A friend of mine who is the entertainment editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted this in Facebook. It did make me think of Heath Ledger right away. But if Strasberg's method was destroying actors, wouldn't there be few of them left? What do you think? http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/mov...
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I totally agree with David Patrick. Acting is about believing you are another person. This simply means feeling what that person would feel. Children do this instinctively. it's called make believe. S...
Expand commentI totally agree with David Patrick. Acting is about believing you are another person. This simply means feeling what that person would feel. Children do this instinctively. it's called make believe. So many teachers teach because they can't make enough money acting because they're not good enough. They create these ridiculous techniques in order to justify their six week course. I actually feel myself get pulled out of my feelings when I read some of the shit on the internet. As human understanding of feeling has evolved, so has acting. When you watch some of the best TV now (Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, The Walking Dead, Mad Men, etc.), these people are simply feeling different human beings enough to make them believable. They are not Acting, they are Being. This is now being called organic acting. Give me a break. It's simply being real. Training is about removing fear so the person who wants to act can feel whoever the character is and not judge it. That's what children do. There is also something called cinematography technique in which only the best actors achieve: not blinking during closeups, running a counter internal dialogue so the camera picks up the conflict in the eyes, starting internal dialogue before the scene starts, etc. But none of that matters if the fundamental behavior of make believe isn't there. By the way, I was just on a set with James Franco. This man would not connect with anyone. Between takes he would pull out his cellphone and at times, hold up the entire crew. How's that for modern day narcissism?
How did this conversation get started again? Its like two years old? Well, my email is four months old, I guess thats how.
I love method acting, I will never change. I get to live in other worlds and experience other characters perspectives from their shoes. It makes me a better person with every role!