Free Speech

When asked what he thought was so special about Judy Dench, Bill Nighy said it was her remarkable ability to give the impression that the lines she was delivering had never been spoken before. This is indeed one of the chief elements of the magic trick that actors are asked to perform, and it’s why The Meisner Training is so helpful in installing this sense in an actor that acting should always have the quality of improvisation. It should operate with as much verbal spontaneity as possible, not cleverness (as with comedy skit ad-libbing where the mind is in hyperdrive trying to formulate what’s funny), but where the actor throws themselves totally into an experience and is almost as surprised as the person they’re speaking to with what’s coming out of their mouth. That’s the quality being ascribed to Judy Dench. Giving the impression that the character is caught up on a ride: not deliberately making conversation, not in charge of the show they’re putting on. The self is not marshaling arguments and controlling what’s being presented, it is left out, judging their own opinions/reactions after they’ve already appeared in full. The ego is a passenger, at its most intrusive barely coaxing matters in the direction it would like for them to go, but mostly not much more than an observer of the scene unfolding in front of it.

Serve No Whine

Serve No Whine – by D.W. Brown

I hereby and herein propose, forthwith, that any filmmaker wishing to complain about the conduct of the producers on their projects (that a listener is not personally involved in) be allotted the same leeway, as to time and specificity on this topic, as is socially permisable when discussing events taking place within the confines of their bathrooms. Good taste is what I’m suggesting. Let’s establish a fixed time limit for producer bashing, say, five minutes (per producer), unless the story inludes physical violence and/or the use of firearms.

I recently went to dinner with a director who spent well over 60% of her evening’s conversation holding forth on the dasterdly dealings of her lastest producers, pressing upon me how awful these people were, when I already knew how awful they are. They’re producers. It takes very little exposure to show business to learn full well that the profession of producer (as with their kin, agents) attracts, and, for all I know, even requires, individuals who have the same approximate sensitivities as the life forms that cluster around deep ocean vents. [I generalize here, of course, and if you are a producer reading this I'm sure you are a delightful, artistic person... and I’d love to get your notes on my scripts.]

This rampant inclination to speechify on villanous producers is made all the more tedious because you often get the feeling that the person doing the blow by blow on their mistreatment is also seeing in this one-sided conversation an opportunity to practice their pitching skills in general. What perhaps might have been at least a partially legitamit expression of caution about avoiding certain pitfalls, or a plea for sympathy over hurt feelings, creepily evolves into the sense that you’re intended to buy something. I start to feel at a certain point the only proper response to one of these all too frequent diatribes would be, “By God, you’re right! It is a rotten world.”

Now, I must confess, I’ve been there, and I’ve thought my stories of man’s inhumanity to man were pretty impressive, but now I’m embarassed about all the kvetching and case making I’ve done, and I wished I’d kept my yap shut, or even had one of my listeners not be so polite and just come upside my head, pointing out that a voluntary trip into a swamp doesn’t entitle you to outraged bitching and moaning about the mean creatures you encounter therein.

I know, when producers get together, they do their version and complain about us creative types with stories of epic exasperation about what unrealistic, narcisistic wimps we are making messes without a thought for who’s got to clean them up. Hell, let them. We can be better. We’re already so certain about how much better we are than they are, is acting just a little more classy really that big a step? Hey, here’s an idea: keep your head in the game… unless you want to shock me some time with an amazing story about how your producers were totally accommodating and reasonable.

This is my latest post for the screenwriters blog: ScriptShark (http://www.scriptshark.com/script-journal)

Pay gladly.

Would you still want to be born if you knew ahead of time the inconvenience and discomfort you would have to go through, call it the payment for having your life?  Almost certainly you would, and the only problem is, because you weren’t given a list of the specific costs up front, you can find yourself acting as if it’s all supposed to be free. But think of the joy you feel handing over your money when you pay for an incredible bargain.

The vulnerability of Gabriel Ebert.

I wrote in my previous blog about the remarkable play “4000 Miles” we saw at Lincloln Center in NYC, and the transformative performance of Mary Louise Wilson therein, but I want to also note here another astounding performance in this play turned in by an actor by the name of Gabriel Ebert. Within seconds on stage he hooked me in sympathetically, and when Joanne and I spoke of this effect afterward it came back to that word we always seem to land on with great performances: “vulnerability.” He was portraying a gangly, oddball hippie type, usually only played for laughs, but here, completely as himself, without artifice. He was trained at Julliard and, given most of their actors I find intolerably external, I found this quite surprising, although less so having previously discovered that the wonderful Jessica Chastain also trained there. We had lunch with Bill and Suzzanne Esper the next day after seeing it, and when I mentioned my surprise regarding where he’d been trained, Bill said: “Some actors are so good they can’t be ruined.”

“4000 Miles” educated me.

We saw a play in NYC at Lincoln Center titled “4000 Miles.” Joanne put it in the top twenty plays she has ever seen and I would probably agree (do I need to point out that we have seen a ton of plays). Like all big time art, you have the feeling it’s changed you in some way, but, in this case, I can point to an actual, describable change. I think (I hope) I will treat the elderly different from now on. I grew up spending summers around an elderly grandmother, and we have neighbors whose living room we’ll sit in for a half hour every two or three weeks, so it’s not like I’ve not been around senior citizens, but this play and the performance by the masterful Mary Louise Wilson smacked me in the head that I have been something of an ageist all this time. Probably and especially because I grew up in a time when drugs and sex and swear words had such a different value than with the past generation, I related to the elderly like this special sensitivity made them frail as compared to my more rough and tough take on things. That’s stupid. They may relate differently to some topics and have a different reaction to certain words (like we are compared to how the British use the C word), but, as far as frail, if anyone ought to have toughness it’s those people who’ve been around longer getting roughed up by life, and are daily challenged by the trials that come with the physical and mental aspects of getting old. That’s the way art can educate you like nothing else can. By way of experience, real experience.

Subsequent to seeing the play and having this experience I saw an interview Mary Louise Wilson did on YouTube (thanks Viet!) and in it she said that this treatment of the elderly in the play is what drew her to it. Mission accomplished, Mary Louise.

If you want to see a few excerpts from this play, as well as interviews, including, oddly enough, with the stage manger and prop master, but not the writer or director, you can search “4000 Miles” on YouTube.

Master Class (impressions)

I’ve been asked numerous times now about how I felt the Master Class I just taught went, and I apologize to those who’ve asked me this because my response has, thus far, been vague (even for Joanne, much to her aggravation) at best. For whatever reason, I’m finding it difficult to encapsulate. I don’t think I want to encapsulate. Stop making me encapsulate!

Okay, I will say this: it was hugely cool playing with all those incredibly talented artists in that intense, subtle way… it was scary feeling the responsibility to rise to the level of their commitment and passion… It was bracing to see so clearly how our school provides a fundamental technique that enables actors to put their gifts into service… It was comforting to be a part of an efficient and lovely team (Tracey, Elise, Zack, Tony and, very much, yes, Joanne) who made my job not much of a job… It was humbling to know I have the kind of luck that allows me to do what I feel I’m, in part, supposed to be doing here on earth, important work… And it was fun. A whole lot of gratifying, tiring, educational, not-sure-what’s-gonna-happen-next, wondering if this is really as good as it seems like it is, time flying by, no, standing still, no flying by, I love love love being around actors fun. - DW

Acting in movies is a very strange thing.

Acting in movies is a very strange thing. Act in a TV show and it may appear in a matter of weeks, but you make a movie and can be years before it surfaces. With a lot of movies… never. They are tax right offs. My movie got caught up in producer bullshit and only now (thank heavens!) will it be seen on the marketplace. As an actor you have very little connection with when the final product will be seen and in what context. So, you better love those moments while you’re doing it. Those moments between “Action” and “Cut.” That’s really all you have. You’re like someone who paints tiles. That’s all. You paint these tiles and you put them out there, and you don’t have control over what’s done with them. They may be used in some beautiful community center or a chapel, or maybe some rich scumbag puts them in his bathroom. All you can do is enjoy making your tiles.

Acting for the camera.

Are you willing to be seen, to be known?  Are you willing for your voice to be heard? Because that’s what acting for a camera is really all about. You can’t hide when you’re under that microscope. You better give it up. It seems there are three kinds of contributing factors to successfully working for a camera, beyond just the basic ability to act: to have an imagination and a way of working and a love of the wildness and the giving to people a good show. You might have a large ego. You might think you can do no wrong and everybody ought to be interested in what you have to put out and that you were born for greatness. That works. Or maybe you’re genuinely a good person and therefore you are okay with being seen, because you’ve got nothing to hide. I don’t know, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep strike me as maybe like this. Like they know they’ve always lived clean with other people. Someone can get clean who’s gone through the twelve steps and made amends where they’ve screwed up and done some forgiving, of others and themselves. They want to show their humanity because they have humility about it, they know they don’t own it or get credit for it and showing it off is like a tour guide who wants to show you the amazing city where they live, or the national park where they work. The good ones want you to see the down and dirty parts, as well as the beautiful parts, because they know it will be good for you if you really know this place in full. A successful personality for cinema might have a goodness of heart, not perfection, because the goodness I’m talking about here may come with a lot of other flaws, but it is a quality of character that includes a larger perspective. Maybe it’s why you see many of them involved in global causes. And, lastly, what may make someone effective on screen is the relationship they have with the camera. Maybe they don’t have to have the greatest ego, or a heart that’s a clean slate.  Maybe they’ve simply found a way to relate to the camera like it’s their savior. They let it know them because they know it will anyway, and they somehow have faith that it will love them regardless of their imperfections. Every actor is acting for somebody. Some iconic somebody. Marlon Brando said he would try to entertain his mother, because the longer he could entertain her she wouldn’t then drink herself into a stupor. That audience of his mother was in need of saving by him.

Think about who you’re acting for. It makes all the difference. I’d like to suggest you think of that camera as something miraculous. I don’t expect you to know yourself. Nobody does. “I am multitudes” as Whitman said. How could you know all those people? Maybe you don’t like all of them.  That’s okay, too.  But why not right here, right now, give that camera permission to see all of them… who you are. A total, all access pass. The good and the bad. Be willing, as Dustin Hoffman said, to admit to the deeper crimes in yourself. Just for that camera. Why not? It’s going to anyway.

The Uncluttered Mind (2nd of 2)

(continued)

3. Practice your Actions (if you plan to do Actions). While you may not even need to plan your Actions, especially if you think you can play the part straight from yourself, if you do want to execute planned Actions, they will need to appear as if second nature. This requires that they be habituated through deliberate work. Rehearsing Actions can be done by using what I call a “mirror activity,” wherein you do an activity, as yourself, with a similar emotional life (perhaps using an “as if”) and a chosen superlative that makes you appear, in doing this activity, as you would like to appear during that moment of the scene when your character does what they do.
4. Know what you’re saying. Go through the meanings in the dialog of the scene and make sure you understand everything that is said (by both you and the other characters) as your character would know it. This can be done by using a dictionary and paraphrasing the dialog into your own words. Also there is the very helpful exercise of telling somebody about the scene, as your character, as if it’s already happened and you are recounting it to them, detail by detail, including everything that was said by both parties.

The Uncluttered Mind [1 of 2]

Acting for a camera favors the uncluttered mind. This means that whatever plan you’re intending to execute should be ingrained and made as unconscious as possible, so that when I say “Action!” you’re free to relaxedly put your attention where it ought to be, on the unfolding moments (What are they doing/how do I feel about it?).

Here’s some homework that can be helpful to having a free mind while acting:

1. Have your lines down cold. There is no single thing as important in working for a camera than having your lines so deeply memorized that they cannot get shaken out of you by nerves or hectic nature of a film set.
2. Pre-Set your relationships. Generate for yourself a fantasy (or many) that creates in you the feeling you want to have for the character you are playing opposite in the first moment you are exposed to them. If you automatically feel a specific, emotionally alive way about that character, they will effortlessly lead you through your scene because, when they do or say something, these things will make you respond with behavior that is truthful and right.