How Real Is the Acting? Acting Coach Reviews Movie & TV Scenes | Vanity Fair
hi my name is Jay Goldenberg I’m an acting coach here in New York City every kind of profession has coaches why can’t an actor have a coach today we’ll be looking at the craft of acting from film and television Anchorman 2 Chuckwalla windy wore her wedding dress to the orgy Wendy wore her wedding dress to the orgy well it’s very funny but this is a parody based on the truth they’re making fun of it and I think it’s great but actors will make strange sounds and actors will explore the range of their voices you’re going
to hurt yourself physically and vocally if you don’t support your voice in the correct way what can happen is your vocal cords will start to rub against each other and that develops something called a vocal nodule and those are like little bumps on your vocal cords the sound that comes out of your mouth when you do that can possibly be like that or they’ll just be here that will come out but clearly your voice won’t be able to fully Express and go to where it needs to go to tell the story Chop Suey says choppy
Chop Suey Mickey Mouse shriek in pain as the bear trap severed his right leg so right there he’s doing a very effective exercise
them out it’s the same as doing that if I was going to continue I’d stretch them that way I’d stretch them this way friends I’ve never been able to cry as an actor so if I’m in a scene where I have to cry I cut a hole in my pocket take a pair of tweezers and just start pulling I have heard what someone say that they really pinch themselves really hard people go oh you should never do that you should never use those fake tears and all of that and part of me goes well maybe
you haven’t been on a set for 13 hours and done it 26 times that’s that’s hard and you’re tired I don’t necessarily blame the actor I don’t think he or she is wrong doing that let’s say I’ve just gotten bad news well all I do there is try and divide 232 by 13. and that’s how it’s done great soap opera acting tonight everybody class dismissed I’ve worked in soap operas a lot as a coach I think it is one of the most demanding jobs in the business unless you’re doing scenes underwater I think I think
on a soap are fine some pal experience you have absolutely I think it’s something you should draw from I do it in my teaching actually but the fun of that clip is how ridiculous it is Big Bang Theory I thought we’d start with some basic movement exercises you know get our bodies warmed up a little all right I just want you to relax and kind of move around in the space you know just do ever feels natural I’ve done exercises like that the purpose of the exercise is to Free Yourself is to be willing to
listen to your impulse and let your body just move and go with it without judgment and without caring about who’s looking at you or what’s happening around you when one is training it’s very important to have a movement teacher teach you how to relate to your physicality opening yourself up in all different ways to a scene physically vocally doing it over the top doing it as small as you can will help you discover all of the meat that there might be in the scene that you have not gotten or seen at all the office I’m
with the FBI think about this what is the most exciting thing that can happen on TV or in movies or in real life somebody’s a gun I love that it’s the antithesis of improv so instead of working with your partner you’re killing all of them okay you can’t just shoot everyone in the scene well if you hadn’t stopped the scene you would have seen where it was going okay what about the scene they set up boring no it wasn’t the main rule of improv is yes and but if if you kill someone it’s the end
of the scene you want to develop the story with the other people that are improvising whether it be one person or a group of people it’s also great training and staying in the moment you have to be Sopranos hey hey outstanding a case in point words are only words you just saw two actors have an entire conversation saying only a and the other responding B the beginning of the scene is actually an example of the beginning of a Meisner exercise done terribly because what they did was antithetical to what Meisner is about scenes aren’t really
about the words they’re about what is happening between myself and the other person that’s a beginning exercise and it’s really difficult it’s called repetition what happens is you start by the very fundamental beginning of it just repeating the same thing back and forth where I’m just dealing with you and your energy and what you’re giving to me and it doesn’t matter what’s coming out of my mouth because I could be saying to you what a nice shirt and what I’m saying is I hate your damn guts Mitch Christopher you want to give it a try
hey hey I must say I have been enacting exercises when a Meisner exercises going on and someone punches a hole in the wall and that’s not good you should never as an actor hurt yourself or anyone else or anything else in the space in a film called Kramer versus Kramer which is Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep Dustin Hoffman she picks up picks up a glass and throws it right to the side of her face and the glass breaks she never worked with him again you just don’t do that if that’s plan they actually make a
glass that’s a prop glass but this came out of nowhere he lost it it’s important for a teacher to be able to guide that and then to sometimes go let’s stop acting and personal therapy are very different things sorry hey this is a really good stretch for you try to access some rage you know okay why are you dancing with that guy Ken friend Sam I don’t care I don’t like it was embarrassing you look like a can you try it again and just like really nail me with the word really just come at me
you know it’s very disturbing to me actually both of them having their scripts in their hands to me indicates that they’re rushing the process and have had not enough time to explore and or rehearse it yet come on I no just come on come on please Sally just just I’m not capable when you come into an acting class they will be safe to fully explore the work and themselves as needed the acting teacher is in charge of the room the fact that he’s up there on stage with them and supporting her actions what he should
be doing is stopping or slowing down that process not supporting that intrusion La La Land I just thought um tell her I’ll call her back that scene breaks my heart she was fighting to stay in it yet she knew what was happening should I say that an actress should stay in it through that not necessarily you can say can we start again you have the right to do that I have a friend she did the audition and she wasn’t satisfied and they were about to say thank you and she said you know what I’d really
like to do this again and she nailed it and she got the part so sometimes you need to stand up for yourself and break the rules the thing that you have to continue to learn is not to take it personally it’s just part of the game Disaster Artist what line what a line I did not hit her it’s not true it’s I did not hit her I did not oh hi Mark what is line in a situation like that which I have done with a client is asked if I could leave the set with them
just start walking walking and walking my point was is that the scene go out of his brain and him just get into his body and present some people might respond to going up to the actor on the set and just having a private talk with them hey hey boss okay um maybe maybe just use this you know I think it’ll help you take your mind off Hey Hey listen listen what do you always say to me all right intensity show emotion throw it do something crazy use the bottle yes action I did not hit her
it’s not true it’s I did not hit her I did not oh hi Mark distraction of plastic bottle he didn’t act the scene he got the words but there was no acting going involved if you saw the physical throw it was kind of like that it was the destruction of it not the actual physical doing being the Ricardos but instead of playing the hands over the eyes guessing game Ricky just stands there he can’t understand why Lucy doesn’t notice he’s home any more than we can he stands there for a full beat and then another
and then merrily in a slightly exaggerated manner as we’ve heard him do a hundred times he says Lucy I’m home sing no one should know more about any character than the actor everybody else has not worked on a character like a good actor has the things she brings up and what has worked in the series or not worked in this series what makes sense or doesn’t make sense is right on the money for Ricky is funny hey loose let’s talk about it after lunch I’ve worked in this field my whole life I still learn from
great actors it still makes me so excited when I go and see a performance and I walk out going how did he do that how did she do that you just don’t go to the set the first day and boom you just learn your lines and it’s there and I don’t think people realize that it’s an incredible amount of work they have no idea foreign
