The Great Acting Blog: “Actors Need To Be So Much More”

The Great Acting Blog: “Actors Need To Be So Much More”

Doing research, I am struck by how, over the last couple of generations or so, so few actors offer insights about acting. Most of the great statements and key texts on acting have come from directors and playwrights and teachers. There is Simon Callow of course, but he is an exception which proves the rule.*

What can be the reasons for this reluctance to speak out? Fear could be one. Fear of analysing what they do too much, in case they may somehow lose the gift. Or quite possibly it’s a different kind of fear, a fear of taking a chance, of taking the lead and being shot at. Also, it is just not expected of actors anymore. Whereas the older generations of actors controlled their work, actors nowadays have lost the initiative, they leave it to the directors to define acting and provide insight.

What does this say about the actor’s role, and their place? I think it shows a lack of confidence among actors these days, which has probably been brought about by economic factors, that is, the struggle for work. Confidence is drained away by continually being treated as just another face in the crowd, by being treated with cynicism. The esteem among actors for what they do is collectively low. Few actors see themselves as artists, and consequently they see no need or lack the consciousness to deliver great truths about acting or define aesthetics.

An actor told me recently that most are just “grateful” for the chance to work. We need to be so much more than that.

*his book on Charles Laughton is a masterpiece, and one of the few actor’s biographies that deals with the actor as an artist.

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