HOLLYWOOD ACTOR PREP by Dana Kaminski

Are Actors Clueless About SAG and the Strike?

What’d I tell ya, huh?  The biggest problem with professional union actors ever having a hope-in-hell of getting paid for “New Media” is that practically no one has a clue about what it’s all about!

Many actors don’t know. Or can’t digest all the abstractions and complexities… (Abstractions: future media, tech, business forecasts…Complexities: business, legalities, details…)

Dennis Hopper Gives A Good Try…

…Here, in this interview I found on “Fancast”:

Dennis Hopper had some choice words for reporters regarding the possibility of a Screen Actor’s Guild strike during today’s promotional panel for the new series Crash on the Starz network, even joking about his buddy Jack Nicholson, whom he shared the screen with in the iconic film, Easy Rider.

“I don’t wanna go between Jack Nicholson and Tom Hanks,” He joked “But I guess I’d have to side with Jack. Out of the 120,000 in SAG there’s 7,000 people that make their living primarily acting and the others have other jobs. Generally if it comes to strikes they do it because they want more benefits, which isn’t necessarily great for the industry. I hope it doesn’t come to a strike. I hope we don’t go out and strike, but beyond that I have no knowledge.”

Are Actors Asking For More “Benefits”?!…Enter Don Cheadle…

Don Cheadle, who is the co-executive producer of the new series, chimed in, saying “We sort of gave away the farm at the last writers strike. These residuals, they’re our lifeblood, I’m lucky because I work pretty consistently, but a lot of people work month to month and I hope we can come to some agreement without coming to a strike. And its not just writers who take the hit, its caterers, cleaners, restaurants too.”

 

Feet Firmly Planted In Both Camps

Hollywood-speak, and everyman-speak.

Caring for both sides, and caring for all sides.

Encompassing all, and saying nothing.

Then, of course, there’s the what-the-heck-are-they-talking-about element, overall. 

(…That is, btw, our native form of communication: “Los Ang-evasive”…)

Don Cheadle, Executive Producer

I have to give some cred to Don Cheadle.  Not only is he a solid, and fine, actor; but in this situation, he is also an exec-producer…That makes him, well, split down the middle:  he’s an actor, so he’s SAG, and a producer, so he’s then AMPTP.   (In case you’re “new”, those are the two union opponents, in the SAG Actors struggle.)

I think he does a very diplomatic job, and on the fly! 

I think he shows some empathy, too; but, he sprinkles it around so liberally,  it diffuses the intent.

Actors With Two Different Styles

Yet, they both elicit the same response…

One…big…

—-”HUH??”—-

(…Just like the rest of the world, about the SAG Strike…but again, I preach, please be informed! SAG link…)

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

I am providing some articles from the web. They give an overview, and foundation, but some of the information may be outdated; you’ll notice it, if so.  

They give a good background, overall.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

(All in italics is directly from the wikipedia site, their notes…)

The strike would stem from the current handling of royalties from the sale of films distributed through new  methods. This includes royalties earned from Internet distribution services such as iTunes, as well as DVD sales, neither of which are currently written into actors’ contracts. The strike date was set for July 7, 2008, chosen due to its coinciding with the expiration of several contracts between the labor union and the AMPTP. Talks are currently being held on the possible terms of a renewal, but the two sides* are reportedly far from any deal.

[Dana's author note: *AFTRA did, in fact, settle. SAG did not; and the settlement by AFTRA created conflict between the two actors unions.]

 

 

FROM TV GUIDE, BRITISH EDITION:

US screen actors’ guild has no plans to strike: union chief

Jun 29, 2008

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — The president of the US Screen Actors Guild said on Sunday there were no immediate plans to strike against Hollywood studios, even though a contract with the studios was set to expire late Monday.

“We have taken no steps to initiate a strike authorization vote by the members of Screen Actors Guild. Any talk about a strike or a management lockout at this point is simply a distraction,” said SAG president Alan Rosenberg in a statement.

With the contract due to expire at midnight on Monday, negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have so far failed to produce a deal, raising concerns of another crippling Hollywood strike after a screenwriters’ walkout earlier this year.

But Rosenberg said talks would continue.

“The Screen Actors Guild national negotiating committee is coming to the bargaining table every day in good faith to negotiate a fair contract for actors,” he said.

Entertainment industry press have said most major movie studios had already planned their schedules to complete filming on existing projects by Monday.

And television studios were reportedly set to carry on filming episodes for as long as possible to stockpile material in case of a strike.

Complicating the issue is a feud between SAG, with 120,000 members, and the other major actors union, the 70,000-strong American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), after the smaller union gave tentative approval to a deal proposed by the studios.

SAG’s leaders say the agreement undermines their own negotiating position, and are aggressively lobbying 44,000 guild members who also belong to AFTRA, urging them to reject the deal when it goes to a vote.

The spat between the two unions has pitted A-list actors against fellow stars, with the likes of Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin siding with AFTRA and Jack Nicholson and Ben Stiller supporting the guild.

The disagreement prompted George Clooney to issue a statement on Thursday calling for unity, saying a split between the unions would only strengthen the position of the studios.

“The one thing you can be sure of is that stories about Jack Nicholson vs. Tom Hanks only strengthens the negotiating power of the AMPTP,” Clooney said.