Acting teachers obervation: Have you ever seen the film Glengarry Glen Ross, with Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, and Alec Baldwin? It’s a great film and right at the beginning Alec Baldwin gives one of the best motivational speeches I’ve ever heard from anyone, EVER (but it’s definitely not for anyone with sensitive ears or a delicate disposition, that’s for sure, so if you go looking for it on YouTube, don’t say I didn’t warn you). But that aside, it’s worth looking at the character played by Ed Harris, who goes by the name of “Moss”. Bottom line: he’s a moaning, whining, jerk with an “entitlement attitude” a mile wide. Thing is… we ALL know people like that. Consistently negative, always complaining about… well, EVERYTHING, and, worst of all, ALWAYS blaming everyone else for his failures, disasters, and shortcomings. Here’s some news for you: I know a LOT of aspiring actors who are just like that. When they struggle to get the parts they want and see their dream of being a professional actor turning to ashes and dust they blame everyone but themselves: it’s the Casting Director, or the Agent, or even the other actors. The one person they never blame for not doing their homework and getting the essential acting skills and knowledge under their belt is the person they SHOULD be blaming and who stares out of the mirror at them every morning: THEMSELVES. In the film The Godfather, Marlon Brando decided to play Don Vito Corleone as a bulldog. He was using the Animal Exercise. This is an acting exercise used in Method Acting to create the external physicality of a character – basically, how the character walks and talks. In his screen tests for the part, Brando can be seen stuffing his mouth to produce the exaggerated mouth and jaw of a bulldog. At first, people didnt quite know what to make of it but he continued to play around with the concept, and a very special character started to emerge. The director, Francis Ford Coppola, then showed the movie producers the screen test, and they decided to give Brando the part. You have to bear in mind that Brando was only in his forties when he played this part, but managed to convince us that he was in his seventies. He brought a very unique take on the character, in part due to his animal approach. In doing this exercise, first start by finding an animal that you think is similar to the character you are playing. It must be a wild animal. Im afraid it cant be little ‘Tibby’ the cat at home. Wild animals have a different feel to them. Also, veer away from birds and cold-blooded animals such as reptiles. Once youve picked your animal, study it in detail. Go and watch the animal at the zoo if you can. Once you have studied its movement, try and recreate this at home. Once you have created and practiced the animals physical movement, begin to humanize it; for example, if youre investigating a lion, you start on all fours and then you stand on two legs and begin to humanize the movement. Begin to walk around and experiment with the physicality of the animal in human form. To begin with, you may feel a bit strange doing this, but let me assure you, this exercise has been used by some of the worlds greatest actors. youtube/watch?v=MmejaHqqgOw youtube/watch?v=-0OPtfm5sOc
Posted on: Wed, 07 May 2014 04:24:34 +0000
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