Acting and Actuality
The ‘Method’ Acting and
the British Acting Tradition
Table of Contents
1) Realist Acting
2) The Method Acting
3) The British Tradition
Realism Acting
• Performance > visual elements (appearance,
gestures, facial expressions) and sound
(voice, effects)
• Good performance = Realistic performance
• Bad performance = Unrealistic performance
• Mimetic performance – historical and
relative
The Method Acting
• The Performance style and the training
system widely accepted in New York theatre
circle in the 1950s.
• Especially in the Actor's Studio
The Method Acting
• The Actor’s Studio, 432 West 44th Street, New York
The Method Acting
• 'The Method' or 'the
System', an offshoot
of a system of training
actors and rehearsing
which was developed
by Constantin
Stanislavski at the
Moscow Art Theatre
The Method Acting
• ‘Affective Memory’
• To portray a character’s
emotions, the actor is
required to recall the
moment in their lives when
they felt the relevant or
similar emotions.
• Train the actor to work
from within
The Method Acting
• Belief:
• Truth in acting can only
be achieved by
exploring a character's
inner spirit, which must
be fused with the actor's
own emotions
The Method Acting
• The Actor’s Studio at 432 West 44th Street, NY
• Founded by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, and
Robert Lewis
• Intended to teach a refined version of ‘method
acting’ developed by the Group Theatre in the
30s.
The Method Acting
• The Group Theatre founded in 1931 by Lee
Strasberg, Harold Clurman, and Cheryl Crawford
in New York
The Method Acting
• Lee Strasburg took over the Studio in
1952
• The ‘Strasburg’ Method - to prepare an
artist to feel and express the emotional
subtexts of scripts
• Emotional Recall
The Method Acting
• Edward Albee, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer,
Tennessee Williams (writers)
• Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, James Dean,
Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Harvey Keitel,
Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson,
Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Sidney Poitier (actors)
Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Sally Field,
Jane Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts
(actress)
The Method Acting
• Rebel without a
Cause (1955)
• Jim Stark is the new
kid in town. He has
been in trouble
elsewhere. Here he
also hopes to find
the true love he
doesn't get from his
middle-class family.
The Method
Acting
• On the Waterfront (1954)
• Terry Malloy dreams
about being a boxer, while
tending his pigeons and
running errands at the
docks for Johnny Friendly,
the corrupt boss of the
dockers union. Terry
witnesses a murder by two
of Johnny's thugs, and
later meets the dead man's
sister and feels responsible
for his death.
The British Tradition
• British acting traditions - mastery of
externals, based on close observation
• Exemplified by Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art, Bloomsbury, London
The British
Tradition
• Richard Attenborough,
Kenneth Branagh, Michael
Caine, Ralph Feinnes,
Albert Finney, John
Gielgud, Anthony Hopkins,
Trevor Howard, Glenda
Jackson, Ceila Johnson,
Mike Leigh, Vivian Leigh,
Roger Moore, Joe Orton,
Peter O’Toole, Harold
Pinter, Alan Rickman
Sir Lawrence Olivier
The British Tradition
• 'I do not search the character for parts that are
already in me, but go out and find the personality
I feel the author created. I hear remarks in the
street or in a shop and I retain them. You must
constantly observe: a walk, a limp, a run; how a
head inclines to one side when listening; the
twitch of an eyebrow; the hand that picks the
nose when it thinks no one is looking; the
mustache puller; the eyes that never look at you;
the nose that sniffs long after the cold has gone.'
The British Tradition
• He molded his characters like sculptor or
painter
• Makeup for Olivier: 'If you're wise, you
always take off the part with your makeup.'
• Mimicing dialects: 'I always go to endless
trouble to learn American accents, even for
small television parts. If it's north Michigan,
it's bloody well got to be north Michigan.'
The British Tradition
• Daniel Day-Lewis
(1957 - )
• British character
actor, known for
versatility in the roles
he play.
• Modern-day Olivier
but his range of roles
is even wider than the
master.
The British Tradition
• My Beautiful Laundrette
(1985)
• Plays a role of a disillusioned,
homosexual punk, who has a
relationship with a former
Pakistani classmate.
The British Tradition
• A Room with a View
(1985)
• Plays a role of a
upper-middle class
gentleman who is
intelligent but
emotionally tight.
The British Tradition
• Unbearable Lightness
of Being (1988)
• Plays a role of a young
womanizing doctor,
who grows more
conscious of the
oppressive political
situation in Prague.
The British Tradition
• My Left Foot (1989)
• He plays a role of
Christy Brown who is
spastic quadriplegic
born to a large Irish
family. He matures to
be a writer who writes
with his only
functional limb, his
left foot.
The British Tradition
• The Last of
Mohicans (1992)
• Plays a role of a
orphaned settler
adapted and raised
by the last of
Mohicans.
The British Tradition
• The Age of Innocence (1993)
• Plays a role of an American aristocrat already
engaged for marriage, who falls in love with his
cousin.
The British Tradition
• In the Name of Father (1993)
• Plays a role of an Northern Irish youth, who is
falsely accused of bombing a pub in England.
The British Tradition
• The Boxer (1997)
• Plays a role of a
former IRA activist
who is released
from prison and
opens a boxing
gym to train young
people.
The British Tradition
• Gangs of New York (2002)
• Plays a role of one of the first gangsters in
Manhattan.
The British Tradition
• There Will Be Blood (2009)
• Plays a role of a silver miner turned old man, who
ruthlessly quests for wealth in late 19th California
The British Tradition
• Nine (2009)
• In this musical-romance, he plays a role of Italian
film director who is tormented by lack of
inspiration and women.