Michael Laskin Studio

We recently had two very special events at The Michael Laskin Studio: Ron Perlman came and spoke to my class about his artistic, professional, and personal journey as an actor.  And I also hosted an event called “The Actor and the Camera”, and our guest was the great cinematographer, director, and documentarian Haskell Wexler.  These two events were scheduled a few days apart, by necessity – not by choice.  But the unintended result was that we all got a mega-dose of inspiration in a concentrated intense burst.

Ron so eloquently said in my class, “You have to hold it right here”,  gesturing with great purpose to an aspirational spot just above his eyeline, and out toward the horizon.  He was referring to how we need to regard and approach our artistic lives. He recounted, seeing the great Irene Worth in “Sweet Bird of Youth” when he was a young actor – and getting absolutely nowhere in his career or artistic life. Her performance was for him, at that crucial juncture, a gigantic artistic peak; it inspired him to continue on. He said, “I knew that if I could have even a small part of what she accomplished that night, I’d crawl through whatever I needed to be able to effect people like that.”

And, as Haskell spoke of his incomparable career and work, there was an enthusiasm and genuine interest that many people half his age do not have.  He was engaged.  He was truly interested in what’s coming next.  He custom-tailored a presentation for us because he is still interested in what we are all attempting to do together. For a man nearing his 90th birthday, he was the most modern guy in the room.  His artistry is unquestioned, but his continued passion, curiosity, and engagement in artistic matters was an inspiration.

And, we need stay open to inspiration.  We must be reminded of what it was that made us so excited that we had to do this – despite all the nay-sayers who advised against it.  We need to remember our original impulse.  Becoming jaded and detached is an easy “go-to” place.  Don’t linger in that little cul-de-sac.

Ironically, I think now may be the best time to be an artist.  Go out into the world and try to do something “safe.”  A lot of the so-called safe choices don’t make much sense anymore in our changing world. Safe is so 2008; risk is now the rewardable virtue.

Last month I attended wedding anniversary party for my  sister and her husband, part of which was a ceremony where they renewed their marriage vows.  It’s one thing to know what’s in your heart, it’s quite another to publicly restate it in front of friends and family.  It clarifies, it distills, it leaves no doubt.  It was also very moving.

It occurred to me that as artists, it would be a good idea to renew our vows to ourselves; to declare what we are about, to restate our dedication, and our devotion to this pursuit we chose. This is a very difficult choice we have made, and it seems appropriate to renew that vow from time to time. Take a full measure of yourself – rededicate your passion, engagement, and focus.

I have certainly had many periods in my career when my dedication waned.  Being an artist is a wonderful thing in a vacuum, but the business part of being an actor was often fraught with compromises and disappointments.  Looking at my IMDB page, for example, shows a tangible record of work. But it doesn’t show the struggle.  From the outside looking in, it looks impressive. From the inside it was often a “war”: fighting to get that audition, losing jobs to those on the “lists”, hoping that the luck I saw bestowed on others would one day shine on me.  It’s a tough gig we have chosen, and it certainly can test your dedication.

Every so often the renewable option on our heart and soul comes up for review.  It’s at that juncture that we should formally renew our vows – to ourselves. So, put your stakes on the table again.  Remember your own “Irene Worth-moment”.  Reacquaint yourself with…..yourself.

We are the ultimate renewable resource.

One of the things I have tried to avoid in my class and coaching work is focusing on what I call the “how to” approach.  ”How to Cold Read.” “How to Book that Job!” “How to Get an Agent.”  I realize it’s not possible to totally avoid this, but I find that this line of thinking usually over-promises and under-delivers.  I have worked with actors who have taken audition classes, and developed a kind of skill at auditioning – but they are not yet actors. Their greatest fear should be actually booking that job, and discovering the enormous difference between a slick audition and being able to do your best work at 3 in the morning after you’ve been on the set for 14 hours.  ”We’ve got to get this shot – it’s late, c’mon let’s go!”  Certainly not the kind of “encouragement” one gets in any class.  The hand holding stops when the cameras are rolling, the money meter is ticking, and you have to do deliver your best work under adverse conditions. The smart ones understand this, and know there is more. Much more.

There are many resources with “how to” information for actors, and to be sure they can be useful on a very basic level.  And there is no shortage of people willing to take your hard-earned money to give you information that you could probably find by yourself. We’d all like to find the “magic bullet” – the one thing that will put us over the top and onto the next level.  In a business where there are very few true mentors for actors, there are many who traffic in information that sometimes proves to be useless.  The myth being sold is that if you just do these things (the things, by the way, you can only learn in our seminar or class), it will all open up to you. “Our one true method is the only way succeed”. Beware of false promises; if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

This is not to say that you will learn nothing.  You absolutely will – if only oppositionally.  And you will meet some interesting people.  But the reality is that you can do all these “how to” classes and still be basically nowhere.  In fact, you can probably count on it.  They are results-oriented in an endeavor that is by definition process-oriented. It’s ass-backwards as they used to say where I grew up.  The artistic path is rarely clear and linear. If you ask ten artists how they found their respective ways, you will most likely find ten different circuitous routes to “success” – however you define that.

Everyone who comes to me for classes and coaching is searching for answers, and for help.  They should, more appropriately, be searching for questions.  Good questions open up a real dialog. Good questions will help you become your own guide.  The answer is always within, no matter what acting process you favor. We all need outside guidance, even if it points us inward in our search.  And we all need a community of artists to share the journey with.  But only by asking good questions and searching within will you get past the “how to’s” to a deeper place.  If you want spoon-fed answers, the line starts over there. If you wish to become the answer yourself - the line starts within.

The desire to act is more than something we actors simply enjoy doing; it’s a hard-wired human impulse in everyone. We love transforming and becoming someone else entirely.  Just watch a 4 year old flying around the house with his Power Ranger helmet on.  He’s off on an adventure of the imagination. At some point in our development, this impulse is usually quashed. “Behave yourself!” “Stay out of trouble.”  ”Stop that!” “Line up in straight lines….two by two.” But, some of us are lucky – we somehow retain the sense of play and imaginative storytelling that is our birthright as humans.

And the theatre is the natural progression of this impulse.  It is quite simply a platform for highly organized play: with a literature, an accepted structure, universal rules, and a dogma all its own. That’s why theatre feels so right sometimes – it’s very close to the sense of transformative play that a child does naturally, unprompted.  The highest compliment you can receive in the theatre is that you completely disappeared. Your friends and family didn’t see you up there, they saw your character. Theatre acting is successfully transforming into someone else entirely.

Now, if you become successful enough at this you might decide that film and TV work is the next logical step in your progression.  That’s where the trouble sometimes begins.  You see, if theatre acting is the art of becoming someone else entirely, then film acting is the art of being exactly who you are. This is unfamiliar territory to some actors – particularly those “burdened” with formal training in the theatre. I count myself  among them. Many of us become actors because we are more comfortable being someone else; wearing someone else’s shoes and viewing the world through their prism. Like the 4 year old “Power Ranger”, it’s just more fun to be someone else.

In a very key way film acting goes directly against our wiring; our natural inclination to want to transform.  Transformative acting is not always a rewardable virtue in film – except for the very few who are allowed into that rarefied strata. They don’t want to see what you can become, they want to know who you are. Whether you like it or not, the camera shows who you are. And, it’s best to get on the journey to figuring that out.

To be sure, there is (and has always been) a rarefied group of actors who are given the opportunity to transform on film:  Daniel Day Lewis, Meryl Streep, Javier Bardem, Cate Blanchett, Johnny Depp, Anthony Quinn, Geoffrey Rush, Paul Muni, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Hopkins.  But the rest of us who are lucky enough to work in film and television usually play various versions of ourselves.  Film acting is, to some extent, the art of being exactly who you truly are.  Mate an indelible sense of self to a highly developed skill set, and you have the actor’s artistic “home run.”

Can Russell Brand or Seth Rogen play anything other than a version of themselves?  Perhaps not, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t wonderful actors in their own unique, personal, and non-traditional ways. They are just totally and fully themselves. They offer up themselves as the portal to imaginative storytelling. They don’t try to fit any particular mold.  They ARE the mold. Sounds easy….it is not. It’s brave.

Transforming has traditionally been thought to be what “great” acting is about.  Christian Bale in “The Fighter” gave an amazingly transformative performance that he was, rightfully, praised for. Actors are praised and the public is dazzled by transformative performances on film.  These performances are easy to love and to judge because the actor’s effort is clear and verifiable.

What about those actors who appear to be the same in every role – playing versions of themselves?  What about those actors whose work is less visible, less showy, less “actor-like”? Consider – Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Gary Cooper, Gene Hackman, Steve McQueen, Gary Grant, Spencer Tracey, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, etc. In the seeming sameness of their performances are also potent core qualities that draw us to them, make us love them, make us root for them.  They don’t transform…..they inform.  They offer up themselves and their world-view as the lens we all look through.  We know what they stand for.  They have a singular clarifying take on the world around them that becomes the weighty center around which the rest of the story revolves. This is not a lesser form of artistry, in fact it may be a higher form. And it is uniquely cinematic.

Can Jack Nicholson play King Lear?  Probably not. But, he’s the very best Jack Nicholson there is. There’s no one else like him. His life and his acting have merged. He, and others like him, inform us not by transforming but by being deeply personal.

We are in the season of tremendous opportunities and often-times tremendous disappointment. Pilot season brings out the very best and the very worst in us.  For those of you fortunate enough to be a part of this barely controlled madness, consider this: the very best hitters in baseball have a 70% failure rate at the plate. However they fully believe that they can hit the ball every time – and this is the key to their 30% success rate. How we deal with the inevitable high rate of failure (if you choose to call it that) in our business and artistic lives, informs how we relate to success.  Success is not just the absence of failure, it is attaining a continuous state of confidence based on belief in our talent, immersion in our work, and deep knowledge of who we are.  No one ever said being an artist was easy.  But nothing worth doing with passion requires any less.

We are dealing in the business of dreams. And dreams can easily become disappointments. How do you handle disappointment?  What do you do when the wave breaks against you? Does it take a day, a week, or a year to get over it?  There are those in our business (and in life) who wear their disappointment and defeat like a yoke around their neck.  ”I could have been a contender…..I could have been somebody.” Disappointment and defeat can become a place of comfort, always seeking new friends – misery loves company.  It’s a little like catching a cold you don’t want. My advice:  please be compassionate, but don’t allow yourself to get sucked into the narrative of defeat.

Minor case in point: I had been looking forward to my role in “Just Go With It” playing Adam Sandler’s father.  But I was essentially cut out of the film, and almost nothing of my work remains. Was I disappointed?  Absolutely.  I am entitled to be disappointed, but how long I let that fester is in my control. It took 20 minutes for me to get over it.  I can only control what is in my power to control.  The reality is that I had a great time on the film, made a fan of Adam (I am told), and will get quite nice residuals, thank you very much. Why should I be really disappointed?  My mother once said of me in my earlier days, “You would complain with a loaf of bread under each arm.”  I never forgot that, and really took it to heart.  I’m not dying in the streets of Tripoli, and it ain’t death or cancer – so get over it Michael!  I did, rather quickly.  But it took me about 25 years to learn this….

My teaching and coaching is totally  focused on strategies for success.  It’s antithetical to coach for disappointment – that’s like being sure the pre-nup is in order right before you get married.  Giving defeat too much space in your life can create a self-fulfilling prophesy, with disappointment always lurking around the corner.

We all have a “narrative” for our lives:

• I’m too fat
• I’m not smart enough
• No one takes me seriously
• I’m too old
• It’s never going to happen for me
• I’m not talented
• No one “gets” me
• I’m not good enough

What is your life’s narrative?  What part of your personal story is holding you back?  When we give these self-judgements too much credence we cut ourselves off at the knees.  Once we have definitively answered the talent question for ourselves, so much of success depends on your “head game”. The artist’s head-game is a delicate thing, yet it is often the defining quality that creates success.

And how you define success is key.  There is a race on to “make it” by a certain age.  With the youth-obsessed film and TV culture, we can certainly be excused if we buy into the myth of actors having a “sell by” date.

Are you in for a sprint, or are you in for a marathon?

“What was the feedback?”

• “It’s not going any further.”
• “Just not what they were looking for….”
• “They’re going off of lists.”
• “They loved you, but they went another way.”

This is the nature of things.  It’s designed to destroy your confidence.  And, if you let that happen – they win.  Keep working, keep exploring, decide that you are in for the long haul.  Find your circle of artists, and eventually that “other way” they go will lead them right to you.  The real you.  The one who needs to show up for your work and for your life.

I have become immersed in the auditioning world for film and TV – not so much as an actor (at the moment) but as a coach. It’s a maddeningly imperfect process that is basically a minefield for the actor.  I have come call this: “artistic speed-dating.”

In “speed-dating” everybody is there to meet someone, they are grouped into compatible age ranges, thus it is quick and very time-efficient. Because the matching itself happens after the event, people do not feel pressured to select or reject each other in person. Feedback is delayed as participants must wait a day or two for their results to come in.

Does this sound familiar?  This has exactly the same elements as a TV or film audition, and like those it also is a blink-of-an-eye assessment of your core qualities – your “personal fingerprint” as I like to call it.  Personal authenticity, and the ability to quickly connect on an indelible level are the elements of this transaction.  Add talent and fear into the mix and the picture is complete.

If you give an talented actor four weeks to rehearse a play – he will happily use it all.  If you give the same actor 10 days until opening night, he will also deliver in a shorter timespan. We do what is required in the time allowed. Long exploration sometimes has to give way to smart first instincts, and knowing what personal part of you immediately fits the role.  A dynamic first instinct is one clear definition of talent, and one that we often have to rely on when we are required to be better…..faster.  As artists, can we be better, faster?  I absolutely believe we can – and must.  In today’s film and TV marketplace it’s required. The wonderful indulgence of time is often in short supply.

I once had to step into a role in the play “La Ronde” at The Guthrie Theatre on one and a half day’s notice.  I was a member of the acting company, but was not in this production, and hadn’t seen it (nor been privy to any rehearsals).  I had forty pages of dialogue to believably deliver in front of paying customers in a major production at a very prestigious theatre – from the ground up, all in a day and a half. If I failed, my failure would have been quite public. It nearly killed me, but I did it. Fueled by fear.

When I coach an actor for a TV and film role, I ask him to immediately tell me two or three very strong core words that describe this character. We define a sense of place for the scene, we discover clues in the material, and we sometimes invent moments that are not even in the scene – whose purpose it is to change the rhythm of the audition room.  After they’ve seen the material six or seven times audition rooms tend to develop a rhythm – and one great thing you can do is to dynamically change that rhythm. Warren Spahn, the greatest left-handed pitcher in the history of baseball said this:  ”Hitting is timing.  Pitching is upsetting timing.”  I think it applies to our work acting in offices.  Change the room.  Find something no one else will find in the scene. Make it personal.  Make it better….faster.

Talent, strategy, emotional intelligence, and love of the opportunity all help us be better, faster. By the way, I mean faster to the key truth, not faster in the room.  You have a hot two minutes, and use it all.  It’s fun, it’s a chance to work, and so do what is required in the time allowed.

Artistic speed-dating – a shorter (sometimes better) way to the truth of you, the scene, and the auditioning minefield.

An old and dear friend, who I think reads this blog, told me a story about his bar-mitzvah that I love, and find both funny and educational. I interpret this tale as the genesis of his leading a life in search of spiritual enlightenment….elsewhere.

It went like this:  As a thirteen-year-old about to have his bar-mitzvah he had observed (and been fascinated by) the special time near the end of the ceremony where the rabbi whispers something quietly to the thirteen year old boy or girl – a special message that no one else could hear.  My friend, thinking the secret of life was about to be imparted to him, was waiting for his whispered moment.  It finally came.  The ceremony was nearly finished, he had worked hard and performed wonderfully, and the rabbi approached him. “This is it!”, he thought. The rabbi leaned in quietly, and with great import, whispered to my friend the words he was waiting to hear – “Good luck.”  The young man was stunned. Good LUCK? That’s it?  Good luck?  To say my friend was hugely disillusioned would be an understatement. Lots of hard work and spiritual investment for….good luck? This is the secret of life?  He certainly didn’t think so. This cosmic disappointment, it seems, propelled him toward a life seeking and searching for spiritual fulfillment elsewhere.

My friend was probably lucky that at age thirteen his disillusionment was so complete that he began a lifelong search for meaning.  He was hoping that the rabbi was going to be his guru – his spiritual guide.  If you are searching for a guru, you will eventually find him.  And he will find you.

When we train as artists, we all need guidance.  Attaining artistry is not a linear path where it’s always obvious what the next step should be. Everyone carves their own unique roadmap, and finding a guru along the way is sometimes part of that process.  Most gurus are talented and charismatic – or they wouldn’t become gurus, or be thought of as such.  There are many acting teachers who fit this profile, and some of them are wonderfully talented.  The pitfall, as I see it, is that our work sometimes becomes only about pleasing the guru, because of our need for validation.  We see our worth reflected in how the guru regards us. This is a dangerous place, particularly for the formative artist.  If one is fully developed and has a strong sense of self (and self knowledge) encounters with the guru can be amazing and revelatory.  But if the young artist is basing his or her worth on how the guru reacts and responds, this is an emotional and artistic cul-de-sac.  It can become a co-dependant relationship.

I have always firmly believed that the real guru in our lives is looking back at us in the mirror every morning – fresh, new, unsullied by the day.  Each day is an opportunity to shed the things you want to shed, to assume the new attributes you desire. We must do this; we must put in the time. We must pursue self-discovery, and lead an examined life – no matter what that may reveal. We must have the endurance and fortitude to keep at it and grow.  No one else can do that for us. Seeking this elsewhere will only work if you’ve already done the inner work within that must be done.

From my perspective the line between guru and mentor can be hard to recognize.  We need mentors, “cretative sherpas” as I like to call them.  But you need a certain level of maturity and self-awaremenss to deserve and benefit from a guru.  You need the inner fortitude to take from them what works for you, and discard the narcissism that sometimes is part of the package.

I don’t have the need to be validated by teaching.  I teach to try to validate others. I don’t mean that to sound sanctimonious, but that is my point of view as a teacher and coach; I get as much of a thrill from your success as my own.

Ironically, the advice my friend’s rabbi gave might ultimately be the best message any of us could receive. Good luck is a larger part of success than most of us are willing to admit.  My wish for you all is that you create your own unique creative roadmap, and that along the way you have an abundance of good luck.  It wouldn’t hurt.

The period of time between Thanksgiving and New Years is intense – particularly from mid-December on.  Parties. Drinking. Too much food. Too much family. Too……much.

Man invented the concept of time to bring order to a chaotic world, and thus created artificial markers of time: Thanksgiving, New Years, Fathers Day, The Super Bowl, the Fourth of July, etc. Periodically we just all need a break, so we create these little “islands of time” where we celebrate, reflect, and just chill.  That time period between Thanksgiving and New Years is sort of a large collective afternoon nap; restorative, yet we awake from it groggy. We embrace these artificially created periods of time to do things that are fun, miserable, pleasurable, fattening, and….intense.

Last night I hosted the first holiday party of The Michael Laskin Studio.  Students, coaching clients, significant others, assorted spouses, and friends-of-the-enterprise came over for food, music, conversation, drinks, and laughs.  In the midwest of my youth, we called this going over to someone’s house and “visiting.”  I am happy to report that face to face interacting; a retro concept in today’s Facebook world was alive and well in Studio City last night.

As I looked around and took it all in, I realized that this community of people did not exist in this particular way until I created it.  This was my doing.  And theirs.  And I also realized how much my life has been enriched by knowing them, working with them, and helping some of them create their own path towards artistry, a career, a dream.

Artists need to find their “tribe”: the film geeks, the singers, the theatre kids, the musicians, etc. It’s terribly exciting to discover those connections, that community, for the first time.  This “tribe” is definitely a significant part of my larger community.  I looked around and just smiled.  I had a great time simply enjoying the stew we had all put together.

Ours is not a solitary art form. Our is a hand-made art form that is only as strong as the weakest link.  The importance of community resonated last night. I had a blast, and took it all in.

The man-made island of time we like to call the “holidays” made it all possible.

At some hard-wired level in all of us, there is an original impulse to act.  You only have to watch children playing and pretending to be someone else  - a superhero, a fireman, a giant – to have this confirmed.  And, for most of us, that impulse either disappears or is greatly modified by being told to “behave.”  ”Don’t get dirty!”  ”Stay in straight lines, two by two.” You get the idea, and possibly even recall this on some conscious or subconscious level.

The impulse to act is hard-wired and seemingly evergreen.  In my classes and my coaching I see it all.  The young developing actors who are just beginning their journey, and the more seasoned pros who are trying to get back on the horse, to reconnect to the purity of that original impulse.

Most who are actors also have to do things that are not exactly what they trained for, or wished for. They wait tables, they do commercials and voiceovers, work in temp jobs, and accept acting jobs that are far less aspirational than had been envisioned. There is nothing wrong with good honest work, but we have to also work at retaining our passion in the face of taking care of the basic necessities of life: food, clothing, and shelter.

I once set straight a player in a major symphony orchestra who did nothing but complain about his job.  I said, “Listen, you are handsomely paid to do exactly what you were trained to do, in unadulterated conditions.  People pay to come and quietly and respectfully listen to you play.  You are not playing clubs or bars, you are not playing for bar-mitzvahs or on jingles.  You are playing great music at the highest level and paid very well for it.  Stop complaining!”

Complaining is a very bad habit – and I have been guilty of it in the past, so I speak from experience.  Talk to an unemployed actor, and you will hear complaining.  But if you want to hear REAL complaining, talk to an actor who has a job.  ”They have no idea what they are doing!”  ”The script sucks.”  ”They say they have no money, but look what they are spending on the costumes!”

Complaining only leads to a long-term lease in “fools paradise”.  And all of these detours take us away from that beautiful original impulse. I run two acting classes, and that is one place where you can reconnect with it. We all lose our way, and perhaps that’s just another part of the journey. But we also owe it to ourselves to seize the opportunity to reconnect with the thing that originally touched us and made us want to pursue such a difficult dream.  Dreams die hard, and unless they are fed, they fester.

Connect.  Reconnect.  Never lose hope, and  please don’t ignore your talent.

The common modern definition and usage of the word “amateur” describes someone who is unprofessional or unskilled at something. But the the meaning of the Latin word “amatore” (from which the word amateur is derived) is literally to be “a lover of”.  The words “amore”, “amorous” all describe and connote love.  So, to be a real amateur, in the original sense of the word, is to be a lover of something, a lover of a pursuit……

I recently attended a concert at The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.  Fearing bad traffic (which never materialized) we arrived a half an hour early and took our seats.  Thirty minutes before the concert was scheduled to start a violinist came out onstage and began warming up.  He was the lone solitary figure out there for around ten minutes before he was joined by other orchestra members slowly wandering in; everyone eventually creating the unique cacophony of sound only heard before classical concerts as the players warm up.  This older Russian violinist has been in the L.A. Philharmonic for over thirty years, and perhaps has played the violin for fifty years.  He has performed all over the world.   Yet he was the first one out there, warming up.  I was struck by his dedication, discipline, and sense of purpose. And I was moved by his need to begin anew; to know what is required to perform up to the standards he has set for himself.  His process was transparent – and fascinating.  I watched as he ran the scales, played small snippets of melodies, and often paused in thought before he launched the next creative thrust, meditatively repeating the preparation techniques he has used his whole life.

In contrast, as actors we present a finished product.  Our audiences see only the result, but rarely (if ever) the process – which takes place in the privacy of rehearsal rooms, movie location trailers, and on stages where there is no audience….yet.  They aren’t privy to our missteps along the way, but only to the finality of our work in collaboration with our peers. There seems to be a fascination about our process, which could explain the popularity of some of the end credits of films – where they show us the botched takes, the stars forgetting their lines and cracking up, or props breaking in their hands.  People love to see the process, no matter how messy. In fact, the messier the better.

But our process remains hidden, sometimes even from ourselves.  Ours is too often a results-oriented pursuit.  ”Did you get that part?” “How was the show tonight?” “Did you kill at your audition?” Sometimes the process gets lost, or not given enough oxygen. We become so focused on a particular result that we often lose sight of the fact that the process is, in fact, the roadmap to the result.

And we rarely get to expose our process to the disinfecting cleansing of sunlight.  Rather we prepare in private (sometimes in a vacuum), and then present the results publicly – always striving for our process to be seamless; invisible. But our violinist (on the other hand) was methodical, transparent, and calm. He was all about process, and the opportunity to watch him prepare was quite intimate, despite the fact that he was onstage in a major concert hall.  He could have just as easily been in his living room, wearing his slippers. As I watched my Russian friend patiently go through his paces I was moved.

And it also struck me that his skill is absolute and verifiable. There are accepted standards for what he does.  There is no middle ground, really. He can either play the Brahms violin concerto – as it should be played – or he can’t.  Above and beyond that, one can discuss artistic merits. But technically certain accepted benchmarks must be met. Without that, there is no art possible.

To quote Picasso: “The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it.  The more technique there is….the less there is.”

As actors our work is not really held to a verifiable standard. With acting there rarely is a technical benchmark that must be met, unless you are dealing with Shakepeare, Shaw,or Moliere.  So, it can be far more subjective – opinions being the “currency” of directors, audiences, teachers. But to become truly great still requires that dedication my Russian friend displayed.  It requires a dedication and a love of our work.  He loved being out there warming up.  You could see it clearly. He loved his ongoing ability to play at such a high level. He was an “amateur” in the true sense of the word….a lover of.  And being able to actually observe his process, gave a humanity to his art above and beyond his playing; his “result.”

He made it all look effortless – which is the ultimate sign of great technique.  For instance, I love to watch  the effortless quality of Fred Astaire dancing – his ability to appear brilliantly and stylishly weightless. But I sure would have loved to watch him rehearse; to work out his problems, find his way, figure things out.  I would have loved to see him sweat, literally.  His effortless artistry is the result of a process deeply mired in love of the pursuit, and a highly developed technique.

Technique can be the pathway to art.  And reclaiming the passion and love of the true “amateur” (in it’s classical definition) may be the key to the whole thing.

Here’s the old world order for actors: study acting, acquire experience in the theatre and on film, work your way up, network, get representation, wait for the phone to ring, stay engaged in ongoing classes, go on auditions, and work (or…not). And, hopefully, grow as an artist.

Most acting training in America was (and is) based on three main “oak trees”:  Lee Strasberg (The Actors Studio), Sanford Meisner, and Stella Adler, along with many other interesting branches and off-shoots of those trees.  All these methodologies germinated in the 1930′s as a general movement toward emotional truth, and as a reaction against the more presentational and artificial acting styles that preceded them.  Harold Clurman’s wonderful book “The Fervent Years” is a chronicle of the dynamic social/artistic “petri dish” called The Group Theatre – which gave birth to all three of these schools of actor training.  In general this kind of training focuses on helping the actor acquire the skills required to bring indelible truth to a performance.  Cinematically, “A Streetcar Named Desire” is a culmination of much of this work with the triumphant performances of Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter – all of whom were trained in the early days of The Actors Studio.

However, in my opinion, the important and undeniable legacy of all of this training is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Emotional truth and believable reality are simply the common currency of most professional film and TV acting as it functions today.  That doesn’t make it good by the way, it’s just establishes a baseline of emotional reality. So, there really is no overriding artificiality in today’s acting to rebel against.  To be sure, one can certainly (and should) rebel against acting that is unconnected, dull, boring, and dispassionate.  But, like it or not, virtually all of it is still based on a highly realistic style ushered in by those three schools of training. One has to go into “Nathan Lane-land” to find work that is overblown and out of proportion to the truth – although in his case, it is done with enormous skill, focus, and drive.  In fact, reality itself has become the new currency, with reality television grabbing lots of eyeballs across the bandwidth.

So, where does this leave the young actors of today?  As important a legacy as all that training leaves behind, it is increasingly less viable in today’s new world order for young actors.

Acting has changed in the last 50 years. Actor training has not.

The world has changed, our culture has changed.  And because many have a vested interest in preserving what they teach and revere as the one true way to emotional truth in acting, they are sometimes blind to these changes.  I have no dog in this fight by the way – I simply see the world around me.  I’m an acting agnostic. But I know great work when I see it, and have an appreciation for a wide range of excellence.  Great has always been great, and mediocre has always been mediocre no matter the era or venue.

In the early days of the Actors Studio they encouraged all actors to be in psychoanalysis, in an effort to unlock deep primary emotional experiences.  The older modalities of actor training are primarily focused on discovering and revealing emotional truth.  I recently saw on Youtube some newly discovered footage of a live TV broadcast from the 1950′s, with James Dean playing opposite Ronald Reagan – the yin and the yang of acting.  Dean’s performance looked tortured and mannered, in a way that simply didn’t “play” today.  And (I hate to admit this) Reagan actually played it straight, forceful, restrained, and came off quite well.  Go figure.  The tortured search for reality in Dean’s performance was out of touch with the rather lightweight vehicle he was in.  If you look at the work of Michael Caine for instance – a great actor not burdened with acting dogma – he always knows what film he is in.  Michael Caine moves effortlessly between very serious films like “Harry Brown” and the very light “Miss Congeniality.” And he’s wonderful and believable across the spectrum of styles.  No dogma here;  just great skill, taste, and judgement.

Psychoanalysis aside, who you are, in today’s world for actors, trumps what you can do every time.  We don’t have to like that or dislike that – it’s simply a truthful assessment, from my standpoint, of where we are today.  Can Seth Rogen play “Hamlet”?  Probably not.  But he’s the best Seth Rogen there is:  a triumph of personal identity over traditional skills.  Do I look down my nose at him because he’s not a “real actor?” Absolutely not.  I can’t do what he does.  In today’s world he is a real actor.

I work with a lot of young actors, and most of them come to me already possessing the ability to be emotionally truthful. Precisely because of the legacy of those schools of training, emotional truth has been built into many young actor’s DNA like software that simply comes loaded on a new computer. They get it. They have grown up with it.  In large part, they don’t need that kind of guidance in the same way that actors did 50 years ago.  As I said, the world has changed.

However they do need guidance in finding out who they are, what they stand for, what their core qualities are that can be read five seconds after they’ve entered the room.  Their “personal fingerprint” is where young actors need at least as much help as they do with traditional acting work.  The marketplace has lots of work for those in the 18 – 25 range, ironically an age when almost no one knows who they are.  I certainly didn’t. There is the paradox, and the opportunity.

Knowing who you are simply comes with age.  We become more of who we truly are as we shed the aspects of our personalities that are no longer needed or desirable.  The challenge is to jump-start the young artist on this path.  And the first step in that direction is awareness.  I do an exercise in my class with new students where I ask them to write a piece where every sentence begins with the phrase, “This is what I know….”  As their teacher, I want to know what they know, who they are at their core, and how they see the world.  This is the beginning of what I call the actor as a personal brand.

Strong brands have immediate recognizability and attached values:  Apple (“innovation”), Target (“cheap chic”), Rolex (“durability and value”).  People have also become brands that immediately bring an emotional response:  Oprah, Martha Stewart, Barack Obama, Dr. Phil,  Stephen Colbert. Actors can also fit into the personal brand matrix:  Tom Cruise, Woody Allen, Denis Leary, Will Smith, Jack Black – not to mention John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, etc.

Does this mean we sell our hearts and souls like one sells soap?  Absolutely not.  What it does mean is that being great at the work is not enough anymore. Who you are, trumps what you can do. I don’t have to like that fact, but in the new world order for actors today, that is the landscape they must navigate. If you can mate a high level of skill and artistry with an indelible sense of self – that becomes the “home run”.  Becoming a personal brand does not mean you are any less of an artist.  It only means that you are keenly aware of the power of self as the portal to artistry.