The art of acting, and especially shape-shifting, or character acting, is largely misunderstood and underappreciated by nonactors. Which is no surprise; theater is the most misunderstood of all the arts. The seven classical arts are architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance, theater, and poetry.
We know immediately that a musical instrument is hard to master, because it’s external to us. When we watch Itzhak Perlman play violin or Jimi Hendrix play electric guitar, we say, “Wow, that’s looks hard. I could never do that.” We see world-class ballet and say, “That’s obviously extremely difficult. No way.” Same thing for Michelangelo’s most well-known sculpture, “David” (also his architectural masterpiece the Piazza del Campidoglio), Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “Mona Lisa,” Handel’s “Messiah,” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Those are all hard to create.
Plenty Hard
There’s a reason that acting conservatories like Juilliard and the Yale School of Drama exist: It takes practice. The greatest stage actor of all time, Laurence Olivier, said acting takes 20 years to master. Or 10,000 hours, as author Malcolm Gladwell says, is the universal time it takes to master anything, in his book “Outliers.” The level of talent can shorten or lengthen that time, but either way—it takes a good, long effort.Laser Focus
Acting has been called “the ability to be private in public.”We can all walk around our apartments in our underwear. That’s easy. But put that same regular person onstage in front of a big audience or in front of a camera and movie crew (still in their underwear) with hundreds of lines of memorized dialogue to speak (in an Estuary [Southeast British] accent, let’s say) and hundreds of memorized blocking moves (choreographed directions on the stage or movie set), that need to be synced, timing-wise, with other actors, stage lighting, sound effects, and so on. Maybe throw in that the character must cry real tears while on the phone looking out the window (and maybe they’re also naked now, with people scrutinizing their body). And hit all the consonants enough to make speech intelligible to people in the back row (while standing with his or her back to the audience or microphone) while not sounding stilted. (And don’t forget the cardio fitness it takes to handle all that and not get winded.) That non-trained civilian I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph will freak out and completely forget how to walk and talk.
The ability to laser-focus the mind for extended periods of time is key for a variety of reasons, one which is that an audience will naturally vibrate and respond on a subconscious level to whatever is happening onstage. Which means that if your mind falters on that high wire that is the stage, and you look down and see the ground waaaay down there with no safety net—or as in this extended example, you realize that you are literally naked in front of a thousand people and become self-conscious—the entire audience will immediately become self-conscious and feel embarrassed for you.
And it’s not a one-way street. The audience communicates subconsciously as well, and a skilled actor must pick up on the energy and wants and needs of an audience, directing the subconscious to make new choices and emphasize news things each night to suit the personality of each audience. The collective of an audience is a palpable personality to an actor. This is especially the case when doing comedies; each audience will require slightly different timing on jokes to produce a laugh. This kind of timing is part of why it takes 10,000 hours to master. An actor has to fail, embarrassingly, over and over until the reactions to the audience become second nature.
But What About ...
The standard argument that attempts to counter the fact that acting and theater belong to the list of the seven great classical arts, and supports the idea that anybody can do it, is: “But what about those people they just take off a street corner with no prior experience and they’re brilliant?”Most of that is showbiz publicity spin. Woody Harrelson was declared an overnight success when he landed the television comedy hit “Cheers.” The publicity machine didn’t tell you that he'd been in New York 10 years prior, studying and auditioning. This myth feeds the American showbiz dream: Anybody can do it.
‘Playing Oneself’ as Opposed to ‘Character Acting’
One classic acting comment and myth that will never die is, “Oh he’s just playing himself—anybody can do that.” There are many different kinds of actors, and many different subcategories of talents and skills that come under the acting umbrella. Such as accents. Some actors can do them, some can’t. Most can. Same with impressions.But there are essentially two different types of actors: personality actors and character actors. Jack Nicholson is a prime example of a personality actor. Jack is always Jack, whether he’s a Marine Corps colonel, a psychotic writer, or a wannabe hippie hitching a ride on the back of a chopper. Jack does not do accents. Jack doesn’t shape-shift. You always know it’s Jack, and you'll watch Jack all day, because Jack’s the epitome of charismatic. But what Jack does is not easy.
Character Actor Versus Leading Man
In contrast to leading men and leading ladies, character actors as a showbiz and theatrical category are generally seen as less glamorous. A leading man or woman as a rule has the physical beauty needed to play the love interest; whereas a character actor typically does not. Some character actors are known for their unusual looks.
Character Acting
So what, then, is character acting? Some call it the quintessential acting experience; it’s the true definition of acting—disappearing so thoroughly into a role that the actor becomes unrecognizable to even friends and family. It’s to be able to believably play a role far removed from the comfort zone of the power alley.The classical understanding is that one becomes a character, as in you somehow rise up and become one with the great role of Hamlet; you magically morph into someone else’s soul. The modern view is that we have no other soul but our own, and our sensory organs produce responses in us that are uniquely ours. We all process the world differently. And so by putting ourselves in various situations we would never normally be in, such as wearing a humpback and walking with a limp à la Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” we are ourselves in that particular set of circumstances. Which is, in fact, a person no one has ever seen before. Thus, you bring the character down to you.
The truth lies somewhere in between. One the best descriptions of the process is in the excellent book “Year of the King,” by British theater acting great Antony Sher, about preparing for the lead in Shakespeare’s “Richard III.” In it, there’s a chapter about him preparing for “King Lear” as well. The Brit actors love to go to the zoo and pick out animals with similar character traits as the role they’re going to play, as part of their character development.
Since Sher was playing the Fool in “King Lear,” he picked the chimpanzee. Studied it for hours. He was happy to run into Michael Gambon (Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” movies), who was playing Lear, sitting in deep contemplation in front of the gorilla cage. As Sher says, it “all goes into the pot.” Sher was later delighted to discover that his Fool would emit high-pitched screams, swing from doorways, and waddle bowlegged across the stage with his hands high in the air. It’s very much like giving birth.
Character Acting in Film
Here are an actor and actress who pull it off well, along with two videos—a before (an interview of the actor as themselves) and an after—of them as the character.Tom Cruise is one of our underrated actors. “He’s too pretty to be good!” Actually, he’s highly talented and very funny, and one of the least vain of the supremely good-looking actors out there. It takes a lack of ego to be able to play ugly and to “take the hit” and play the fool. Check out his character acting in “Tropic Thunder;” he’s nearly unrecognizable. But first, Cruise as himself with Jimmy Fallon talking about movie stunts. Which Cruise tends to do himself. Let’s not dwell on the Scientology business at this time. That’s probably a legit topic for a different article.
And now pretty-boy Cruise as chubby, spectacle-wearing, bald, hairy-forearmed Len Grossman, a Jewish Hollywood movie exec with some hip-hop dance moves.
Charlize Theron in 2003’s “Monster” was a revelation. The stunningly beautiful Theron gained 30 pounds for the role that demonstrated to audiences that she was far more than just a pretty face. Theron’s weight gain for Aileen Wuornos, the real-life serial killer she portrayed, while it wasn’t quite in the same league of insanity as the 60 pounds that Robert De Niro gained for “Raging Bull,” showed how committed she was to the role, and to authenticity and integrity in her craft.
Theron in an interview:
And Charlize in the lead role in “Monster”:
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Acting Appreciation 101.
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