Ham to carve into pieces (7)
I believe the answer is:
overact
'ham' is the definition.
(ham can mean to overact)
'to carve into pieces' is the wordplay.
'into pieces' indicates anagramming the letters (I've seen this in other clues).
'to'+'carve'='tocarve'
'tocarve' anagrammed gives 'OVERACT'.
(Other definitions for overact that I've seen before include "pile it on" , "Exaggerate" , "Be excessive like fulsome thespian" , "Do what ham thespian does" , "Don't expect Oscar" .)