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- Dan
- Father, musician, trail runner, reader, geographer, craft beer aficionado, meditator.
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10 comments:
Thinking like the character is the key. It makes me think of the hokey old movie Firefox, with Clint Eastwood as a fighter pilot who in the depths of the cold war has to sneak into Russia and steal a super sophisticated plane. He steals the plane with little difficulty but can't make it do what he needs it to do until he starts thinking like a Russian.
Clearly the best acting comes from inhabiting the character rather than simply reciting lines. It is from there that it flows naturally, every word and gesture a natural extension of the character rather than yourself.
Good luck.
Well, there's definitely different schools of thought. I love this story, involving Sir Laurence Olivier & Dustin Hoffman that took place during the filming of "Marathon Man."
One day on the sets Olivier noticed Hoffman looking beaten, haggard, weak. Worried, he turned to director Schlesinger and asked what had happened. And the director replied that there was nothing wrong, Hoffman had deliberately not slept for a couple of days and not eaten because it was Hoffman's way to prepare for a scene that called for him to look that way. Amused and astonished, Olivier snapped back: ``Hasn't the dear boy heard of acting?"
There are defintiely different ways to inhabit the character, but my point was that it's not about recitig lines, which may be a common misperception.
Agreed. I've become a little more "method" in my advanced age, but in high school and so on, I was in a "school of acting" whereby I would just goof around in the wings and then just totally snap into character the moment I came onto stage. But the moment I was on, I was a Transformed Man. Anyone who doesn't do that is not really acting at all-and it would be totally obvious to the audience.
In contrast to Valerie's experience in rehearsing, I tend to study my lines "in character," so it's not that much of a shocker to go off-book. Even so, though, I can't anticipate other actors' deliveies, and that can throw me off a bit, at first.
All I can say is, I've paid my 14 bucks in pre-order.
You are among a small, but growing, group of people that ROCK! Hopefully you weren't suggesting I said something that makes you want a refund...
So, Stephen, you used to act. What was your general approach, or did you just "get out there and do it?"
Well, the last time I acted was in 1988. I seem to recall a simple matter of reading lines and approximating the character. I really didn't get a real feel for it, which is why I never did it again out of high school. I admired those who could really make it happen, though. I learned about method around that time. Sean Penn goes into each role like that, I understand. Fellow actors say they never meet Penn until after the movie wraps. It must be exhausting to go Method.
I do have to say I subscribe to Method in life. Particularly at work, we are who we say we are, and act accordingly.
I love the story above, though I probably fall somewhere in between. I was hinting at the idea that any good actor essentially goes "method" once they're on the stage. It's all about business.
Remember how our poor work ethic drove Scott M. up the wall as he tried to direct us in "The Bald Soprano?"
I'm actually proud to be in "The Bald Soprano." Thanks to that experience, I was able to understand an obscure joke on "Frasier" years later.
I do consider those some pretty good times. And I think I've been fairly direct on my dislike for the high school experience. I keep aware of the dangers of false nostalgia. But the Little Theatre was an okay place to be.
I regret very little about my theatre experiences, which essentially went from 6th grade through my freshman year of college. They were without a doubt, consistently the best experiences of my youth. That is, until I started running with a certain crowd the summer before my junior year.
I don't really fear any sort of "false nostalgia," as I never really lived glory days, as such, to begin with. But digging obscure references out of the dusty archives of our shared past is something Mixdorf, T-Clog, Gibbons, and I enjoy in one anothers' company much as other men might enjoy vintage wines.
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