Wednesday, December 02, 2009

sorry, Lee

Lot of chatter in the old blogosphere about Charles McNulty's L.A. Sunday Times interview with David Strasberg, (son of Lee) and the effectiveness of the fabled Method.

Let me kick a dead man here, just to keep him down.

Not only does the Method not help, it hurts.

There are only two places an actor can be, in her head or in the room. The whole trick is staying in the room, focusing on the other players and the audience, listening to the words.

The Method drives you into your head and traps you there, judging yourself, usually harshly and unfairly.

Acting is not believing. Acting is playing.

Acting is not a psychological effort.

It is a physical, social and political effort.

And, at the end of the day, you can't really teach anyone to act. You can watch honestly, critique encouragingly and ask the actors to be brave and clear-headed out there.

That's about it.

2 comments:

Rosemoo said...

Hear hear!

travsd said...

excellent, excellent!