Cliff Osmond on Acting

ON ACTING: Seeking Performance Complexity

2012-05-26T16:56:00.002-07:00

[The following is quoted from my book, "Acting is Living,"]

Many years ago I had the good fortune to direct the brilliant actor Raul Julia in a film. Before every scene we would sit and analyze the scene. We would mutually agree on was the emotional essence of his character in the scene. Then as he started away toward the set for filming, he‘d stop, turn and we‘d say: "And yet...." That was our code way of expressing: 'the exact opposite might also be true,' so Raul would enter every scene with a complex set of emotional possibilities.

Contradiction seems inherent in all exciting life. Characters (like people) love and hate simultaneously. Characters are brave and cowardly. Characters are certain and confused. Characters contain paradox, contradiction, irony, and mutual opposition, even absurdity.

When a stimulus occurs in the presence of a mediocre actor, it echoes singularly, with monochromatic dullness, as if off the walls of a one room cave. But when it echoes in an exciting actor, one who has dug through the cavern walls of their own deepest life, who has deeply explored all sides of all issues, who has through a career of emotional rehearsal process become a high-ceilinged, and multi-roomed hollowed-out grotto of feeling, that stimulus resonates profoundly, over and over again, like the eternal inner voices in the caves of E.M. Forrester‘s Passage to India.

If an actor enters an scene without sufficient appreciation of and preparation for the depth and resonance of human complication possible in the scene, their acting craft will fly very low to the ground…and will generally crash in performance in the unremitting and all-consuming explosion of audience boredom.

ON ACTING: The Art of the Unknown

2012-05-17T20:01:00.001-07:00

I sometimes ask young actors how much they know of themselves; how much they understand how they will emotionally respond under the deepest vicissitudes of life? The youngest say 85%. The middle-aged say 50%. I tell them I am down to 2%...and my surety is declining from there.

There are as many cells in the body as stars in the universe. The journey into us is about as predictable as our journey beyond. The good actor therefore is most exciting when their final performance is ultimately beyond their own analytic grasp, amenable only to their deep experiential involvement (in performance) in their personal inner emotional universe.

When an excellent, practiced and complex actor subsequently sees their performance on the screen they are often surprised as the rest of the audience by some of their own (sub-conscious) acting choices. "Oh, my God…so that‘s what I am when I am under that kind of pressure. My love has elements of sadness in it; and sexual need. Oh my God, look at my confusion, too! I‘ll be damned."

Such surprise/discovery moments are a good sign: they mean that the actor had been living at a performance level of complexity that even the actor herself had no idea what she was emotionally capable of achieving.

Science is based on the formulaic replication of the known; art is based on the experiencing and unconscious revelation of the inner unknown.

ON ACTING: a la Michael Jordan

2012-05-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

From a philosophy attributed to Michael Jordan, probably the greatest basketball player of all time, I pass on an operating modality to actors who make a mistake in a scene, and let it bother them--allowing it to negatively affect their next performance. Or to actors who forget a line, and fully drop out of character. Or actors who fail an audition, then drive themselves crazy second guessing their total ability...and majorly screw up the next audition..in explaining why he never let missing a shot, even at the most critical times of a game bother him, why he was never reluctant to go right back down court and shoot the ball again: "Greatness fears no consequences."

ON ACTING: "Free Falling"

2012-05-05T18:12:00.002-07:00

I had been encouraging a new student actor to give up once performance begins conscious control of his rehearsed performance, and instead to give over to the subconscious reality of the new performance fact, to treat each new 'take' as a new and vital thing, to look, listen to the other actor-as-character in the scene (each and every time--always in renewed pursuit of his character's goal), trust that all his prior rehearsed work was somewhere in his subconscious muscle memory, and let come what may.

He finally did just that--very successfully--during his monthly scene work filming class a few days ago. He took the DVD home, watched it, wrote the following back to me:

"Just wanted to thank you again for pushing me through the airplane door. Who knew that free falling could be so fun?"

I wrote him back thanking him for such a good performance--and giving me a brilliant metaphor for good, spontaneous, 'reality' acting. "free falling." And, I should have added: 'free fall' acting is an activity in which you never hit the ground. The parachute opens before any dangerous long-term, external consequences ensue; like in bungee jumping, the curtain closes or they yell 'cut,' before you get permanently whacked.

ON ACTING: The First Time

2012-05-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

An actor's analysis of a scene, as well as any subsequent rehearsal and/or performance, must always be seen by the actor as only a working hypothesis, a self- suggestion rather than a certainty, when facing the next performance (or in film, another 'take.')

Acting is a constant work in progress. The final truth or final reality of any scene does not happen until it happens. Just as no moment in time or event in our lives (think of the every different shapes of a snowflake) can be an exact duplicate of what went before, each performance must of necessity be new and fresh, waiting the actual give and take of the scene to determine the scene's final, precise form.

That is what 'being in the moment,' 'reality,' 'acting honesty,' and the other demands of real and spontaneous acting means: the actor must each time in every performance or 'take' newly look and listen, respond and relate to the other actors as if it is happening for the first time...which it will be if the actor has forsworn trying to duplicate the past (analysis, rehearsal, prior performance) and instead properly focuses his or her attention on spontaneously living the life of the scene.

Listen, look, feel and respond anew--each time--IN REALITY. Believe that rest of the true and moving performance will follow within the general outlines of what you did before. Your rehearsal and prior performances are somewhere in your muscle memory. Trust it.

I know it takes acting courage to live a performance fresh each time; we want to cling to the past as a crutch, a lifeboat in our sea of insecurity. But spontaneity is required; or the actor will never succeeed as an actor to the fullest extent possible.

ON ACTING: The Preparation Technique of "Prior History"

2012-04-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

To encourage and facilitate more emotional openness and complexity in an actor-as-character, actors sometimes are asked in their rehearsal to create a fictional ‘prior history’ of the character. They are asked to imaginatively ‘fill in the gaps’ of a character’s past life left open by the script. For example: “My character got married (this was in the script) because she was pregnant and a week after the marriage her husband talked her into an abortion (this was not in the script) .” Or: “My character was born wealthy (in the script) but secretly hates him her father because he was arrested for stock fraud, and spent six months in jail and she has always felt betrayed (not in the script).” Or: “My character is a college graduate (in the script), got straight A’s but cheated on finals (not in the script).”

Imagined prior history works very well as an emotional exercise because it forces the actor to stir up their own complex and often contradictory emotions and experiences and to thereby make those emotions available to the actor-as-character in performance. (Not surprisingly, the imagined histories almost invariably reflect the actor’s personal and often complex histories! After all: who is doing the 'back- story' fictional imagining but the actor?!) The exercise then becomes a highly effective method for the actor to tap into and grant himself permission to feel what they are already capable of feeling, to emotionally open up and emotionally‘identify’ with the character through the fictional use of such character invented history. At core it is a trick to end-run one's own emotional reluctance: tricking-oneself into activating and using deep, often hidden (denied?) experiences and feelings one already has for subsequent use by the actor-as-character in performance.

ON ACTING: "Edginess"

2012-04-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

The actor had given a performance in class the night before, and he felt he had not tapped into the full richness of his own ability. It lacked a certain 'something'--an 'edge,' he called it. He got the same criticism from several casting directors and producers: his work, while good, lacked edge.

He called me about it.

I told him--as I had told him before--that I, too, while I thought him a wonderful actor, agreed that his work lacked edge; he lived in performance aback from the edge, a few feet back from danger, where the actor's emotional life was often very interesting to watch but rarely exciting, engaging; never dangerous. The audience always appreciated his work, but was rarely swept away.

What could he do about it? We talked about increasing his out-of-class work on edginess 'preparation', stirring up his emotional sub-text before any of his performances so that when he entered every scene he entered with a heightened emotional potentiality; susceptibility for emotional response, but he admitted he was still been resisting the very concept. "What is it about edgy people--and characters--that makes them edgy? Maybe if I understood the concept, it would help me."

I offered the following:

....Edgy people--and characters--know--emotionally--life and death; sexuality and anger, the alpha and omega, beginning and end of life. They are emotionally familiar with it. They live their performance on the edge of this existence; and are always at risk of falling off that character performance edge into the deep and dangerous chasms of their own rage, sexuality, despair, laughter and death. They may often may live their surface life "coolly," but they are always standing on thin ice. They barely are in control of their emotions. They are easily stimulated by life (events and others in the scene) into the fullness of their own rich passion. They are volatile human beings; they exist as volcanoes always ready to erupt. We, the audience, sense it, and wait excitingly in anticipation. The slightest provocation can stimulate edgy actors into any possible condition or state of out-of-controlled-ness. They back away from nothing. They embrace everything. They are impulsive, driven by momentary emotional need, not overly-disciplined by long-term thinking logic. They live in the moment, of the moment, for the moment.

....They are often self-destructive. They gamble constantly with their own lives. They play winner-take-all; they live a high stakes life. They adhere to one philosophy: "Better to have loved (and hated, and humiliated, and cursed and embraced) than never to be loved (or hated, and humiliated, and cursed and embraced) at all.

....Fuck it; if they are "in the game" of life, they are "all in." They vow to experience everything. To them life is neutral if not meaningless; BUT you give it meaning by the passion with which you embrace it. "Why live...except to LIVE!" Why perform but to embrace the rich edgy life of the scene --both interpretively and in execution--with vibrancy and emotional recklessness. That is the edgy actor's motto. Never backwards; always forwards. Even a momentary move or look away is only a clever energized end-run to the goal.

....From Dean to Penn, from Brando to Depp, From DeNiro to Pacino, from Robert Downey, Jr. to Chris Rock, those kinds of actors on edge the moment the curtain rises, or the director yells, "Action"...and the edge never leaves until they drag you offstage with a closed curtain or drag you off your thin ice of filming with the abrasive sound of "Cut."

...Directors, Casting Directors, Agents, Producers and Writers, work on an emotional safety net set far back from the edge of the set...and then place us actors on the emotional edge of their creating, in their plays and scripts and ask us to be openly humiliated, loved, infuriated, enraged, sexually overwhelmed, frightened, sad and often murdered. When we achieve it, they praise us and overpay us. When we don't, they dismiss us with faint praise.

....Thus is the life of an actor...onstage and off...on the edge.

ON ACTING: The Subjective Experience of Character Analysis

2012-04-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Actors often say, when analyzing any scene or script: “Well…my character is ‘blah, blah, blah….” I generally quickly interrupt them: “What character?” I ask. They look at me blankly. “The character on the page,” they say. It is now my turn to look blankly at them: “What character?” They stare; I continue: “You talk as if there were some character on the page.” I hold up their script page for them to look at. “Is there a picture of a person on the page, something that I am missing?” Their confusion continues, often exhibiting concern for my sanity. I continue: “All I see are black and white straight and squiggly lines on a black sheet of paper. I don’t see a character.” A bit of frustration slips into their voices. “The character,” they say patiently and often patronizingly, “the dialogue…the words on the page…” “Oh (I feign a moment of lucidity), you mean your personal interpretation of those straight and squiggly black lines which you have learned to recognize and interpret as words, ideas, implicit feelings underscoring those words, on that otherwise blank, white piece of paper…” They ponder.

This has been a long convoluted way to make a very important point: No script (series of black lines on a white page) will ever be interpreted the same way by the same two actors (or for that matter by the same two audience members). So actors should be warned at the very beginning of script analysis: Stop trying to find the one right (by that I mean definitive) interpretation of a script; it is futile. The actor’s reading of a script is a priori their subjective evaluation of what we call dialogue and stage directions and its interpretation and performance are necessarily unique to that actor.

What the actor is really saying when interpreting a script is: “…according to my knowledge of oral language, represented by that symbolic structure called letters/words on the page--and based on my experience with life and human behavior in general—that is, how people behave by when offering such a verbal discourse, I believe such patterning of black and white straight and squiggly lines of dialogue on a printed page indicates that ‘my character is’ and ‘my character is doing (feeling and saying) this or that’…”

Of course the hope in all drama and dramatic performance is that the actor’s personal interpretation of the black and white squiggly and straight lines will strike a universal chord in the audience (Aristotle called it: finding the universal in the particular) But ultimately all art is subjective; subject to the artist's interpretation.

Great artists embrace that interpretive freedom...and challenge. Lesser artists run away from it. And ask the director: "How do you want me to do this?" Or: "What is the right way to do this.?" The answer is: "Your choice." The director can guide you with suggestions (i.e., his/her own necessarily subjective interpretations) and give you general encouragement, but what the black squiggly lines ultimately MEAN...is up to you...and your knowledge and insights into human behavior; both yours and ultimately the audience's.

On a Personal Note: Warming a Teacher's and Writer's Heart

2012-04-19T14:13:00.003-07:00

I want to share with the reader a lovely letter I received this week from a student. It warmed my heart. It reminded me of the core joy in teaching: reaching out and touching someone else for their benefit. He gave me permission to print it. I told him I would abbreviate his name to initials to grant him some anonymity.

"Dear Cliff,

You may not remember me but I certainly remember you. I am [T. C.], one of Mari Ferguson's students and I attended your workshop in Houston last June. I also bought your book Acting Is Living. And I will admit that I did not even open the book for months.

It wasn't until I went to audition for an acting school in New York called the New York Conservatory For Dramatic Arts that I wanted to be totally and completely in the moment. So I picked up your book and started reading. After reading bits and pieces of the book I quickly became attached to it. After confidently and successfully auditioning for the school, I received a phone call not even a week later from the school letting me know that I am accepted (only 300 can be accepted at one time) and I received a LARGE scholarship.

That was a couple of months ago. Now I am being enrolled into their program this week.

Also I am currently in High school one act play and am doing the role of Hal Carter. We are advancing to regionals and I have received best actor at both contests so far. I am now being fully in the moment and am now able to believe that I am the character "living." I fully blame my performance level on your book. And now my theatre teacher is telling other theatre teachers about it.

Your book is a testament to me. So I just felt I needed to share my appreciation and hopefully in the future I can work with you again.

I have a dream of becoming something BIG one day and your book will always there for me.

Thank you,
[T.C.]"

ON ACTING: Properly Increasing Energy in a Scene

2012-04-16T11:26:00.002-07:00

The student saw a tape of his performance and said of his efforts: "I was flat; I need more energy." So he proceeded to increase his energy in the next scene. The subsequent performance, while it had more energy, appeared "acted," forced, unreal...in short, fake and off-putting.

Where had the student gone wrong?

In a desire to increase the energy in a scene, an actor must remember that it is not the actor's energy we are desiring to increase in the scene, but the actor-as-character's energy. We want the character to come more alive; not just the actor-as-actor.

When choosing to be more energetic in the scene, a smart actor returns to the basics of life, which are the basics of acting: in life, energy is increased by a more increased emotional involvement in an event, primarily manifested by an increased desire to attain a goal.

Therefore, when an actor is requested by self or director to increase the energy in a scene (or, as a corollary, increase the pace), the actor should not just push their actor-self to be more energetic is the scene, but rather increase his character's commitment to their goal. He should want what the character wants in the scene more intensely; make the character's goal more important.

Then, with this basic 'real life' energy adjustment, the resultant effort will not only have more energy, but also give rise to all the other elements of living character truth: a heightened awareness and sensitivity to others, a greater emotional impact on the actor-as-character throughout the scene, an economy and focus in that energy as it moves through the actor's body and voice...it will create in the actor's performance the total human package, an energetic portrayal not disassociated from overall character reality and truth. The increased energy will result in the total life package in performance, and not be arbitrary, false and off-putting.

The student did the scene again, with the adjustment of increased commitment to the character's objective, and the resultant performance was energetic and exciting...and most importantly, excitingly real.

ON ACTING: The Undiscovered Self

2012-04-13T15:38:00.008-07:00

Acting is not a matter of presenting the known. It is a discovery of the unknown.

It is not a process of replicating old human definition, but rather an attempt at new human exploration.

How much do we really know about human nature, ours and/or others?

Ask any 17yr. old, and they will say they know 70% of human nature. Ask a 30 yr. old; they say 50%...a 50 yr. old says 20%. I'm in my seventies; I'm about down to 3%. My life time has been one long surprise after another when it comes to how I respond under pressure: which is the truest definition of my character: how I feel and deal under duress.

When I was young I THOUGHT (more alarmingly, was CERTAIN) I would do such-and-such when pressured, but most of the time--dare I say 97% of the time--I was pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised.

That greatest joy and success in acting comes from this: a safe place to continue emotionally to test oneself under pressure (due to the conflict of a scene and the intimacy of character relationships); and, when subjected to such pressure, discover (and reveal before an audience) the full and subtle complexity of one's own particular human nature...and therby, through the process of identification, the audience's.

Good actors eagerly embrace the exploratory nature of acting. They look foward to traveling new rivers of their experience, leaving the map-making of their exploratory journey to those (the audience) who follow.

Bad actors on the other hand avoid new places, choosing in performance to go up well-mapped and crowded old rivers (of themselves and others). They are tired, safe tourists, not new and brave explorers. They perform only what is known. They carefully present (and control) prior experience. The best of these bad actors are limited in performance choices to cliches...because, after all, what is a cliche but a truth so well known that people are bored by hearing and seeing it over and over.

If one seeks a career based only capitalizing on the already discovered, I suggest that person go into engineering, or some other applied science. But if they want a career of expanding new personal boundries, a one way ticket on a space ship into the undiscoved self, the interior universe--by the way, populated by as many cells as there are stars in the universe--try your hand at courageous acting; seek in performance new emotional discoveries about yourself (and others). I can almost guarantee will never be the same; and your success will be greater.

ON ACTING: Banish the Liar

2012-04-10T20:50:00.005-07:00

The most egregious sin for an actor is to give an unreal emotional performance; one is which the audience says afterwards "I didn't believe it. I could tell the actor was only pretending to feel."

To act (in the most pejorative sense) without emotional reality is to lie.

Nobody likes a liar.

While we may sometimes appreciate skillful liars--marvel at the cleverness of their deceit--in the long run we avoid them...on stage/screen or off.

Don't bad actors (liars) sometimes get away with it? Find a modicum of success in their careers?

Of course they do; like liars in everyday life find occasional success. But false actors (and liars everywhere) are advised to remember Lincoln's statement: "You can fool some of the people all the time; you can fool all of the people some of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time."

Lying as an actor--trying to get away with a series of unreal (emotionally uninvolved and personally unconnected) performances--will catch up to such performers in the long run. They will be applauded and embraced only by fools; which is a hell of an insecure fan base on which to build a career.

Actors should tell the truth as characters. They should embrace the character's beliefs--and feelings. "Judge not, lest ye be judged." If the character is a liar, lie honestly. Whatever the emotional life of the character is written to be, the actor should honestly feel it.

Actors in performance are free to feel anything demanded of the character. Why 'act' when one can truly 'be'; which is nothing more or less than that which we do everyday: spontaneously feel as life acts on us.

Acting is a profession for the courageously honest. On stage the good actor must embrace the following character job-descriptions, and emotionally comply: killers must hate; on screen lovers must love and the fearful must truly be frightened.

The audience pays for truth-wrapped-in-fiction in the theater, to escape the mendacity and shallowness of their everyday lives. Give them less than the whole spontaneous truth and they will reward you with less than their full embrace; now and for the rest of your (I gurantee you) lesser career.

The proper goal of acting is leading the audience to a recognition of themselves.

2012-04-09T17:21:00.001-07:00

ON ACTING: The Basics

2012-04-07T21:44:00.004-07:00

In order to be a great actor, I believe the actor must be comfortable living with sex and death.

That does not mean every actor should go out and practice indiscriminate sex, or beat up or kill someone. Just because every town has a whore house and a cemetary doesn't mean the actor must literally live there. But they must practice IMAGINING and FEELING those places and situations, and willing to live out those attendant passions in performance.

All other passions pale before sexuality and rage, the colors of red and black. And logically so. Sex and death are the wellspring of life...and its end.

That does not mean all other of life's colors, feelings, are less powerful or important; that there are not brilliant hues of yellow, blue, green and pink; manifestations of sadness, happiness, love and humor that also inspire greatness. But anger and desire, rage and sexuality, drive existence; and drama.

When an actor remains uncomfortable with sex and death (which generally invites a lack of subtlety in their expressive efforts), it limits the actor's character range--and career possibilities.

If you are an actor who is uncomfortable performing roles that demand sexuality and anger, let me ask a question of you: do you like watching love/sex and/or violence/anger scenes in movies? Probably most of you will say yes. So if you do, that means your are not dead to sex and death, just reticent to feel it in public, feel it in stark blaring light of performance.

Life is existentially circumscribed by sex and death; why not embrace it...own it...and learn--through exercises, techniques and practice--to give yourself permission to feel and perform those emotions passionately (hopefully with great subtlety) in front of people. A worthy effort to strive for in the safety of an acting class.

The Value of Time and Experience

2012-04-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

A quote attributed to Meryl Streep: "I think your self emerges more clearly over time."

ON ACTING: How to Avoid Doing Nothing

2012-04-03T12:34:00.004-07:00

There an old bugaboo called the "3 P's": Perfection, Procrastination and Paralysis...we want our creative effort (acting or any other art) to be perfect so we procrastinate (working on it) until we become paralyzed (do nothing).

One corrective is an attitude shift: accept that nothing is ever perfect. Even the universe is not in its final form.

Consider everything you are working on (including you) to be a preliminary draft, a work-in-progress...even if certain drafts have to be turned in and given hypothetical final forms...like a published book or a written movie script or a stage performance. But even then, notice: books are revised, scripts are re-written (even their movies have re-makes) and there is always tomorrow night's performance; or another 'take' if we are doing film. Yesterday's work was just a prelude to today, today's work is just a prelude to tomorrow; and tomorrow's work a prelude to the day after that.

Wake up every day and work a little more on your continuing imperfect work of art; make it better knowing it will never be "best."

Think of perfection as death, the end of growing. The joy of life--and art--is in the process, not the final result (especially if, once again, we think as the final result is death: "His life is perfect now...he's in the grave.")

I suggest: "I'm happy again...back at work! Will my work ever be perfect? Of course not. But I'm perfectly happy just being back at work."

ON ACTING: "Energy"

2012-03-31T13:47:00.003-07:00

Where does acting energy come from?

It comes from the same source as all other human energy: from a desire to accomplish a task.

Think of our everyday life; how often we feel tired, lackluster, out of sorts. We can't seem to summon up the energy to do anything. Then someone enters our sphere, our world, and mentions doing something that seems fum, engaging, important to us to accomplish. Energy seems to arise in our body. We rise out of the chair. Our conversation becomes sprightly. Our mind begins racing with ideas.

Goal is the tap root to human energy.

What happened to the old tiredness? Did it disappear? No; it has been replaced by a new flow of chemicals and electromagnetic activity within our bodies, like a dry riverbed suddenly being filled with swift flowing water headed toward a downstream goal.

When an actor feels listless, and his performance becomes correspondingly lackluster, one of the prime reasons often is that the actor-as-character is not doing anything important (to the character) in the scene. Attaining a goal is not critically important to the actor-as-character's flow of energy; or aliveness.

The quick actor's corrective to such de-energized listlessness (besides doing less partying, getting more sleep and ridding oneself of debilitating panic!) is for the actor is to (1) make sure he has defined his character's goal in the scene, (2) make sure that character's goal has emotional urgency to it (the goal is emotionally important--critical--for the actor-as-character to achieve; it is driven by deep and personal emotional need), and (3) the actor-as-character accepts that he can only attain that character goal by actively engaging himself in the scene to overcoming any resistance, human or otherwise, to his attaining that goal.

Where Have I Been For Six Weeks?

2012-03-30T21:59:00.002-07:00

On February 18th, I fell down the stairs at home and fractured my hip and femur. On February 20th I was operated on.

I remained in that hospital for three days. I was then transferred to a nearby rehab hospital where I remained for three weeks. The therapists were wonderful.

I returned home fourteen days ago and have been learning with the aid of home-visit therapists and a walker how to get around...again...including getting up and down the same set of stairs and in and out of my favorite shower! I now can also get in and out of a car (someone else drives) and I am no longer housebound. I am back teaching.

I can also now sit at my computer for a stretch of time without pain. (Typing in my bed just didn't attract me!)

To those of you who have continued to search this blog, I say thank you and hope to repay your loyalty with better blogs.

To those of you who have gone to more punctual pastures, I hope I will visit me again one day.

No matter which category you fit in, life--and blogging--and new acting thoughts--continue.

(SEE tomorrow for a new acting post!)

ON ACTING: WHINING; or, How to Turn Off the Audience

2012-02-14T22:24:00.000-08:00

WHINING is pretending it hurts more than it really does.

WHINING is what children do.

WHINING is an attempt to avoid deeper feeling.

WHINING is exaggerating pain to make the other person feel guilty.

WHINING is accepting one's own impotence.

WHINING is a Loser's Lament.

WHINING is complaining and not solving.

WHINING is the tactic of cowards and manipulators.

WHINING is unappealing.

WHINING is self-pity.

WHINING is unsympathetic.

WHINING is shrill.

Therefore: ACTORS-AS-CHARACTERS should rarely WHINE; unless they are playing the leading man's or leading woman's boyfriend or girlfriend (or wife or husband) who is destined to be dumped in Act One so the real, audience appealing, love affair can commence.

Children learn to do it. They can be forgiven. They can't really change their circumstances. But as adults, we expect them to try to change their circumstances. "If it's that bad, do something about it."

"Don't suffer; solve. Don't complain; convince. Don't whine; win."

ON ACTING: An Actor's Range-versus-Depth

2012-02-06T22:51:00.001-08:00

Moneyball is a wonderful film. Brad Pitt is superb in it. It's the best thing I've seen him in in years. When the film finished, I became a Brad Pitt fan again.

Why? Because he had accepted--at least he has in this film--that he is a brilliant leading man, not a character actor. He was no longer trying to be a Johnny Depp-trying-to-be-a-character-actor clone.

My mother used to say "the key to fashion was not a huge wardrobe filled with a new dress for each day; but a small, select wardrobe of the finest stuff, with a few of the best weaves and cut, that you can wear over and over again. So," she said, "when someone says: 'Oh, that's new, isn't it?' you can say--honestly: 'I've had that in my closet (and on my back) for years! Thanks for not noticing'"

Brad Pitt is a Robert Redford inheritor. To be a leading man is his legacy (if he will continue to accept it), his acting longitude and latitude. That is where he is best positioned on the Hollywood planet. Watch Brad Pitt in Moneyball and you think of Robert Redford in The Natural (I know...they are more both sports movies).These two actors in all their films are both at core--and best when they are enacting--flawed heroes, beautiful everyman, instantly recognizable yet eternally unfathomable. True, we all see ourselves in them, but it is the deepest, murkiest, most complicated sides of ourselves. That is their genius...and honed craft.

Their proper acting range is vertical, not horizontal. Therefore they (and their agents) should not reach sideways for character roles, but downward, seeking roles as heroes exemplifying complexity and emotional depth.

People will criticize them for choosing such heroic "blonde God" roles; they will say "they are just acting themselves." In truth, they are--as all actors are in any role--but in such hero roles being narrowly "themselves" they are, while not Streep-like or Olivier-like chameleon-brilliant but brilliant as Sandy Kofax was with only two pitches--pitches that were while common and traditional (a fastball and a curve)--they were delivered in a manner no one else could match.

Actors like Pitt (in Moneyball) and Redford are always the same, yet we never get enough of them; we came back for more...and more and more...just like millions came back over and over again for Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Julia Roberts. Those were not considered actors' actors, but often described (and derided) as "just stars; audience actors, instantly recognizable yet still eternally unknowable; not wide-ranging oceans, but backyard ponds, small in circumference yet profound in depth.

When young actors are training or rehearsal, they should consider this: don't always look to "stretch" themselves (meaning horizontally) to different and exotic roles, but look to play a role that is on the surface "themselves", a good and obvious fit for their personality. Stretch "vertically," into that recognizable everyday self, beneath the superficial aspects of their personality to find the deepest and most complex rivers of emotion than run beneath that everyday self.

That's what makes "Brad" or "Bob" or "Julia" or "Marilyn" great stars (as well as excellent craftspeople/actors, by the way). They are unafraid to plummet themselves in their own backyards, to seek in their acting preparation and rehearsal the fullest depth of their emotional beings, and allow those aspects of themselves to be stimulated and revealed in their performances.

ON ACTING: Right- versus Left-Brain

2012-02-04T18:07:00.000-08:00

Some actors are born right-brain dominated. These are inclined to imagination, emotion and complexity. They are often called the "emotional" types.

Some actors are born left-brain dominated. They are inclined to analysis, logic and solutions. They are often called the "technical" types.

Whichever type you inclined to, right or left, poetic or mathematical, logical or emotional, spontaneous or predictable, human beings--which include actors--have both lobes of the brain, right and left operating simultaneously. One may dominate, but both are in constant synergistic interchange and feedback.

If you are left-brain dominated, you will probably analyze the script plot-wise first: seeking-out the overall theme, the various conflicts, the character objectives. Only when you are comfortable there, you (generally secondarily) start to analyze character. In rehearsal, you will tend to "choose" and "set" character aspects. You will try to duplicate your choices in performance; and directors will tend to tell you to "loosen up," let the performance "just happen," be "more spontaneous" and "improvisatory."

Film editors will love you left-brain actors, because your performance tends to be consistent, thereby enabling the editor to cut in and out of the various takes whenever he or she wants. Such left-brain actors create little performance "matching" problems.

On the other hand, if you are right-brain dominated, you will tend to see the script character-wise first. "Feelings" and intuitions (about the character and the dialogue) will predominate plot considerations...if you see them. Your emotions will overwhelm you even in the reading. In rehearsal right-brain actors will tend to be unpredictable, eager for emotions to erupt performance. Directors will tell such actors "find the beats in the scene, the structure," try to be more "consistent, say the words as they were written," instead of "changing them all the time," which spontaneous right-brain actors too-often have a tendency to do.

Editors tend to hate right-brain actors. They tear their hair out while reluctantly admiring the actor's emotional performance: "Can't such actors be emotionally brilliant while maintaining performance (dialogue, blocking and prop) consistency?"

However...both type of actors--left-dominated and right-dominated--are acceptable as candidates for performance brilliance!

Neither type should over-praise (or curse) themselves for their strengths or their weaknesses of their approaches. Rather, they should begin their actor's process by first breaking down a role according to their logical or emotional tendencies...left-brain start with plot and early character-logic, right brain with feelings and 'honest emotion.' THEN, AS THEY REHEARSE, they should seek to refine their approaches (whether logical or emotional) according to their non-dominant brain-types; that is, each actor seek to balance their subsequent performances with some of the benefits that naturally accrue to their opposite brain-types.

To wit: A logical, consistent, technical approach to a performance should leave room for the spontaneity of performance to occur; surprised by their own sudden reaction to a look or gesture or emotion that was unexpected. After all, nothing is so fixed in life that the unexpected cannot happen.
Like a smart tourist, the good logical technical actor plans their performance trip rationally, define their itinerary in detail, but always leave room for the unexpectedly wondrous to occur...and to be enjoyed. Safety allows the occasional the dangerous (i.e., spontaneous unplanned moment) to be experienced; the structure-needing actor can always get "back on schedule/bullet point" when the unexpectedly wonderful occurrence plays itself out.

On the other hand, an emotional, spontaneous, free approach to a performance, can also seek organization, without necessarily leading to a dead performance. Discipline and structure can benefit rather than inhibit the generation of emotion. Beware of too much freedom---license---panic. For the spontaneous-inclined tourist, it often results that not knowing where you're going, or how, or when, or what clothes to wear can lead to a disastrous trip...or an aborted trip because the tourist enroute gets overwhelmed with too many "choices" and "truths" and heads back home..."Cut!"

So, good actors, seek acting balance in all things. Don't lobotomize your acting approach by confining yourself to only one lobe of your brain AND CUTTING OUT THE OPERATION OF THE OTHER LOBE. Start the overall acting process with your strength, logical or emotional as it may be...but, in your follow-up rehearsal and performance (or training for that matter), allow the other brain-aspect of yourself to arise, filling out and compliment your overall performance.

Classical musicians, allow feeling and spontaneity to caress the written notes; jazz musicians, remember that the melodic line is there, always to be obeyed.

ON ACTING: Revealing Sub-Text

2012-01-24T22:56:00.000-08:00

The initial surface of an enacted character rarely reveals the truth. People lie...to themselves, to others. (And good writers, knowing that, write their dialogue and other actions accordingly).

How often in life (which drama must imitate) does one really know or understand the deepest emotional strands of their character?

Aristotle said the ultimate moment of life (and therefore of drama) is the character's moment of self-recognition and discovery. That means, if he is right, and I think he is, that all that all character-sought images prior to that final moment are like the character peering into foggy mirrors, distorting the true face of character from their own--and therefore the audience's--clear recognition.

The essential self of character is there from the beginning of the drama, but it has been obfuscated in the fog of self-denial and other-evasions.

It is only at the end of the learning process that the character (and the audience) discovers who and what the character REALLY is. Only--finally--does the true nature of the character--bubble (from the sub-text) to the surface (the text), only after the conflicts of life rub the character raw of self-evasions and lies.

So the good actor, when confronting the dialogue and other actions of the piece must realize that what he or she says and does prior to that ultimate self-revealing point is often only the glittering and beguiling surface of their character. They must accept that in their performance, while beneath those earlier lines and evasions of their character, must simultaneously swim the tortured currents of desire, longing, fears and denials--the truths--appropriate to the character's past...BUT IT MUST REMAIN HIDDEN.

A properly enacted character enters the scene like a fully-formed but-only-beheld-from-the-surface geological strata--layered sediments of emotion, set down by the storms and winds of everyday reality--only to be revealed finally, ultimately, layer by layer, by the jackhammer of events during the scene. To repeat: in the beginning of the scene only the surface of the character (like the earth) is apparent to the audience. Then the problems and vicissitudes of the character's story rubs him raw, obly finally and slowly revealing the sediments of character.

All great drama, and great acting, is a mystery, a series of hidden plots and some-half-but-mostly-hidden character truths (sub-texts) to be solved and revealed over the course of the story.

ON ACTING: Becoming "the Character."

2012-01-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

How do I, the actor, become the character?

ANSWER: You don't....you are always you. What you do in acting is you transform yourself--become (and live out) a side of yourself that best approximates your and the director's interpretation of the writing (dialogue and other 'info' about the "character") that the scriptwriter has given you.

The script is your interior and exterior map, a set of guidelines and actions so you yourself can transform yourself into (performing) living and acting onstage or onset in a manner that is logical to the writing as interpreted by you and the director, consistent to human nature as the audience knows it, and is entertaining and exciting.

"What side of myself does the script ask me to be?" That is the legitimate question an actor must ask when confronting a script What would be most logical for me to feel and do if the facts of the script were to happen to me? What would be my feelings and intentions that would guide me into saying "my character's dialogue" (and doing) in response to what other character's say to me (and do to me)?

Just as I must fit the costume given to me by the costumer, and wear the make-up painted on me by the make-up person, I fit and wear the dialogue and actions of the script to my chosen feelings when performing. The feelings and actions in performance are mine; I am them. During the three to five minutes of a scene, I am "the character," there is no separation between us. When the scene is over, the producers can take the costume back, rub the make-up off my face, place the script back up on the shelf, but when I was performing, they were all mine and I was them: my dialogue, my make-up, my costume.

That transubstantiation is the magic and madness and megalomania of a good actor's performance. Good acting technique is studying and learning and finding the process that best enables the actor to metamorphosis ("morph")--IN REALITY--into living as the interpreted "character."

Is it possible? Of course. We, actors and non-actors alike--do it everyday. The soccer Mom morphs into a high powered lawyer at work, the cutthroat executive morphs into the tender, feeling lover at night, the President of the US morphs into the absent-minded husband and concerned story-reading father on the weekend.

We all play--and are expected to play--many roles--IN REALITY--every day. Why not--if we are profession actors--learn to be able to play one more in a play or film?

MOVIE REVIEW: "My Week with Marilyn"

2012-01-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

I saw "My Week With Marilyn" last night. A sweet, sweet, fun film. See it.

Included is an exemplary performance by Michelle Williams, as Marilyn Monroe, the great 20th Century film star/sex goddess. Largely a bio pic (a slice of it anyway) about Monroe and her co-star, Lawrence Olivier, arguably the 20th Century's greatest classical actor in the English language, on the set of "The Prince and the Showgirl.," a film they did together (with Olivier co-starring and also directing).

"My Week with Marilyn" is a great (albeit all too true) exploration of Monroe's emotional on-set chaos and Sir Olivier's frustrating experience trying to direct the hard -drinking, hard-drugging leading lady in the film.

But the film is more than a tragic/comedy of a star: it is also an endearing coming to age film about the narrator/leading young man, Colin Clark, who purportedly befriended Monroe during those difficult days; his part is played wonderfully by Eddie Redmayne.

Why does an actor drink, do drugs, add their personal emotional volatility to a beleaguered set? The film answers the question most emphatically: an actor's insecurity. Marilyn Monroe's oft-recorded personal and professional need for emotional balance and self-confidence was part of her sexual appeal: strong men wanted to protect her (while also being sexually turned on by her need for them). During her brief life (she died in her mid-thirties of a drug overdose) she married one of the greatest baseball players on hers or any era, Joe DiMaggio; married again, this time to probably the greatest American playwright of the 20th Century, Arthur Miller; and was subsequently mistress to a President (John F. Kennedy)' and maybe even his brother, Robert Kennedy, the US Attorney General. But probably even more telling to her popularity and enduring legend were her eye-riveting, mesmerizing screen performances, during which she became the imagined lover of millions and millions of male fans: in their fantasies they could play PRIMITIVE MAN while she curled up in their arms (and under them) as needy pussy cat.

She was not a great actress. She was a great star. Her appeal was beyond craft. It was pure serendipity. She knew it, and suffered under it.

She desperately wanted to be a serious, thinking actress, a professional who had a professionals understanding of what an how she worked. Even at the height of her career, she studied at the Actor's Studio in New York, with acting-teaching legend, Lee Strasberg; as well as under the personal tutelage of Paula Strasberg, his wife--who, as the film pointedly and comically notes, often accompanied Monroe as her personal acting coach to the set--much to this film's satiric delight.

It came too late in life. In spite of their teaching/instructing efforts, Monroe's inability to understand her great appeal as an actress, paralleled by her refusing to accept the fact that it was serendipitous and beyond her ability to replicate in any predictable fashion, led to her early insecurity-to-drug-escape demise.

All actors should see this film: (1) to see a wonderful, Award-worthy performance by Miss Williams; (2) to see a piece of Marilyn Monroe and her cinematic "stardom" history, and (3) to see themselves--their potential insecurities; and their need to fashion a craft to create a substantive floor of stability under their artistic efforts.

ON ACTING: Back from the Holidays with a Note of Sympathy to Regional Actors

2012-01-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

When you feel a lack of respect for your work and persona from New York and Los Angeles, I want you to know it is not a new thing.

In a Jan. 9, 2112 New Yorker article entitled "Rome and Us," the author quotes Cicero (a Roman Senator from the 1st Century BC) from one of his speeches in defense of his friend Plancius:

'They say you and a bunch of young men raped a mime in the town of Atina-but such an act is an old right when it comes to actors, especially out in the sticks.'

See, regional actors...you are not alone. It's been going on for thousands of years!