Acting
What is acting?
Impersonation - pretense
 Embodiment (including voice)
 “the aspect of filmmaking over which
directors have the least control” (196)
 Seemingly intuitive or natural, but actually
calculated and contrived

How do we distinguish
between the actor
and the acting?
Four key types of actors:
Actors who maintain a single persona from
role to role (personality or type actors)
 Actors who deliberately thwart
expectations (actors cast against type)
 Actors who are different in every role
(chameleon actors)
 Cameo actors – those from other
professions who add verisimilitude

The more famous or
‘exposed’ an actor is,
the harder the actor
must work to be seen as
anything but a
personality actor.
In Courage Under Fire, casting
helped shape the audience’s
expectations. How would you
categorize these actors in the film?
Denzel Washington
 Meg Ryan
 Lou Diamond Phillips
 Matt Damon

A personality actor. . .
Harrison Ford
 “Everyman”
 Embattled hero
 Tough loner
 Action hero
manqué
Personality actors are often boxoffice favorites, but not wellregarded for their acting ability.
Clint Eastwood
 Tom Cruise
 Angelina Jolie
 Jennifer Aniston
 Keira Knightley
 Jack Nicholson
 Seth Rogen

An actor cast against type
Charlize Theron
 Usually cast as a
glamorous blonde
beauty
 In Monster (dir. Patty
Jenkins, 2003) she
was cast as an
unattractive, streetwalking prostitute and
serial murderer
Chameleons are considered the
most accomplished actors because
their work requires craft. They are
often ordinary-looking.
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Robert de Niro
Gene Hackman
Philip Michael Hoffman
Laura Linney
Edward Norton
Nicole Kidman
William H. Macy
A chameleon actor. . .
Johnny Depp
 Pirate
 Historical figure
 Fantasy figure
 Action hero
 Mentally unbalanced
brother
 Drug kingpin
A cameo actor. . .
This shot from Forrest Gump includes John F. Kennedy,
who died three decades before the movie was made.
 Sometimes a living person
 Sometimes appears as self – or as someone else
 May or may not be credited
 Sometimes a historical figure (with special effects)
Screen acting has
changed over time.
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The first film actors
used stage
techniques, which
were often broader
and more exaggerated
than we accept today
(“canned theatre”;
Sarah Bernhardt at
right).
Watch a short video of
“The Great Sarah” as
Queen Elizabeth I
Acting gradually became more
naturalistic as films evolved.

Acting became more
naturalistic during the
silent-film period
(Lillian Gish at right;
video from Broken
Blossoms)
The development of sound had a
profound effect on film acting.

Early cameras were
noisy and had to be
encased in bulky
soundproof “blimps”
(see box around
camera at right)

This restricted the area
within which actors
were able to move
Singin’ in the Rain dramatizes the
transition from silent films to talkies
– and the casualties.
It celebrates a median point in film – between b/w
silent films, the technicolor revolution/studio
system, and present-day naturalistic films.
To get a sense of what silent movies are
like, you can watch an early silent movie
that is now in the public domain.
Charlie Chaplin in
“The Gold Rush”
In the classical studio era,
movie stars became prominent

The movie star embodied
– A studio-created image, because the actor
was “owned” by the studio who had them
under contract
– The social and cultural assumptions of the
period
– A paradoxical combination of ordinariness and
god-like fame and power
The studio/star system
(1930s-1960s)
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Gave studios complete
control over actors, the
power to rename, to
define “type,” to
determine roles, and to
refuse parts.
Dominated the movie
industry until it collapsed
in the 1960s, when movie
stars became “free
agents” with more
independence, but less
job security
Studio acting was succeeded by
method acting in the 1960s.
Developed by Konstantin Stanislavsky (director
of Moscow Art Theatre, 1890s onwards)
 Influenced the silent directors of the 1920s in
Russia and US
 Pudovkin’s book Film Acting (1935) codified
Stanislavsky’s ideas.
 Method acting was later taught by Stella Adler, a
famous acting teacher at NYC’s Actor’s Studio.

Assignment
-Students will pick a monologue
 -It will need to be a minute in length
 -They will begin memorizing
 -They will present it in 4 days
 -They will need to hold on to said
monologue
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Constantine
Stanislavski
Constantine Stanislavski
• Born in Moscow, Russia in 1863.
• An actor and moved on to become a director
and teacher.
• He developed a new approach to acting.
• It took years of experimenting to get to what
is now known as the Stanislavski System.
Stanislavski's System
• As an actor, Stanislavski saw a
lot of bad acting - what he
termed as artificial.
• He wanted actors to work on
characters from the inside
(instead of the outside) and
thus create more of a "true" or
"real" (i.e. not artificial)
performance.
What is it?
•
The Stanislavski System is
an intense character
development process that
strives to make a
performance "real" and
not artificial by:
•
1. Bringing an actor's
experiences into the role.
2. Expanding an actor's
imaginations.
•
Cont’…
• Stanislavski believed that in order
to make a character true, the
character must be approached
from the inside. That means
drawing on the real inside life of
the actor, most specifically
drawing on memories. The actor
also has to create the inside life
of the character: the character
has to have inner thought, back
story, beliefs, and so on, just as a
real person does. When the actor
answers questions about the
character, they should speak in
the first person. "I am..." "I
want..."
5 ELEMENTS OF ACTOR
PREPARTATION
RELAXATION
Learning to relax the muscles
and eliminate physical
tension while performing.
CONCENTRATION
Learning to think like an
actor and to respond to
one’s own imagination.
OBSERVATION
Discovering the sensory base of the
work: learning to memorize and
recall sensations, often called
“sense memory” and /or “affective
memory”; learning to work from a
small sensation and expand it, a
technique Stanislavski called
“spheres of attention”.
COMMUNICATION
Developing the ability to
interact with other
performers spontaneously,
and with an audience,
without violating the world
of the play.
IMAGINATION
• The more fertile the actor’s
imagination, the more
interesting would be the
choices made in terms of
objectives, physical action
and creating the given
circumstances around the
character.
• There is no such thing as
actually on the stage. Art is
a product of the
imagination, as the work of
a dramatist should be. The
aim of the actor should be
to use his technique to turn
the play into a theatrical
reality. In this process the
imagination plays by far
the greatest part.
The System
a)
b)
c)
d)
To achieve a normal living state….an actor
has to be
Physically free, in control of free muscles
Attention must be alert
Must be able to listen & observe on stage as in real
life, be in contact with the person playing opposite
him/her
Must believe in everything that is happening on
stage that is related to the play
(1) ACTION
• Everything that happens on the stage must
happen for a PURPOSE
• On stage you must act WITH A PURPOSE
(2) The MAGIC “IF”
• In working on a role you should ask yourself; What would I do
if I was in this situation?” The magic “if” acts as a lever, lifting
us from the plane of reality into the world where it is possible
to create the world of imagination
• “AS IF” doesn’t ask you to believe something is real you all
know it isn’t – You simply act AS IF you were in those
circumstances
• AS IF LEADS US TO ACTION
“What would happen if”...........
(3) GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES
• The “MAGIC IF” can only be sustained in the context
of “THE GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES”
• “The Given Circumstances” are the basis for an actor
& his/her role, created by the playwright, director,
designer & form the context for an actor to ask
“WHAT IF?”
(4) IMAGINATION
• The Actor needs imagination
• Before you speak any lines or do anything you need to know
•
•
•
•
WHO you are
WHERE you came from
WHY you are there
WHAT you want WHAT other people say about you
• Without this knowledge, you will be acting without your
imagination………
(5) CIRCLES OF ATTENTION
• Designed to help actors relax & focus on stage
• Actor’s attention on stage can be ‘scattered’ –
too aware of the audience
• “Public Solitude”
3 Different Circles
(6) UNITS
• Actors must break down a play into smaller
sections called UNITS
• How do you define a unit?
• Look for where a new action begins
• Find a title that captures the essence of each
unit
• For each unit ask yourself, “What happens
here?”
Look at some examples from a text…….
(7) OBJECTIVES
• In every unit there is a creative objective – a
purpose or goal
• Therefore you need to define your character’s
objective in each unit
• An objective should be believable & should
make you want to carry it out
• Every physical action contains a psychological
element
(8) EMOTION MEMORY
• Our own lives offer a rich store of experiences,
memories, observations & insights
• Actors need a broad point of view to interpret
different plays & create the life of people from
different places & times
• Nobody has sufficient material for all roles, so you
must observe other people closely…observe & draw
on your past emotional experiences
(9) COMMUNION
• Actors sometimes don’t listen to their partner in a
scene; they switch off & wait for their cue
• Stanislavski always maintained that if actors want to
hold the audience’s attention, they must concentrate
on uninterrupted exchange of thoughts & feelings
with other actors
• If your feelings are conveyed to the other actors &
affect them – the audience will be carried away – if
they can’t reach your partner standing next to you,
they won’t reach the audience
(10) SUPEROBJECTIVE
- The Ruling Idea
• As you create your character’s objectives, you can
begin to get a sense of an overall goal – a line
running through the play – a superobjective
• “I want to kill the king” or “I want to make her love
me” the ruling idea of the play
• When you have found the superobjective it acts like
a magnet as all the other objectives fall into place.
THIS IS THE CRUX OF THE SYSTEM
Method acting emphasizes
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Natural-seeming – lifelike - acting
– Method actors learn to identify with their characters
and to develop “back story” and “motivation” ideas
– Method actors often study real-life people to get a
better sense of how to portray characters
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Collaboration between actors and directors
(rather than directors calling all the shots)
 Improvisation to enrich the film – deviating from
the script when appropriate
 The use of expressive objects to indicate
character and convey emotion
Method acting is still practiced, but
is often combined with other styles
of acting.
Some directors counsel actors to “think,
don’t feel”
 Other directors encourage actors to feel
and encourage spontaneity
 Some actors are encouraged to invite the
audience’s participation by restraining
their emotions.
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Issues in casting
Casting decisions traditionally reflect
culturally widespread prejudices about
subordinate groups – everybody but ablebodied white men.
 Race
 Gender
 Age
 Ability
How casting works
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Casting professionals or agencies are hired to find
appropriate actors
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Actors are usually represented by agents and belong to a
union that ensures they are paid fairly (SAG, the Screen
Actors’ Guild.)
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Well-known actors read scripts and negotiate with
directors and producers to determine whether they are
interested in a film.
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Less-well-known actors take screen tests. Here is an
early, hilarious screen test of actors James Dean and
Paul Newman.
Types of roles include
Major roles – hero, heroine, villain
 Minor roles (in descending importance)
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– Character actor
– Walk-on or bit player
– Cameos
– Animal and infant players
– Extras
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Stand-ins and stunt-workers, wranglers
and handlers, and body-doubles
Styles of acting

Naturalistic (method). Think of Johnny
Depp as J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan,
in the historical film Neverland.
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Non-naturalistic (expressionist) – involving
the alienation effect. Think of Johnny
Depp in Edward Scissorhands.
Improvisatory acting
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Can occur spontaneously, or be decided on as a
strategy by director and actors. Or both!
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Barsam cites the “You talkin’ to me?” segment
from Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1973) as an
example. There was no scripted
dialogue/monologue for this scene; De Niro –
who is a famous proponent of method acting improvised.
Framing, composition, lighting,
and the long take all affect the
audience’s perception of an
actor’s performance.
Framing and composition can
separate actors or keep them
together in a shot.
Here the actors are separated in the frame
(in depth and in length from each other).
Barsam suggests we use the following
criteria to evaluate an actor’s performance:
Appropriateness; naturalness
 Inherent thoughtfulness, emotionality
 Expressive coherence
 Wholeness, unity
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Screening checklist: ACTING
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Why was this actor chosen and not another?
Does the performance create a coherent, unified character?
Does the actor look appropriate for the part?
Does the actor’s performance convey actions, thoughts, and
complexities in a way that is appropriate to the film?
What elements are most distinctive about the actor’s performance?
What special qualities has the actor brought to the performance?
How is the actor’s performance interwoven with the filmmaker’s
overall vision?
Is the actor’s performance logical?
To what extent do we get tricked into thinking we’re watching real
life?
(Barsam 235)