Hey everyone,
Today’s topic is another question I frequently get: What are people saying when they say “method?” What is a “method actor?”
People don’t know what they’re saying when they say “method” anymore because it has no cohesive, generic meaning anymore. The Method has been so misinterpreted by so many different people over the last 80 to 90 years, and everyone has offshoots and variations.
With the Meisner Technique…ever since Sandy passed, there has become a proliferation of Meisner teachers around the world because the books came out and the DVD’s came out, there’s YouTube. People watch this stuff and then they go teaching! I literally get emails from people saying, “I’m going to start teaching Meisner. I bought this book and I bought this book. What do you think, do you have any advice?”
First of all, those books are incomplete. One of the more well known books – the author didn’t even study with Sandy and he wrote a book on the Meisner Technique. It’s crazy. So even Sandy’s way is getting watered down and diluted. There are teachers in the Bay Area that are teaching Meisner and when people come to us who’ve studied with them, I’m thinking, “What did they do? Where did they study?” They’re given second year exercises in the first session. Information is presented out of order. So it’s not just “method” that’s been diluted. But back to the question…
When people think of method, what they really think of is that you live the part. That’s the stereotype – that you live the part, that you stay in character. If you have to play a bum, you go spend some time as a bum. Or if you have to be a drug addict (and you really shouldn’t be getting into drugs but some people have taken it to that extreme), but that you go do all this research.
Sandy once said to all of us, “You’re more method actors than most method actors.” Our graduates certainly know what I mean by that and those of you early in the training, it won’t make sense to you yet. Someday you’ll look back on this and you’ll realize how important it is to earn the right to speak these words and the work that you have to do when a role is very foreign to you. You have to do a tremendous amount of work that would be considered “method.”
 
I HAVE A GIFT FOR YOU
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ANOTHER GIFT FOR YOU
When you register today I’ll also send you the link to my Q&A Webinar that was held a few weeks back. This hour long video Webinar was a wonderful exchange between myself and dozens from our Artistic Family members so I hope you’ll enjoy the information as much as I enjoyed sharing it.
Ok, see you next Wednesday so until then my very best to you,
Jim