessing emotional truth or exploring tools to strengthen truth in imaginary circumstances. There are no imaginary circumstances within public speaking and communication. It is the client’s real life. Yes, there are ways in which we can draw on character or persona if someone has deep-rooted nervousness, but on the whole, the intention is different.
I guess a slight overlap occurs in that actors benefit from the psychological tools around managing pressure and consistency, while professionals benefit from the actor’s ability to be present, responsive, and engaging.
What advice would you give someone who feels they’ll never be a good public speaker?
100% challenge the assumption. Put that thought on trial. And remind yourself that if we believe we can improve in something, we are more likely to. This is the basis of the Fixed Vs. Growth mindset.
Most people who believe that have had a few negative experiences and turned that into a fixed identity, “I’m not a good speaker.” But communication is a skill, and more importantly, it’s a trainable one.
If you can learn to shift your attention, regulate your breath, nervous system, and your emotions, and practise in the right way, you can improve, often far more quickly than you would expect.
The key is not to aim for perfection, but for progress and presence. Persistence is key. Much like we feel we will always be a bad driver when we start. With active work and effort, we get to a point where driving becomes second nature.
We all have the ability to hone our communication.
If someone is ready to take the next step, what should they know about working with you and how to start?
Working with me is practical, honest, but supportive, tailored, and hopefully good fun.
We don’t just talk about communication, we’ll establish an understanding of the hurdles you are facing and why that might be. We will then actively work on improving these. Real-time coaching, exercises, and applying what we do directly to your specific challenges. There will be supplementary resources as well as set tasks between sessions.
Whether you’re preparing for a presentation, looking to build long-term confidence, or developing your performance skills, the process is collaborative and focused on measurable change.
If you’re ready to take that step, the best place to start is by visiting my website and booking a discovery call. This allows me to hear more about where you are at, and gives you a chance to ask any questions you might have. Also, and crucially, this gives you a chance to get a feel for how I work and who I am. It is important that people work with coaches that they feel are right for them.
From there, we can map out exactly what you need and how to get you there. I would then send you over a proposal, and we would get started.
Ultimately, strong communication isn’t just about speaking well. It’s about being understood, being remembered, and being able to show up with clarity and confidence and make some form of impact, big or small.
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