How to Stop Acting 1 TAKING IT OFF THE PAGE "I''m basically a shy person, and I can get as shy in front of a character that I have been hired to inhabit as I can in front of an actual breathing human being. A lot of what we worked on when we first got together was getting through my shyness in relationship to the character whose words had to come out of my mouth."   --Glenn Close           A ctors come to me for all sorts of reasons, at every stage of their careers. Matt Dillon came to me for the first time with a stack of research he''d done for his role in Drugstore Cowboy. Christopher Reeve came at a low point, showing the courage to rediscover himself in his work. James Gandolfini continued to examine Tony Soprano with me in The Sopranos'' second and third seasons, after a hugely successful first year. Glenn Close came because of a problem with auditioning. Glenn says: You have to force yourself to get through that barrier of shyness--to force the words out, to speak them--so you can slowly start getting beyond that and into the character.

That kind of training has stood me in great stead. You find yourself on a movie set doing a scene and you know you''re not there. At that moment,I have learned to say, "Don''t lose courage. Just keep leaping out there. Be able to make a fool of yourself." And because you''ve not gotten frightened, and you haven''t retreated from the moment, if you persevere, you''ll find it. I think those early days of me sitting in your living room and forcing myself to say words that I had no idea how to say--getting them out, flinging them out, throwing them out--was like breaking some sort of sound barrier, giving me freedom on the other side. In the conventional view, the actor''s work on the character begins with his reading the script for himself and then talking about the character and text with the director.

The problem with this approach is that from the beginning of the process it places the actor outside the script, and outside the character. And being outside the script and the character means that the actor is fundamentally outside himself --outside of the instinct, feelings, imagination, and fantasy life necessary to conceive the character creatively. He may arrive at an extremely sophisticated understanding of the character that nevertheless leaves him utterly confused about how to put his analysis into action. That is because reading the script is an intellectual process that inevitably leads the actor to approach both character and script as we have been taught in school--in an analytical way. Whether it''s Stanislavskian analysis or some sort of literary analysis, it leads the actor to think about the character rather than instinctively to try out different possibilities for the character. In fact, analysis tends to make the actor afraid of trusting his instinct. It leads to doubts about whether his mind is crisp enough to grasp quickly enough the character''s central needs in life or his desires in a particular scene, as Stanislavski instructs. Analysis weakens the actor.

Glenn Close, one of the most intelligent actors I know, told me, "I don''t pride myself on being able to read a script really well.There are some people who can sit down and really analyze it and get its full value immediately, but it takes me a while." Analysis is not really what actors are good at, although most really good actors are quite smart. It should be left to literary scholars and critics. Actors are about feelings, imagination, and improvisation. They are good at becoming other people. Their instinct is their talent. The more they trust their instinct, the more inspired and inspiring their performances become.

That is when they surprise us, even startle us. That is what the audience goes to see. It''s not that intellect is unimportant. It''s just not where the actor''s work starts. I believe that it''s not until the actor is actually verbalizing the words of the character that his real work in acting begins. No matter how experienced or inexperienced he is, the most important thing for him to do is to connect himself to the text--to the dialogue, to the words. At that moment, he has connected himself to the character in a real way--even a physical way, as the words come out of his mouth. If he is able truly to speak the character''s dialogue, rather than to read or recite it, he is in fact inside the character''s head.

He will feel free with the dialogue and the choices it provokes. His fear of finding the character will diminish. If he can be in the moment, in the script, and in himself at the same time--floating with the line--his instincts and the script will take him where he needs to go. If the actor can connect in a personal and instinctive way to the words his character speaks, moment by moment, at the very outset of his work, then he will begin his exploration from within the character . The actor has to start from his visceral response to the material. This is why he must reject intellectual choices at the beginning of his work. He must allow himself to be in an exploratory state, unsure of what he is going to do; this forces him to trust his initial responses to the dialogue, regardless of how absurd or contrary they may seem. If he is analytical, his intellect will stifle these reactions.

But the moment when the words must come out of the actor''s mouth is always the most fearful, as Glenn Close so vividly describes. It''s the ultimate showdown. And because it is so daunting, the actor does what he can to avoid or postpone it, even when he says the words aloud. Each time he picks up a new script and starts to read it out loud, he is tempted to "make it real." By real, he inevitably means conversational or natural or casual. If the actor is a quick study and what is considered in the business a "good reader," he will make the dialogue sound as if it''s real even while he has his nose buried in the text. That seems like the smart thing to do. The problem is, it''s a useless thing to do because the actor is approximating, no matter how deftly, a realistic line reading--that is, how the dialogue might go.

And in the process, he is establishing rhythms and choices he doesn''t even know he wants. He''s imitating the way he thinks it should go, and before long he may find himself stuck in those line readings and those choices without being aware of it. At best, he''ll have to break the pattern in order to feel free and to find fresh responses, real responses. When an actor comes to work with me, I want real, fresh responses from the beginning. So whether he''s a seasoned actor taking on his umpteenth major role, or a young actor just starting out, we begin the same way. We go back to the barre, like a ballet dancer, starting from zero with a simple but effective exercise that allows the actor to discover or rediscover the foundation of acting through the text, with no preconceptions of how to play the role. I call this process taking it off the page . Here''s how it works: The actor looks down at the phrase and breathes in and out while he reads the words to himself, giving himself time to let the phrase into his head.

Then he looks up from the page and says the line, no longer reading but speaking. Taking your time to breathe in and out while you look down atthe page to read the phrase for yourself allows you to access whatever unconscious thoughts or images it evokes. It doesn''t matter what comes up--however trivial, simple, deep, or apparently unrelated it is--as long as it is your actual response at the time, and not what you think is appropriate. The point is to let the dialogue bounce around in your unconscious, a bit like in the Freudian concept of word association in which the psychoanalyst says a word and the patient responds with whatever word comes to mind, before he can censor it. The actor is accessing his unconscious self, surprising himself with his unconscious response, in much the same way. As soon as you exhale, say the phrase before you have a chance to censor whatever thought or feeling surfaces. Don''t deaden the line by trying to be sincere. Just say what you mean, no matter how startling, stupid, frightening, funny, touching, irreverent, or boring.

Exhaling before you speak ensures that it is your own voice that you are using, not a phony, artificially projected actor''s voice. It is the way we all speak when we are not acting. Once the feeling has surfaced and been expressed, feel free to drop it so that the next line can take you to a new place. Actors often hold on to a feeling or thought that''s working, out of fear that they''ll have nothing else to replace it that will be as good. But the truth is, holding on to the thought or feeling evoked by one line limits the possible range of responses the next line can elicit; letting go leaves room for something new to arise. That''s what exploration is all about. Often actors are afraid they won''t have a feeling for the writer''s line. And sometimes the honest response to a line is, I don''t feel or think anything.

If so, that''s what you must say--with the writer''s words. Surprisingly, that response is as good and useful as any other. That''s because it is a truthful response. In real life, we often don''t know what we feel or think, or whether we have a responseat all. It takes courage to admit to yourself that you don''t really have any feelings about something. Even more courage is needed to avoid manufacturing a false feeling to.