Observation, Imitation, and the Novice Actor
Recently, a student asked this question:
What is a good movie that will enhance my acting skills?
Here is my response to the question:
There are some great BBC films about Shakespearean acting done by the Royal Shakespeare Company. There are few out there on Stanislavsky and The Method, but they are harder to come by. If you were looking for a commercial film (movie theatre/Hollywood), there is none that I would recommend to you. Those films aren't about acting; they are about story lines, characters, and situations. They can be used, however, for character development study. Considering your beginning level, I would recommend reading some books on the theories of acting; that way, when you do watch other actors on the big screen, you can identify the techniques employed by them rather than just imitating a particular actor. Also, if you have cable TV, you should look for the stations "Ovation" or "A&E" because they show interviews of actor talking about their roles (The Actor's Studio), documentaries about the making of a particular play or actor’s life, and broadcast actual live theatre productions.
Whenever I get this question, my first reaction is plain annoyance. (Yes, I go there first in most cases, but it stays in my head…for the most part.) As my thoughts power down and the rational takes over, I remind myself that this particular student does not know my long and turbulent history with this question (and its various guises). You might wonder, “Why get upset? It is a valid question.” It is a valid question, but it also points to a strongly held myth among novice actors that if they watch this actor or that actress they will pick up, take on, and act-like their favorite artist and thus become marketable and successful. Oh, I appreciate and have artists who influenced my work as a director, playwright, actress, and professor, but there is a difference between influence and pure copycatting of style. What they don’t get is that watching an actor in movie without knowing acting theory leads to mirror imitations of that film actor’s performance? And always, the fall out is in my classroom! I recently had four students perform Heath Ledger’s version of "Joker" all the same way, and they thought they were great because they “…sound just like him and move the same way he did.” One student literally stated during the talk back that, "he took his tongue and licked the sides of his mouth this way, so I did the same." (Yeah, I was though! But I kept that in my head...somewhat.) They could not seem to gasp my dismay with their final performances. Then, they went onto claim the works (character development) as theirs and that they were original!
This topic always leads me to thinking; “Why don’t students understand that there is theory behind the craft of acting? Why do they think that just watching is enough, and that they just have to do what Denzel Washington or Merle Streep does to be a star?” In my teaching, I promote the idea that one of an actor’s tools is his/her ability to observe others. My Acting I students’ first assignment, for example, is a Character Observation; (after non-judgmental observation of a person, they perform what they saw actually as they saw it). But observing is just the first step! Novice actors are still learning to see and hear differently; they are learning their own bodies in new ways. Therefore, this assignment helps them to observe the obvious--the surface material. What he/she are unaware of is how to take his/her observational information and turn it into a character that is separate, believable, and independent from the source. This point is where the acting theory and the classroom/workshop training come in handy, and are vital to an actor/actress’s long-term success.
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