What Stops An Actor From Getting Into Character? by Mark W. Travis

mark let's talk about the interrogation let's talk about the beginnings of it how you begin to use it with an actor how you came up with the idea the interrogation process that I use with actors is not something I quote came up with it's something I literally discovered during a very long process I've been working as a director for 30 40 years something like that I lose track of how many years and it's one of those things that I look back over my career and I realize what I've been doing I didn't realize this until maybe 10 years ago what I've been doing I've been constantly in a process of experimentation and directing experimentation working with actors an experimentation that has headed the core a very simple question there must be a better way to do this there's got to be another way there are a lot of great ways of doing this now when you think about what we're doing which we talked about before we're all storytellers directors writers and actors are all storytellers and our goal as I see it is to tell stories as honestly truthfully openly and authentically as possible and at the center of these stories are characters so we want characters to be honest truthful and authentic characters not that the character is always telling the truth I don't mean that but we're presenting the character as honestly as we can and through the years going way back now I'm going back to Stanislavski which is the early 1900's he caused a great shift in this process of acting which you probably know about from quote presentational acting there was a book I had once in which I wish I could find I think I'd lost it it was actually a book that was written in the I think late 1800s that for actors showing all the positions that are active could hold to portray or relate an emotion to the audience and if you look at the early films the films was the ones before sound you can see this you know what this meant and this looks in other words and this book was a wonderful book as it showed all these it says this is how you do it this is how you act this is how you portray this and so that's presentational acting and what Stanislavski was doing in the early 1900's he asked a very simple question confound question he was struggling with the fact that in the Moscow Art Theatre they give a performance or he'd give a performance or the actors he's working with would give her performance and it would be powerful and the next night it wouldn't be there was no consistency sometimes it would be I feel I think and other times it feels really false and fake and so he was asking how can we stay closer to those powerful performances that feel real or even he is an actor when I feel like I'm really connected with the character so he did this very significant thing he shifted at that time there's a seismic shift let's take our mind off of acting and let's look at the character and let's talk about the character what the character wants what the character needs what's in the way of the character getting what he wants how he's trying to get what he wants let's look at what the character is doing and stop thinking about what I am doing as an actor or what the other actors are doing is act or how we think we should portray this let's try to understand the character that was the big shift instead boskie shifting to the character now this led to as you know the group theater and Harold Clurman Bobby Lewis Stella Adler Strasburg Sanford Meisner all the peoples in the group theater who studied a lot of them studying with Stanislavski went and learned from him and this changed the way theater was done in this country the way acting was done this gun became more realistic eventually became known as method acting but it was a focused point let's present real life real behavior rather than presentational behavior or acting by activating pretending pretending to be said to pretending to be angry can we actually do performances where that genuine emotion is is exhibited and felt within the actor and that's what happened and then Strasbourg and Strasbourg and Elia Kazan Elia Kazan I hope you know that he's the one that created the Actors Studio and eventually turned it over to Strasbourg who turned it into what he's turned in at that active studio and then Sanford Meisner who was also a member of the group theatre felt he felt there's a better way now he split off from that group Strasbourg went ahead and formed and reinforced the method acting the method acting which is the actor trying to stimulate those emotions from within himself based on his own life history sense memory experiences and seeing can I generate those genuine feelings Meisner said that's not what the folks primary focus should be Meisner said the focus needs to be on the other character on the event what is actually happening in the moment so that so that was a split that happened in the group theatre and so now we have the method for technique on this and then we have the Meisner technique which are different but they actually complement each other now I'm coming through theatre at the same time I actually studied I'm very happy to say this with some of these people I study with Harold Clurman Bobby Lewis Stella Adler a lot of people from the group theatre I did not study with Sanford Meisner I wish I had but I've studied a lot of his work and there's a great documentary out there by Sydney on the mice otech he follows sandra miser for a whole month through a whole class and so I've studied that so my pursuit was similar to this there's got to be another way not dismissing any of this but seeing these as stepping stones which I've done in my voice I've studied all this and I keep experimenting and there was about 10 8 10 years ago something hit me which was rather startling to me which was and I was actually in Amsterdam teaching at the Binger Institute at the time and that actors are dealing always always their pursuit is to try to become the character the director is helping everybody's helping trying to get the actor to become the character and the actor is dealing with certain obstacles enormous obstacles in that path but what hit me at one point was one of the biggest obstacles to be act of any actor to be able to do that was the act of themselves and ironically the intent to become a character gets in the way of becoming the character the intention the hard work of becoming the character will get in the way how can you become a character when all you're thinking about is becoming the character that is not what the character is thinking about it was really bizarre when I started to play with this idea when an Amsterdam I said and I didn't really know this is one thing I discovered it I didn't really know what I was saying I said to the group of directors now these are working directors and we've made many films and all professional directors and this whole workshop was on working with actors and I said to one of the directors I tell you what did here's what you need to do you need to stop directing the actor because what well this is the what the whole workshop is I said stop it stop directing the actor direct the character and they looked at me and tell you the truth Kent at that moment I wasn't quite sure what I had said and it's one of those moments in my teaching career one of those wonderful moments where I say something and I have no idea what it means but I have a feeling it's good but really there's something there and so the I remember the directors say well show me what you mean so I said okay now I turned to the actor and I stopped I didn't talk to the act I talked to her character I'm talking to her character and I'm starting asking the character question to know this is where the interrogation started I said asking and what I'm seeing is suddenly this character start to emerge this character starting to emerge because I'm questioning the character I'm not saying to the actor this is what I want you to do I'm not questioning the character about what she thinks about the her character I'm not doing any of that I'm just talking to the characters and who are you what are you doing what are you doing why you want to submit and starting to probe inside the and what happened was this character image we all set they won my god this is amazing how the rest of the workshop went that way when shifted dramatically still with me not quite sure what I had done but feeling this I'm on to something and it was during that workshop that the word interrogation came up because someone said what are you doing I said well I'm interrogating so that's where the world that's where it became called the interrogation process it wasn't until much later I kept doing this I kept experimenting as I had my whole life experimenting with everything that I kept using this technique teaching this technique even though I didn't quite understand it and starting to deconstruct it and spent a long time which as I mentioned to you before and Elsa and I have been doing this still deconstructing is still trying to figure out why it works and how it works and where deeper and deeper this to understand what this process is and what became clear to me after a while not immediately was that I'm talking to a character now I'm asking a character very simple but very profound and questions pushing the character to answer questions after that experiencing and Amsterdam I kept exploring what I had stumbled upon and I literally mean I feel like I stumbled upon something in many forms and there was one time I was working on I think it was here in Los Angeles and I decided to ask myself ok I'm talking to an actor I'm sorry I'm talking to a character and I'm questioning the character I'm interrogating the character I'm pushing the character and the character is responding maybe resisting me but is not refusing this engagement and I know that this makes no sense at all it's totally illogical first of all as we talked about before the character the character does not know that she's in a movie does not is not in a movie so I'm not can ask questions about movie making lines script like but I can ask questions about who they are what they want what they're doing anything I want but the question became to my mind who is she talking to Who am I because if she's not a character in a movie she's not participating in a movie but she's just herself she doesn't have a director Who am I and then it became clear to me I am NOT a character that she's responded Who I am I am the voices in her head what I call the committee the committee is a collection of voices that we all have each of us has all these voices in our head that we'd have debates with the discussions that have opinions and attitudes and that what I'm doing is I'm giving voice to the committee in the character's head not the actors at the character's head in fact I am creating a character by creating the characters committee and allowing the character to respond to her own committee and her response every response creates the character so I'm creating the character from deep deep inside the character actually without the help of the actor the actors attitude of feelings or opinions about the character are fine but they as many actors have told me there's no room to that the character is working so hard to manage her way through this interrogation there's no room for the actor imagination or creativity to come in although I do believe unconsciously it is working but the character is being formed from inside the character to the point where the character can take over completely you

Channel: Film Courage

Views: 176,356

Keywords: Acting tips, acting advice, mark travis, mark w. travis, travis technique, the travis technique, directors, actors, acting, directing actors, working with actors, filmmaking, interview, film courage, filmcourage, story, screenplay, authentic performance, directing, the director’s journey

Id: 0OX44gvnjWE

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2017