HOLLYWOOD ACTOR PREP by Dana Kaminski

Whole Lotta Alice Videos Going On…

Johnny Depp Interview 1993 ‘Gilbert Grape’

Big Misconception Acting Preparation, Altogether?

Are actors “born that way”?

With either, or all: charisma, looks, talent, emotional accessibility, comic timing, brilliant script assessment skills, and stage confidence, up the wazoo-la?

Some. Maybe. They may be born, even with a CAA agent, attached at the hip.

Still, actors work deeply, and  a lot, before ever arriving near the set or stage.

Preparing…

Before ever getting into hair-and-makeup, before any camera-lighting-test, before uttering any dialogue. They work their tails off, long before getting to what-most-people understand, as the acting work.

(Even those born with the best-looking tails.)

Johnny Depp, Interesting Actor, And Interesting Man

He has an intensive,artistic, and individual way of doing his Actor Prep.

He paints his characters.

That’s the first time I ever heard of an actor working that way.

Seems mighty effective, for him.

Every Actor Develops Their Own Way Of Working…And Prepping For A Job.

But don’t be fooled by the common belief, about acting. Or the ease that the really great actors make it appear, in the end result.

That ease is a derived mastery. It is a magical, yes.

All magicians take a long time to develop each illusion.

As do actors.

There isn’t an ‘acting talent’, who is born able to handle all the depth that great acting requires.

No amount of innate je-nais-c’est-quoi, serves anyone, reliably; under lights with a camera in your face, someone tweaking your clothes, all those lines, and all that pressure. Certainly, not for repeat takes, numerous different acting jobs, nor on a live stage in front of large audience of eyes upon you.

Truly being great in a role demands much research, study, work, artistry, assessment, creative process.

Overall, being a great actor, takes some real study and artistic development to get to a place where the ‘actor’s instrument’ is malleable. Played with ease. I don’t mean at the ideal, the mastery level. I mean really great, consistent, from role-to-role…acting ability.

Takes years.

Mastery Level Ability, + Skill, For Actors Takes Working And Reworking.

It’s a process to attain and a lifelong process, at that;  that continually evolves. It’s one of the things that makes the artistic part of being an actor so exciting.

That is, for those actors that are artistic in their work.  All good acting work involves artistry.

Its those type of actors that win the awards, almost always, in this Oscars-Golden Globes-et-al Awards Season.  (Here’s my li’l plug, in case you didn’t know–I have a site pre-Academy Awards, called OscarPrep.com.)

It’s also those actors that become household names, and whose work you may admire. You see the acting performance, you don’t see the acting prep work. They do it.

Most people aren’t aware of the underlying artistry. For each part. The depth, the breadth, the intensity, the time, the commitment.

Edward Scissorhands--One Of My Favorite Characters, Ever

Research Methods Of Actors, For Acting Roles

Each script, each role, does quite a bit of preparation process; to have a completed acting-product that not only hits the required ‘notes’, but does it well. Shiningly, like Depp.

There’s very specific emotional notes to hit, always. What about the script? A script is only and always about the story, and the actor must be adept at acting in order to be able to tell, specifically, the story.  This point is a bit more abstract, yet the most essential.

Primarily, that is the actor’s job, why they were hired, and why they are visible to the audience.

The character work; even emotional specificity, accuracy, depth and complexity, are actually secondary to the actor’s main responsibility which is to tell the story. Actor’s do their ‘part’. They ‘play a role’ in the story.

Script interpretation is a very necessary and high-level skill for an actor.

Research, to attain the most knowledge about the story and the elements involved, is almost always necessary. I don’t mean only for period pieces, or deeper more literate projects, either.

Johnny Depp is awesomely handsome, and a personification of cool. Admittedly, I am swooning now. All the world’s swooning doesn’t make it cheap, easy, and without artistry, nor individuality, for Johnny Depp. As an actor.

He’s deep, as an actor. He also does a lot of actor prep. That’s why he is so great. (Seriously. Trust me, here.)

Great acting just looks easy, especially when it’s so good.

The more intensive the actor prep, the more visibly wonderful is the performance. And real.

©Disney

How Actor Johnny Depp Prepared, For The Mad Hatter, Prior To Acting

When he takes on a role, Johnny Depp often paints a watercolor portrait of the still-forming character to help find his face and personality. After putting the finishing touches on his painting for “Alice in Wonderland,” Depp looked down at the Mad Hatter staring back at him from the canvas and giggled.

“I was thinking,” the actor said, “‘Oh my God, this one will get me fired!’”

Depp’s extreme vision for the character — who arrives in theaters on March 5 — creates yet another vivid screen persona for the Hollywood chameleon who has played Sweeney Todd, Willie Wonka, Edward Scissorhands and a certain scoundrel named Jack Sparrow. The 46-year-old actor said his Hatter’s springy mass of tangerine hair became a particularly important detail because of one of the suspected origins of the term “Mad as a hatter.”

In the 18th and 19th centuries, mercury was used in the manufacture of felt, and when used in hats it could be absorbed through the skin and affect the mind through maladies such as Korsakoff’s syndrome. Hatters and mill workers often fell victim to mercury poisoning which, in Carroll’s time, had an orange tint — hence Depp’s interest in adding brushstrokes of that particular watercolor to his portrait.

“I think [the Mad Hatter] was poisoned  — very, very poisoned,” Depp said. “And I think it just took affect in all his nerves. It was coming out through his hair and through his fingernails, through his eyes”

Depp’s research also took him down some unexpected literary rabbit holes with the writings of Carroll.

“There’s a great line in the book where the Hatter says, ‘I’m investigating things that begin with the letter ‘M,’” Depp said. “So I started kind of doing a little researching, reading a bunch. And you start thinking about the letter ‘M’ and Hatters and the term ‘Mad as a hatter’ and ‘mercury.’”

Depp was also intrigued by one of the Mad Hatter’s nonsense questions during a dizzying tea party: “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” “I think he is referencing Edgar Allan Poe,” Depp said, referring to the haunted author of “The Raven,” which was published in 1845, two decades before Carroll’s surreal tale reached the public. Depp let the two ideas germinate in his head and it informed his own Hatter concoction.

Burton, whose background in art and animation is well known, also draws his characters, and when he and his star compared their handiwork they grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “They were,” Depp says, “very close.”

The Hero Complex, Rachel Abramovitz

My very best,

:~Dana

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SAG Indie Was Created So That SAG Actors Can Work In Low-Budget Movies

And…So Independent Films Can Use Professional Actors.

Remember Melissa Leo’s acting nomination, at last year’s Oscars?  Frozen River was a SAG Indie film.  I’ve seen her in at least 3 indies, this year.  Big acting roles, and smaller ones.

Here’s a video with Tom Bower, an actor who has been active in SAG for years. I filmed him at the end of an event at AFI. Tom helped create SAG Indie, at SAG; and shares all about it.

Indie Filmmakers Can Download The SAG Contracts From SAG Indie’s Website

SAG tailored SAG Indie, specifically, to the needs and ease-of-utilization; for low-budget, novice, or smaller films.

SAG even has incentives for low-budget films that use SAG Indie contracts. They also have incentives when for casting diversified talent.

Here’s the website address to the SAG Indie site. http://www.sagindie.com.  Here is a direct link to their PDF contracts page which includes contracts for short films, ultra low-budget, modified low-budget,  low-budget, theatrical and film agreement, and the SAG Basic Agreement. There are monthly informational meetings, as well, to teach filmmakers, and actors, how to utilize the contracts.

It seems like a great thing.  If anyone has experiential information, or an opinion on SAG Indie, I welcome it.  Let me know…

Best,

;~Dana

This may be a useful post for actors and filmmakers that you know. Please remember that the “fee” is to pay this forward…That is, to share .Thank you very much.

An Audition Casting Tape

This is a real audition, where they were casting a 12 year old girl. The movie, not yet released, is called ‘Let Me In’.

May I ask you to please leave a comment, and tell me who gives a good audition, and why. Or why not.

I will reserve writing my own judgment, until I hear from you…

Please don’t think that these girls are too young to do well at auditions. Recently, I saw one of these actors, in a nice-sized film role, and she did very well. Also, by the time they are this age, children can have quite a bit of technique classes, and coaching.

Even if they aren’t well-schooled, or very skilled, kids can sometimes be great because they haven’t developed limiting confidence handicaps. Not only have these girls not been through an entire puberty, where insecurity rampages through the hormones; but they also haven’t been through any kind of big social or professional rejections, and not had their heart broken in a big love affair, yet.

If you think this may be a little off of my philosophy, because I am asking you to compare acting that could possibly be relying on instinct alone, you are somewhat right! I do prioritize acting craft and learning skills, first and foremost.

But I also know that one of the things that actors get out of a committed acting class, is confidence. Hopefully, there is also ‘privacy’ work. There was at the method acting classes that I studied at. For a good long time.

Privacy allows the actor to free his or her work from getting stuck in audience judgment. To act, freely. Even if they have been bashed and thrashed emotionally, and have no confidence at all. They are free, if they have a good craft that includes building a strong reliable privacy, to act as if they were young and unhampered.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think about each of the auditions.

And please put my blog on your Facebook page, by using the share/save below…or email to any actor that you may know…Thanks…

Happy Summer!

:~Dana

I remember Jason Ritter’s acting work,  from the few times that I saw the television show ‘Joan Of Arcadia’. He was the guy in the wheelchair, who had once been a jock. If you saw the film, ‘W’, by Oliver Stone, then you may remember him as the actor who played Jeb Bush.

Currently, he appears in ‘The Education of  Charlie Banks’. He’s cast as a bully, and it’s a different kind of role for him. In this interview; he divulges the acting challenges, and personal issues, that came with this acting role…And, the way he handled them.

From the Los Angeles Times, By Michael Ordoña 

 

 

The son of late actor John Ritter tackles the role of a bully in ‘Charlie Banks’

“We all have bullies in our lives and we just assume they’re evil, but largely I think that kind of behavior comes from somewhere,” says Jason Ritter, who plays a neighborhood tough who commits an almost psychopathically vicious act in “The Education of Charlie Banks.” “Certainly the bully in my life, as far as I could tell, the house he grew up in was completely devoid of any love. He had all the money in the world, but you walk around his house and it was cold like a museum. So the only reaction he could get out of people was fear. It made him laugh.”

With neat, close-cropped hair and a scruffy in-progress beard like a cross between G.I. Joe and the Unabomber, the 29-year-old projects an inoffensiveness in person that makes his transformation in the movie all the more impressive. The brutal act perpetrated by his bulldozer-in-a-china-shop Mick is witnessed by sheltered uptown boy Charlie (Jesse Eisenberg). Mick then turns up years later in Charlie’s dorm room, insinuating himself into a life of privilege amid the well-to-do students. 

“The challenges were consistent with my worst nightmare of how I’m perceived,” he said at his publicist’s West Hollywood offices. It wasn’t that the character was so objectionable but so unlike him: “I generally care very much what other people think of me. I’m not proud of that trait.

“I had to start from the very beginning and ask, ‘What kind of man ends up so out of control that he can’t help but ruin his own chances at being anything?’ This was definitely one of my most challenging roles.” 

The son of the late actor John Ritter acknowledges he’s known for playing “innocent, nice guys”; his background was a lot closer to Charlie’s than Mick’s.

 

“When the script first was circulating, I auditioned for Charlie,” he admits. Years after that production fell apart, the screenplay came around again. Thinking himself now too old for Charlie, he took a furtive stab at Mick. To his surprise, he got the part. “There was a huge part of me that was terrified and thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I tricked them!’ “ 

To pull off the guise of a guy who never questions his actions but moves with a shark-like decisiveness, Ritter had to face down a couple of demons.

“I had to find a whole lot of confidence somewhere,” he says with a slightly nervous laugh. “I’m always second-guessing myself. He never apologizes and I never cease apologizing.” 

The cast, especially love interest Eva Amurri, helped him settle into this rough and uncomfortable skin.

“The first time you see her talking to Mick in the bar, she’s sort of jittery and excited,” he says, compared to her cool when dealing with the madly infatuated Charlie. That enabled Ritter “to lean back in my chair and say, ‘Oh, yeah. Mick doesn’t have the problems Jason has when talking to women.’

“I was also lucky [the cast and crew] believed I could pull this off. I’ve done other things where there was a producer somewhere going,” he exhales in exasperation and rolls his eyes. “As much confidence as I had to pretend I had, it would have taken just one person to say, ‘I don’t buy it’ to let it all drain out. It was such a delicate thing for me.”

Not exactly an imposing figure, Ritter decided to use his physicality and clean-cut appearance to his advantage.

“I’ve never been in a fistfight in my whole life. I don’t have a giant scar on my face; I don’t look like a tough guy. [But] Mick had to be able to blend in with the college kids; he had to look almost normal. The only thing keeping him from normal was that you had seen this violent act at the beginning,” he says.

The actor felt a kinship with the character (“We’re disgusted by the same things”), believing he understood Mick. The question was whether it was too late for Mick to change.

“It’s hard when the only thing stopping you from everything you want is your own inner workings.”

 

 

Directors, Producers, Actors, All The Crew Members…All The Professionals Know “The Rules of Movie Sets”…

In case you need catching up, see these past Hollywood Actor Prep Posts about film set ettiquette, and why it’s important, especially for actors.

• Hollywood Actor Prep Blog Post: The Best Way An Actor Can Act Around A Film Director
• Hollywood Actor Prep Blog Post: Professional Actor Christian Bale Film Set Meltdown, Why, With Dance Remix (; })
• Hollywood Actor Prep Blog Post: Movie-Set Meltdown–Audio Apology From Christian Bale

“It is a sacred time between action and cut.”–Darren Aranofsky

Over time, I will continue to talk about “the actor’s process“, and “directors-and-actors“; so this will come up again. 

I’ll just reprint this part of an article, from UPI, London…(Does it seem like I am saying: ‘I told you so!’??)

Film Director Darren Aronofsky

Speaking at Wednesday night’s London Film Critics’ Circle Awards, Aronofsky, who has never worked with Bale before, defended Bale in the wake of his well-publicized outburst.

“I think he was right. I don’t think he was out of line,” the BBC quoted Aronofsky as saying. “It is a sacred time between action and cut. If it was the first time it was excusable, but a second time, that ruins it.”

Aronofsky, whose movie “The Wrestler” was named film of the year at the Critics’ Circle Awards, added that he didn’t think the language Bale used had been “abusive beyond call,” noting he has seen worse behavior on film sets.

“Sets are very, very high-powered places where things go awry all the time and emotions are high. People are out there working really hard and exposing themselves, especially actors, and they need to be protected,” Aronofsky explained. “Although it’s never good to lose your temper that bad for obvious reasons, we don’t know what scene he was doing. He could have been doing a deeply, deeply intense emotional scene.”

 

Please share with your friends, especially those interested in acting, directing, producing…And post on your Facebook or MySpace.

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And…

Keep Faith In Your Ability,

;-Dana

WARNING-NOT FOR THOSE UNDER 18

It  contains, what some consider, offensive language.  If you are under 18, don’t watch.  (This is a family-usable site!)

**************************************************************************************************************

Now … all my readers…ESPECIALLY ACTORS…

There are rules on a film set that everyone follows. For good reason.

I am not sure why the Director-of-Photography  was doing what he was, when he was; on the film set where Christian Bale had such a spectacular meltdown.  

Because, for anyone who has ever worked on a film, uh.  What the DP did is just not common, on-the-set, behavior.  As established, and carried out, on any movie or television set, that I’ve ever been.

….For  more  about common on-set rules and ettiquette, go to the following Hollywood Actor Prep post, The Best Way An Actor Can Act…(link)….

Now.  I know that Christian Bale’s rant is being passed around the globe; and everyone and their mama, is commenting, and judging.

I will only say that if you don’t know the rules and ettiquette that are followed on a film set, then it is good that you read this blog.

Because I have talked about it here, and will continue to post about it.

It’s very important, because these unspoken rules are followed by all professionals…

There are good reasons for the (unspoken) “film set rules”.

If you break them, it’s not bad  because you may cause a leading man to curse you out.

No.

The “rules of a film set” exist so that the movie can get made. Period.

And, so that everybody can do their job. And do it well.  Without  interference, distraction, or interruption.

Often, there’s a tremendous amount of pressure and stress on a movie set.

Expect, for example, long hours (sometimes 16 or 17 hour days)

• tight schedule
• technical glitches and problems 
• environmental problems
• re-shoots and mistakes
• health issues that interfere or compromise
• script changes
• budget problems
• unexpected, unexpected, unexpected (zillions of possibilities)

There’s stuff that the public can’t understand. And, you will only know about it, when you work and experience it. 

Sometimes, working on a film, is back-breaking-ly-hard.

For example, for scenes that are shot at night: the whole schedule gets suddenly changed.  Flipped. You may work that week, each and every night, from 5PM to 5AM. This happens when the prior week was all-day-shooting. With overtime.

Movie schedules, in general, are exhausting.  No matter what the budget.  There are often problems with “fitting everything in” to the time allotted.

You’ve heard the phrase: “Time is money”??   Well, time, on a film set, it costs a fortune.

…So, let’s just say that you are suddenly doing night shooting, after some time of  working a daytime schedule.  

(BTW, everyone on the set, is struggling through this flipped around schedule.)

And then, all together, you all…”go into overtime”.  (Yes, thanks to SAG, everyone gets paid more for the “overtime…but, that doesn’t help the strain, at the time)

As the hours go by, it gets more and more exhausting.
Now, you are working 17 hour nights, shooting until, past dawn…
And, perhaps, during the daytime, you have a hard time getting a full eight hours of sleep…

Maybe this night shoot is outdoors,  and it’s freezing cold.  But, in the scene, it’s not supposed to be…so there’s no jackets.
Or it’s really humid and hot, and the mosquitoes are biting at your ankle,  in the middle of your love scene.

Or your co-star may be drunk.  Or keeps changing the lines and, therefore, changing the scenes…

“Film Is Forever”***

This is one of the most important things I can share with you.

No matter how you feel or what is going on around you…

(…your personal relationships, your relationships on-set with the cast and crew, your relationships off-set with the cast and crew, or your trainer, or your agent, or whomever or whatever…)

That stuff will all disappear into your memory—but what goes on that film will last forever.

You need to make sure, as all kinds of things go on around you, before during and after each shoot, on set and off-set…

…that…what goes on that film is done to the best of your ability.

And that you are totally present, aware, and not distracted.  No matter what.

Not only is your career, your future,  and your professional reputation, dependent on that; but so is the success of the film.

…And the effectiveness of the story in the script.

…The other actors’ performances are depending on yours, as well. It’s all teamwork.   

I say it again, film sets are all teamwork.

Everyone must do their part to make sure they are doing everything they can to their own personal and professional best; as well as doing eveything possible to support the synergistic cast, and crew, in doing theirs.

That’s how trust is built.  The amount of trust on a movie set, is in direct correlation to how successful the finish product appears.  It’s holistic.

A set…where there’s war, or chaos…makes a stinker movie, in the end.

It’s all just too hard, like that.  There are 100’s of people that make a movie.  It’s all gotta work together.

Movie stars bear the blame, when a movie ends up a stinker.

All actors do.

I don’t know if you follow me on Twitter (and if you don’t, you are missing out, because I post a lot of little news items and pertinent stuff in my twitter tweets, so here’s a link) …but if you do, you’ll know that I pass around questions.  One question I asked was if anyone knows what a producer does??  I’ll post the answers in the next few days…(even have a funny response, from Michael Bay, a-hem)

Producers, directors, they may accept the Oscars, when their movie wins a “Best Picture” award…

But it’s the actors that get the public blame when a movie tanks.

And, it’s the films’ lead actors, the stars of the movie, that take the career hit.  Because the movie stunk.  

The acting might be good, but if the movie doesn’t sell tickets, the stars’ careers get affected.  

Sometimes, stars lose their careers, soon after a bad movie opens.  Completely.

As I said, I have no comment on what Christian Bale did.

(I’m not big on ‘judging’.)  

I do know that anger is a normal human emotion.  

As actors, we need to be comfortable with all authentic emotion, the gamut.

Even the uncomfortable ones, the less socially acceptable ones.

Anger is something that you must be sure you are comfortable with. Hearing, and expressing.

Because as an actor, you’ll be called upon to play it.  (In a script.)

It’s best, to be at a point, where you even enjoy it.

Wanna start now?

Shall we dance?  

___REMOVED VIDEO OUT OF RESPECT FOR CHRISTIAN BALE, ESPECIALLY SINCE WE ALL HEARD IT WAY TOO MUCH. Originally, I put the music remix up, because I simply thought it was funny. That was before I saw just how serious people took Bale’s outburst.  My own reaction was not as extreme, perhaps because I live in Hollywood!!

Update: I forgot to give proper credit to the artist who made the Christian Bale remix!  His name is Revolucian (Lucian Piane) and, by clicking on his name, you’ll reach his MySpace page…he’s about to mix RuPaul’s new jam.

(I have an additional update that will be coming up, in the next post…It’s also about actor, Christian Bale…)

Best,

;-Dana

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According to Al Pacino, Brando wasn’t interested in doing theatre acting.

Not after he left the New York stage….

Here’s a video clip, where Pacino shares what Brando intimated to him…

Enjoy!

Best,

Dana

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This Hollywood Actor Prep Cheat Sheet lists only the 2009 Academy Award Nominees, in the Acting Categories.

Doesn’t everyone always talk about the “Best Acting” categories, primarily??

Or only??

I mean, everyone, everywhere.

Okay. Also, they talk about the “Best Picture Nominees”. Right?

Then, the other categories

…Maybe.

I’ve found…that is, to your average American ticket-buyer…the acting and best picture categories ARE their whole definition of “the movies”, when it comes to the Oscars.

Most movie-goers are in the dark …about what directors do…

And, about what producers do, fugedabowdit …total mystery. Like invisible… Right?

People watch the Oscars for the categories they are rooting for, the ones that they care about. It’s emotional…If they cared, while watching the movie; then they “care” during the Academy Awards. A–lot.

Acting + Best Picture: There are no other Oscar categories, to most.

Scientifically, I can prove it.

Monitor your own plumbing, during the Academy Awards television broadcast.

I’ll wager that almost no toilets are flushed, in any bathroom, in the entire USA…

…on February 22nd 2009..

…during the announcing of Oscar wins for any acting category, or best picture.

Okay.

The brilliant acting performances of this year….

The nominated actors are in alphabetical order, and not in order of my own favorites.

(…Come back to Hollywood Actor Prep this this weekend, for that…)

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

ACADEMY AWARD ACTING NOMINEES 2009

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie in “Changeling”
Melissa Leo in “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
Kate Winslet in “The Reader”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Amy Adams in “Doubt”
Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis in “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor”
Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn in “Milk”
Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Josh Brolin in “Milk”
Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt”
Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road”

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;Best,

Dana

How Casting Directors Cast Actors

Watch this audition-on-tape.   It’s Ellen Page and Michael Cera auditioning for “Juno”.

If you ask a casting director, they’ll tell you that actors get awarded roles when they ARE the character.

Now, that may mean:

#1. The actor is so clearly the specific type they are looking for, and so ‘right on the mark’ on how they (casting people + producers + director) envision the character from the script…  that the person in the auditioning room is really just like the person in the script, in real life.

Everyday, every minute, the actor really ‘IS THAT CHARACTER’.

#2. Or it could mean that the actor is  close in ‘type’…but is such a ‘good actor’, that the casting person believes that the actor, during the audition, ‘IS THAT CHARACTER’.

Even if in the car, on the way home, the actor is not the same, at all.  Or, is similar in some ways, in “real life” (as Matt Dillon used to say…)

I prefer #2, myself.

Often, if the actor that is auditioning, really IS that person in life, they may not be able ‘to act’.  Which means that the movie or play will suck.  Why? Well, the simplified answer is that he or she won’t be able to deliver all the different emotions or facets that may be called for, in the script, or scenes.

The longer answer is that, in the finished production, there won’t be any art to the acting.  Nor in the movie, nor in the play, at all. There won’t be anything worth watching.

 (Unless we are talking “documentary”, of course.)

All Actors Use Pieces Of Themselves In Creating Characters.  

There is far too much competition in the acting profession, to try to play something that is so far away from your actual type…It’s just too easy for casting people to find, and cast  an actor who fits what is described in the script, and on the “casting breakdowns”….to play the part.  

#3. It is nearly impossible, without a tremendous amount of acting talent, acting skill, and acting craft, for an actor to “play himself or herself”.

Whaaa??

Yep.

That’s why I blow-a-gasket when people ask me why acting class is necessary.

It’s foolish to assume that “anyone can act”.  Yes, talent is something that is innate.  Using that talent, and having control over the talent…control enough to carry out what is required in a script, takes development. Takes dedication.

Great acting is a blend of the two: talent and developed acting craft.  

You don’t want to be just an adequate actor, do you?  Even to be able to give what is required, in a script, is extremely difficult.  To make it come-to-life, is rare.  It is very high-level acting.

To make acting seamless, well, that’s what wins awards.  (That is, if the judges are smart enough to know that it really is acting.)

Great acting fools experts.  It should.

It fools the viewer, too; unconsciously. How?  When they get wrapped up in the story/the movie/the play….when they stop looking at the effects, the acting, the whatever….when they go from being on “the outside”, to experiencing from within:  within the story, within themselves.

It’s what I call “the great acting paradox”.

Great Acting Is When The Audience Doesn’t See The Acting

Really good, strong, advanced acting is hard to tell if the actor is “playing him/herself” or “acting”.

Excellent acting is imperceptible.

Now, you know. And, you know something now, about acting, that most people will never know.  It is a rare jewel. Keep it sacred, because it is.  And use it well.

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If you do get value from these posts, I ask that you make a contribution of $10.00, for some of the running costs, and to give value back. With enough donation, I will some fulltime staff people, and do so much more.  I thank you. It’s secure, by Paypal.

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And, I ask that you spread the word about Hollywood Actor Prep. That will make our ’cause’ stronger, we can mobilize all actors that way. We can really make things better for actors, together…

Have you heard about the movie: “Frozen River”? It was released this past summer, and is still being buzzed about.  Not just because it is a stirring film, and it’s different…

Thematically… it’s a bit more real, than the average Hollywood film. It’s a story about a woman whose husband gambles away all the money that they’ve saved for a suitable trailer home, for the family. Their “dream savings”. Now, he’s gone. She’s got a family, and poverty.

She’s not young; and all glammed-up.  Sexily clad. No.

Melissa Leo’s character “Eddy”, doesn’t have a high end manicure. No little things, like hair tangles, ruins her evening… She’s a grown woman, with the kind of real-life-authentic-drama, that all human beings deal with. Female humans, too.

Yes, female, and Eddy is a mother, and if you are one, then you know… motherhood is just about the most profoundly dramatic experience… (Oddly, it’s a drama that is rarely, theatrically, expressed.) 

In “Frozen River”, Leo is the type of mother who will do anything for the good of her children. 

And, this woman’s life is on the precipice of complete ruination, without many options. 

How does she handle an overwhelming challenge? She pairs up with a Mohawk woman [Misty Upham], smuggling people across a border.  In Alaska, in the freezing cold.   

You may remember Melissa Leo from television, she was detective Kay Howard, on “Homicide”. Her performances are always so seamless; she slips so deeply into the characters she plays, that, paradoxically, it almost renders her unnoticeable

…Remember “21 Grams”?

This time around, it’ll be a surprise if Melissa Leo doesn’t get nominated for a “Best Actress” Academy Award. If the Academy votes fairly, she may even win.  

Recently, at the 18th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards, in New York, “Frozen River” won best feature film, and Melissa Leo won best breakthrough actor…the two best awards.

Here are selected portions of an interview with Leo, by  Thelma Adams…

MELISSA LEO SHARES: FOUR YEARS TO FEATURE FILM

At the after-party, a wide-eyed blond-haired gal came up to me and said ‘I have a short, will you read it?’ And I said, ’sure.’ I read a script called Frozen River about two characters: the blond and the native; they didn’t even have names.

About four years ago, [writer-director] Courtney Hunt, [co-star] Misty Upham and I went up to Massena, NY and shot the short. After, I saw that short and was very impressed by what she had done, Courtney said, ‘wanna do the feature?’ And I said, ‘oh, I didn’t know you had one,’ and ’sure, let’s do the feature.”

So every six, eight months I would call Courtney and say, “Are we going to make that movie?” And she would say, “oh, yeah, no, I’ll get right back to you,” so I would kick-start her again to go look for the financing.

 

ON ACTING A CHARACTER, USING “SELF”

It’s difficult for me to know how much of myself I end up bringing.

Comments from people after the fact like my mom’s friend who just can’t get over the fact that I really knew how to look for that change in that couch [laughs]. She’s known my history. She’s known me my whole life. I’m not quite sure what parts of the character are parts of my self.

What I do know is first of all in the writing of Ray Eddy, she was a whole, complex character with flaws that Courtney wrote, and Courtney even was, as many writers are when they write, her character. And very, very generously gave me the character when it came my turn to play Ray Eddy and Courtney, then, took a backseat. So there were things in her writing that are primary to who Ray Eddy is, and there’s what I then brought to it, which is innate in me. I’m not sure how to describe what that is.

And, then, there’s also the direction that Courtney gave me. With another director at the helm, and me in that part, it wouldn’t have been the same thing because Courtney made me make Ray more likeable, that even though she might be doing things people might question, that you would still care for her. That’s very much Courtney’s hand in the direction.

Courtney had a very keen eye that that was important and, now, in viewing the film, which is very different from reading or performing the film, I understand and see the importance of that. So Courtney’s direction of me was a big, big part of it.

 

ON ACTING WITH A FIRST-TIME DIRECTOR

There were some bumps to get through in the first handful of days of shooting. Courtney’s never really been on a set before. There’s a way things work that everybody else there knows because the gaffer and the grips and the electric, they’ve all been on lots of sets…

There was a really scary day about three days in. We were shooting late in the film, not when we’re out and Mark Boone Jr. is being mean to those poor Chinese girls and then he shoots me in the ear, but right after I get in the car. So we’re starting the scene. We haven’t shot the other stuff with Mark Boone and the girls, where Ray gets shot in the ear, but we’re shooting right after when I get in the car. So we’re in the car, it’s pouring out with snow, with me driving to the start mark. Courtney’s in the back seat with what they call a clamshell, which is a monitor so she can see what the camera’s seeing. And I turn to look over my shoulder, quick as I’m driving to the start mark. ‘Courtney, do you think that we’ve been driving a little while and now we start the dialog or have I just got in the car, and we’re starting the dialog,’ Does that question make sense?

…Didn’t make sense to Courtney! [Laughter] So then, I’m now about to act like a woman who’s just got shot in the ear, I’m getting a little amped up because I know my face is going to be about this close to the camera in about three seconds, because they’re going to call rolling and I ask Courtney one more time [voice rising] ‘just be very clear with me if this is a little while down the road or if I’ve just gotten in the car?” and she says [softly, whispery] ‘don’t talk to me like that.”

…I remembered that I was working with a first-time director. We were going to have to work this out after we got the shot. They rolled the camera. We did the take. We got there. I got out of the car. I looked for a producer and I said, [loudly] “talk to her!” And they did. And it never happened again. That’s the amazing thing about Courtney. Is that she could learn even as we were doing it. And when we got through that third day, and that particular bump, and we came back the next day, something had changed. I knew we were going to be OK.

 

ACTING OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME

This was very different for me in so many ways because here I was being given that opportunity that I have waited a lifetime for, the opportunity to carry the film. So everything mattered that much more to me. I was that much more involved in all of it. There’s all kind of utter nonsense that goes on on-set but, somehow, you get the darn thing in the can anyway….

 

Best,

:Dana
Please contribute to the cost of running this blog, if you find it valuable.  Thank you.

Lots and lots of buzz abounds, about the film “Frozen River”…and the acting of Melissa Leo.  Especially with Oscar season approaching…

I love this thing that Variety’s doing:

Actors talk about great performances of fellow actors…

(I ran one of these before: Natalie Portman “champions” Sean Penn, for his acting performance in “Milk”–[click for trailer].)

Here’s Dustin Hoffman talking about (probable Oscar nominee) Melissa Leo:

“It’s funny. When you’re in the business, you can tell something in the first minutes of watching, particularly in terms of the actors. Just at the start of “Frozen River,” the first thing I saw I went, “Oh! oh!” I don’t even know the director (Courtney Hunt), but there was such a documentary feel to that performance by Melissa Leo. I don’t know Melissa Leo, but that’s an extraordinary piece of work. There’s not a false moment. I felt she knew it and lived that life.”

 

To watch the a large size movie trailer,  for “Frozen River”, click here.

To download the “Frozen River” Press kit in PDF, click here.

 

I’ll be posting, some more, about Melissa Leo, over the next week…

Best,

;Dana

I have an experience, to relate, about Tom Hanks.  From the movie, “Big”.

I acted, in a scene, with Tom Hanks.

Um, hm.

And, Tom and I shared a dressing room.

Um, hm.

At the same time.

Um hm.  

(Exceptionally unusual, BTW, in “the business”.)

And, no, we did not.

Um, em.

(If that’s what you are wondering…watch those assumptions, Bud.)

“Our” little acting scene was shot on location, in  NYC… An “interior” in an office setting; they used an authentic large-scale office space in a full-staffed, multi-room with multi cubicles, advertising agency… in a midtown Manhattan skyscraper. 

In the middle of a New York, work-week.  

For the “Big” film set– a not-so-big-area was sectioned off.

 …With temporary cardboard walls, tall grey ones held together by gaffer’s tape.

Even though it looked like a reception area, it wasn’t the authentic one. That one was in operation,  on the other side of the building, and the halls really went as far as you could see.

As a matter of fact, the “real”  business day was going on all around us; actively,  using most of their regular work space.

Which put a whopping limit on the normal acreage that a film crew normally uses, and needs to shoot.

What for?… Props, and sound, and camera equipment, and electrical stuff, and of course,  ‘hair + makeup’ trailers/rooms, wardrobe storage, and…

…Dressing rooms.

‘Hair + makeup’ was planted, literally, in the hall.  It was a makeshift set-up, just outside the reception-area-set…

There was a chair, for the actor to sit in, and an area where the makeup person had all their large toolboxes that open into mini-stairs of all the colors, brushes, sponges. And there was a mirror with the lights around it.  As I remember, it was smack in the middle of a hallway, and there were employees of the real agency, coming-and-going, around us.

 

Overall, the production had one big multi-purpose room.  

That is, aside from the actual shooting set.

In real life, I think it was a small conference room. 

I remember the long table, with chairs around it. 

All the other actors hung out there; actors from other scenes in “Big” were there, as well… as each scene wrapped, another one would begin. So, it was a ‘talent’ holding area.  

I had a two or three day hold, there, altogether. Lots of waiting, but much better pay…

There were racks of clothing was in there, it was also ‘the “Big” wardrobe room’.

And, it was also the only dressing room, on set…

Tom and I were the only ones, in our particular acting scene, that even had “wardrobe”.  

The other people in the scene, except for the younger actor,  (friend-of-”Josh Baskin”) were “extras”, professionally called “background”.  

Usually, even those with “special bits” arrive and work in their own clothes. 

Often those clothes are approved in advance, by the costumer.  Sometimes background-players are advised what type of outfit to bring, and are asked to bring a optional changes,  the morning of the shoot.

It’s unusual for an actor ‘with a speaking part’, to wear his/her own clothes, when acting professionally. 

Jared Rushton, who played that friend, in “Big”, did.  I remember that a wardrobe person told me that they felt that  Jared looked great in his own choices; and that they couldn’t have dressed him better, than he did on his own.. in his real life…  : }   

        (And, his acting was as natural as his clothes, wasn’t it?)

So, Jared didn’t need a dressing room.  

That left only two people in that entire Manhattan high rise, on that day, in need of two changing rooms…in a crowded office building in the busiest section of a city that doesn’t have a definition for private space…

1. Tom Hanks, an actor who had recently become a household name across America
2. Dana Kaminski, an aspiring actor who very few had heard of, but luckily had worked with the director’s brother, Garry Marshall, prior… 

(Secretly, our unknown actress was, a tinch sullen, but no one could tell….perhaps, that is a story for another time.)

Here’s ‘Our’ Acting Scene, In The Movie, “Big”

I don’t think anyone that worked on that movie could have predicted that it would become as popular as it did, and has remained.  

                                     **********************************************************

…This post a teaser, an intro,  for two topical posts; that I have on deck, for the blog.

The upcoming posts don’t have much to do with me, except, I’m the writer….

They do, have everything to do, with Tom Hanks.

Um hm.

Best,

;Dana

Down below: Is a SHARE/SAVE button.  It makes it so simple and quick.

Kindly post this onto your own Facebook page, or  MySpace, etc.  

That way, people that could really benefit from this blog, can find out about it.  

You can also email it to people, and both take only two quick clicks… 

So, please share. And, thank you for doing so.  And, please donate, if you find this blog valuable…

These film trailers make the holiday season exciting, this year.

Sean Penn is one of my favorite actors, and this performance is creating an Oscar buzz…“Milk”...

“Doubt” was directed by John Patrick Shanley, whose name you may recognize. He’s a well-known playwright; and “Doubt” was originally written for the stage.   That’s when it won the Pulitzer Prize.

Great cast in the film version, including Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is getting some very good reviews, and a few that aren’t so great.  All agree, though, that it’s technically remarkable…

…And, according to Slashfilm, who got it from FirstShowing, you can listen to the entire soundtrack of “Benjamin Button” for free, on Warner Brothers’  ”For Your Consideration Site”. 

Here’s the playlist:

1. Postcards
2. Mr. Gateau
3. Meeting Daisy
4. A New Life
5. Love in Mourmansk
6. Meeting Again
7. Mr. Button
8. Little Man Oti
9. Alone At Night
10. It Was Nice to Have Met You
11. Children Games
12. Submarine Attack
13. The Hummingbird
14. Love Returns
15. Sunrise On Lake Pontchartrain
16. Daisy’s Ballet Career
17. The Accident
18. Stay Out of My Life
19. Nothing Lasts
20. Some Things You Never Forget
21. Growing Younger
22. Dying Away
23. Benjamin and Daisy

 

Enjoy!

;-Dana

 

MIckey Rourke is a preciously, deep actor… In his first feature film, he acted in just a few scenes…and, did more than “hold his own”.

I remember being vexed.  When I left the theater, that night, I remember wondered how such a quiet actor, with regular appearance, in a regular kind of role, could stand out so very much.  

The movie was “Body Heat”, and it starred magnificent actor, William Hurt; and, throughout, the blazing fire of actor,  Kathleen Turner.  

And, still, there were those scenes with Mickey Rourke.

I also can tell you this…”Body Heat” altogether, was a solidly-done movie.. it’s not the kind of film that you’d think an actor, with two little scenes, without any big dramatic moments,  that weren’t central to a juicy plot… …could shine through as a powerful talent…embed himself into Hollywood…and go on to starring roles, from it, right away.

Here’s a clip from that movie, but before you watch it, you need to know that because it’s piece-d outside of the entire film, you’ve  nothing to compare it to.  So it may lose some punch, I’m not sure. (I wouldn’t know, because years later, I still am impressed…from way back then, and I can feel it all down to the pit of my stomach.)

Actor Rourke, during Rumblefish

He’s the real deal, with a velvet voice that never needs to raise an octave or a decibel, in any scene…yet he can play any emotion, or a string of ‘em… like an orchestra plays Bach. And he isn’t even trying.  (No, it doesn’t just look that way…)

He’s got-it-goin-on; he’s got it all going on…way deep inside.

And, we as the audience, know it. We get it.  We connect to it.  On a whole other plane.  Under Mickey’s quiet control.

He’s tough, and that’s why he can act in a film scene with  Robert DeNiro… in a not-so-great script, and equally shine.  Hold his own, and why is that extra special here…?

…Because DeNiro isn’t playing just a man, and he isn’t just DeNiro in his power-prime…it’s Robert DeNiro is playing the LUCIFER, the DEVIL!  The nails, the ring, the identity revelation, and, I say it again: It’s DE NIRO!  

Uh…Any other actor would simply disappear in this scene, with any one of the above,  and no one would notice…Exception: Mickey Rourke.

I’ll bet that when Mickey Rourke was a little schoolboy, and daily attendance was called, he didn’t even have to say “present”, or “here”.  His teacher knew it, already.

Mickey Rourke  has “presence”…

Watch him in this cameo, (alongside, another actor with presence: Jack Nicholson)…in the movie, ” The Pledge”…

People have asked me, how do you know when something’s good, Dana?  

                            ::.One way, is to watch the acting, without the sound.:: 

Great acting exists without the dialogue. Sometimes, in spite of the dialogue; and, certainly, isn’t led by it.

In this scene, from “Rumblefish”  (overdubbed in a foreign language…) is interesting, because Mickey doesn’t really have any lines.  

Additionally, he’s “downstage“, and two other– magnetic– actors, are “upstage”; young Matt Dillon, and Dennis Hopper.   …Just by nature of position, they should be watched; …and they have all the lines! Mostly, they are in the light!

Francis Ford Coppola made “Rumblefish”, a little over a week after he finished directing his previous film; and there was no script.  It was just a novel.  Most scenes of this movie were created by improv, by the actors on set, in front of the camera.

What kind of confidence, does that show, in an actor?  Mickey Rourke surely is aware that he is being upstaged (it’s right there, in the physical blocking); and he does nothing to alter it…knows he is in one of the highest emotional scenes of the film, and he does nothing to try to get some dialogue in.

It’s improvisation…He certainly could, at any time, alter any of it.

This type of scene, in a script, is called a “turning point”, in the story.  Mickey Rourke has plenty of acting experience, by this job. So, he knows all about that stuff…

He’s doesn’t seem to be trying to do anything at all.  He isn’t*.  

He isn’t trying to “act”, he isn’t trying to get attention, he isn’t trying to be in the light, he doesn’t even seem to notice if he is in the scene.*

Because he knows he can.

He knows his craft.

He knows his abilities.

And he knows that an authentic inner life is the most potent gift that an actor can give, to a scene. To a script.  To an audience.  

It’s the highest of the high, for an actor…

It’s great writing that makes an audience an approving observer.

It’s actor’s “tricks” and bad-or-even-good pretending, that turn an audience, from observer to lofty critic.

The next step is when the audience becomes a passionate, emotional participant.  Separation disappears.

That is when the actor or actors have a strong inner life.  

There’s no acting, just experience.  Same for the audience, it moves from the cerebral, to experiential.

More, on Rourke, coming up in  the next post…

Best,

;-Dana