Acting Project

Welcome to Acting Project

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Director Alexander Payne's advice on auditioning.

Alexander Payne is the writer/director of The Descendants, Sideways, and Election. 

 

Is there anything you want actors to know if they're fortunate enough to audition for you? 

Payne: Take it easy, there are no mistakes, and I don't expect a performance at all. It's really a glorified meeting. But what are we going to talk about? We might as well read the words from the script. And it gives me a vague idea of how sounds sound coming out of your head. Another analogy I've used: It's a pencil sketch on a cocktail napkin for what later is going to be a great oil painting. And we might even throw that sketch away. I don't care. Give me some credit as a director to see through the artificiality of an audition. It's really no big deal.  

 

Take a look at the rest of this excellent interview from Backstage. Payne Interview

Max von Sydow's Advice to Actors

There are so many great performances in his filmography.  My three favorite in The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor and Hannah and her Sisters.

Q. You’ve been acting for six decades now. Does all that accumulated experience make things harder or easier?

A. "It depends on what it’s all about. In the beginning I was looking all the time to do something different. Different was very important. Now I think simplicity is what’s most important. Just communicate with great simplicity."

 

I believe it is worth repeating. 60 years of experience boil down to one brilliantly simple piece of advice: Just communicate with great simplicity.  

 Source: BostonGlobe.com

3 Part Series on the Evolution of Acting

Listen to this short but cool series from NPR about the influences that have shaped contemporary American film acting.

 

All actors owe a debt to Constantine Stanislavsky, who revolutionized the art of acting. 

The Stanislavsky System

 

 

Acting teachers such as Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler remain a huge influence on stage and screen.  

 

A 'Method' of Acting

 

 

For some actors, the Method has become an ossified idea instead of an evolvong system.  Macy and Mamet lead the charge.

Just Act

 

Source: www.NPR.org

 

 

Try Acting Dear Boy

 "For those who don't know, this is a famous story that has repeatedly been told around acting circles. The story is that when Dustin Hoffman was involved with the movie Marathon Man, his character was depicted as looking like he had stayed awake for three nights. Dustin, being a method actor, decided to stay up for three nights in real life in order for it to look more realistic. When he came to the set, Laurence Olivier (An actor some consider one of the greatest in the world) asked him why he looked so tired and Dustin told him. Then Olivier pauses for a moment, then makes the famous statement, 'Try acting, dear boy...it's much easier.' Thus, this legendary tale was born. Lots of articles have different version of the story." - from www.simplydustinhoffman.com

For those of you who know this story, it's worth another look because there is MORE to the legendary tale than we knew: LINK

 

 

Learn about acting from Cary Grant.

Cary Grant is an awesome actor.  Yes, I said it.

Grant is not usually mentioned when speaking of the greatest actors of all time.  I believe he is one of the most underrated actors in the history of cinema.  

Check out these two short tribute videos about him.  Michael Cain and Tony Curtis talk about the legend... 

 

 

 

 

Academy Award Winner Martin Landau on Acting

The highs and lows of an illustrious acting career...

From the Academy Award for "Ed Wood" (1994) to "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island"(1981).

 

The great Martin Landau gave an interview in Movieline magazine.  As usual, the 82-year old Academy Award winning actor (Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood) who has taught the likes of Jack Nicholson is always full of great advice about acting.  He still moderates at the Actors Studio every Friday that he is in town.  He also shines in Alfred Hitchocks’s North by Northwest and Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors.  If you haven’t seen these movies I highly suggest them. I have excerpted the juicy details for your edification.

 Landau:

“In film, there are always things that could conceivably create artificiality, in any performance. Dialogue is what a character’s willing to share and reveal to another character, and the 90% they aren’t willing to share is what I do for a living. You know, people don’t walk into a cocktail party and say, “Hello everybody. I’m terribly embarrassed, and I don’t know anyone in the room.” They do everything they can to conquer the embarrassment that is going on.”

“People do not necessarily reveal what is going on — only bad actors do. Bad actors try to cry, and good actors try not to. Bad actors try to laugh, and good actors try not to. Only bad actors play drunk — good actors play drunks playing sober! They don’t want everyone in the room to know they’re drunk, and if you’ve ever seen a drunk pick up a glass to his mouth at a bar, it’s the most studied, controlled thing you’d ever see, as opposed to the sloppy kinds of drunks you see played everywhere.”

You’ve had a career that spanned many changes in acting style. Do you think there’s a sort of acting that’s preferred by Hollywood now that’s untruthful?

"I’m not talking about style, because style is style. Truth affects an audience, and when there’s a lie, that’s what I’m talking about — something is not organically correct in the context of what you’re seeing. I’m very, very aware of the changes that have occurred over my career in theater, television, and film. If you take Ed Wood, for instance, that’s Bela Lugosi, but it’s also a Tim Burton movie made fifteen years ago. I couldn’t play Bela Lugosi as a kitchen-sink character — it needed a certain theatricality. It was Lugosi in the sense that I told Tim Burton, “If five minutes in, the audience says, ‘Landau’s doing a good job,’ we don’t have a movie. They’ve got to forget it’s me and think that it’s Bela Lugosi.” By the same token, it’s Bela Lugosi theatricalized, extended, larger than he was. So it’s not about style, it’s about performance succeeding so that the audience is affected in the way you want them to be affected."

"Crimes and Misdemeanors, I told Woody before we started, “If you see anything theatrical, stop me.” Because we had that conversation, he never had to. I wanted that character to be every man, I wanted the audience to feel that there was not an actor playing the role. Woody invited me to dailies, but I didn’t go, because I didn’t want to see it from the outside."

I just read an interview in the LA Times where you said you haven’t really received direction in twenty years. Is that because you do so much preparation ahead of time?

"Yes. I think, “Why does this author want this character in this?” and then I choose things and I do them. I figure, if the director doesn’t like it, he’ll stop me and tell me what to do — and they don’t stop me! [Laughs] I mean literally, Hitchcock never said “boo” to me. In fact, I felt left out, because he’d whisper something to Cary Grant, he’d say something to Eva Marie Saint or James Mason, and then he’d pass me by. So I went up to him and said, “Is there anything you want to tell me?” And he said, “Martin, I only tell you if I don’t like what you’re doing.”

"I chose to play that character as a gay character, and it wasn’t written that way — it was written as a henchman. Because he wanted to get rid of Eva Marie Saint with such a vengeance, I thought it would be much more interesting [to play him as gay]. It was the fifties, and I’m not gay, and to make a choice like that, people said, “Are you crazy? People will think you’re gay!” And I said, “If they think I’m gay, that’s fine with me, because I’m not gay and this is not the last thing I’m going to do.” It was the right choice for the character, and it brought some mystery and intelligence to a character that was really just sort of a grunter, as written. I’ve always thought, “How can this be more interesting and how can I embrace what the writer wants to the best of my ability without calling attention to myself in a way that is destructive to the piece itself?”

Like Hitchcock, I’ve always heard that Woody Allen isn’t much for giving direction to actors, either.

"Not at all. He wants to talk about the Rangers or the New York Jets — he doesn’t want to talk about acting at all. No! Jon Lovitz came back from working with him and said, “How the heck did you do it? I didn’t have nearly as big a part as you did, and he never said a word to me about the role!” I said, “Well, he never said a word to me about the role.” I know that if he doesn’t like what you’re doing, he fires you"

Did you know that he was capable of that before you started working with him?

"Oh, I did, because [redacted] was fired by him, and I did a movie with her! So I said, “I’m gonna come in with all my guns loaded and do what I do.” He liked it, fortunately — otherwise, I would have gotten the pink slip. His whole attitude is basically that he’s hiring you to do what you do, and that’s that. He doesn’t really know how to talk to an actor. He’d only confuse one! He kept saying that my half of the movie was working and his wasn’t, because he kept reshooting everything on his half of the movie and hardly anything on my half. Actually, again, Jerry Orbach was not initially cast as my brother. I worked for three days with another actor — Jeff Bridges was his first choice, but he was unavailable at the time — so this other actor, who’s a great actor, played my brother for three days. We did all the stuff in the car about the murder, and Woody fired him and brought in Jerry Orbach and I reshot all of it."

"I used to beg him for another take! The scene on the telephone where my brother tells me the deed is done, I rehearsed it once, shot it once and went into the bathroom spontaneously to wash my face because I felt dirty after the phone call, and then he lit the bathroom and we did it once more. I said, “Let’s go again, I’m just warming up,” and he said, “No, no, no.” I said, “What do you mean, ‘No, no, no’? Give me another one, Woody!” He said, “No. Both of those are beyond my expectations. If you do a third one, I’ll have a nervous breakdown!”

Original interview here.

When Landau says: "Dialogue is what a character’s willing to share and reveal to another character, and the 90% they aren’t willing to share is what I do for a living."  That 90% is called SUBTEXT.  Just the other day I responded to a mundane question from my wife with the simple answer, "Yep."  She got livid.  Why?  My answer was not just a simple yes. I was saying so much more with my "yep."  It dripped with sarcasm and attitude.  I was speaking volumes with just one word that spoke to our long history together.  Our subtext.

Communication studies claim that over 50% of the message come from the body language, over 30% -- paralingual (loudness, tone, intonation,  etc.) -- and under 10% from the words only.

We say one thing, think another, do -- the third. That's normal, it's life. All three must be connected and DIFFERENT; with the conflict between SAYING, THINKING and DOING is the DRAMA. 

Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival

This is my second year teaching an acting workshop for the Youth Program.

Lot's of fun. Great kids.

What does it take to become an actor?

Director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, The Four Feathers, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) is often asked that question...

Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

He has an interesting answer in his blog:

"You must want to be beyond the needs of being accepted as being glamorous and beautiful. Looking for acceptance from other people is to put yourself at the doorstep of unhappiness. Acting is not an indulgence. Do not do it unless the passion is for the art of acting,  even if that is expressed through stage, and  no matter how small the exposure is – even street theatre" 

"The passion to express stories through the process of acting should be paramount rather than aspiring to live and emulate the lives of the people photographed in the Bombay Times. Do not be led by falsehood. I am presenting to you the answer to the question “what does it take to become an actor” – not what does it take to become a star.  For that there are enough people teaching acting in 3 months."

"Acting takes incredible discipline. Your body is the instrument through which you express yourself, like a violin is the violinist’s instrument. It takes years of discipline to create mastery over your body and voice. It takes years of introspection and hard work to learn how to use the inherent emotions in you, to be able transfer them seamlessly to your mind and emotion and from there seamlessly to your body and voice. 

The discipline and ‘riyaz’ of an actor is no less than that of a classical dancer. Moments of absolute truth are the most satisfying moments in any art, and the only way you know them, or recognize them, are because you feel closer to something infinite, some power beyond yourself that seems to be in control of your emotions, you body, your heart, your mind. Those are the moments to aspire to and just a few in your lifetime will make you a true artist."

"You  asked me a a question about the art of acting I assume and not the commerce. The second I know nothing about and do not care to. You go to the Gym, get great pictures taken, discover your best angles, and go to parties to network. Get a six pack or a great body and go to photographers that know how to exploit those assets and then later photo shop them into perfection. Being attractive on the outside may be important, but the ‘art’ of acting is to be attractive on the ‘inside’."  

I will repeat his last line,  "The art of acting is to be attractive in the inside."

Another director, Charles Marowitz, said something like that but in a more pragmatic way, "There is no such this as boring acting, just boring actors."

 Lastly, Mr. Kapur's answer reminds me of Stanislavski's letter to a young actor:

"An actor is a teacher of beauty and truth. For this an actor must rise above the mob by virtue of his talent or cultivation or other capacities.  An actor must be above all a cultured person, be able to pull himself up to the level of the geniuses of literature."

A play I am directing.

Notes on Comedy

You can open a door funny.

(Think the Marx Brothers)

You can open a funny door.

(Open a door and it falls off its hinges.)

But you can’t open a funny door funny.

 

Thanks Dave Harris for passing on this comedy koan he had heard in a class. I like it. Sounds perfectly reasonable. The point being something like: You don’t have to exaggerate the comedy.  Trust it.  Don’t push.  Let it play for itself. Don't gild the lilly, comedy wise.

 

However upon further reflection, why couldn’t an actor open a funny door funny? Why couldn’t the character being doing something funny as they open a trick door?  I don't want to over-think it...  But I get the point. 

 

The 17^th century Russian comic playwright Nicolai Gogol, who is considered the father of modern realism, wrote some great advice for actors playing comedy:

 “Above all beware of falling into caricature.  Nothing ought to be exaggerated or hackneyed, not even the minor roles… The less an actor thinks about being funny or making the audience laugh, the more the comic elements of his part will come through.  The ridiculous will emerge spontaneously through he very seriousness with which each character is occupied with his own affairs.  They are all caught up in their own interests, bustling and fussing, even fervent, as if faced with the most important tasks of their lives. Only the audience, from its detached position, can perceive the vanity of their concerns.  But they themselves do not joke at all, and have no inkling that anybody is laughing at them.  The intelligent actor, before seizing upon the petty oddities and superficial peculiarities of his part, must strive to capture those aspects that are common to all mankind.  He ought to consider each character, what it is that consumes his life and constitutes the perpetual object of his thoughts, his idée fixe. Having grasped this major concern, the actor must assimilate it so thoroughly that the thoughts and yearnings of his character seem to be his own and remain constantly in his mind over the course of the performance….  So, one should first grasp the soul of a part and not its dress.”

Chico Marx playing piano.  Why?  Because it's awesome: