Actor and teacher Jeffrey Tambor describes how fear can impact presence and creativity in performances and auditions, and how to shift the experience of fear. “I think the main idea behind my teaching is the issue of fear and how we use that to our advantage,” he writes. “We are all fear-based creatures. And fear [...]
Energy psychiatrist Judith Orloff, MD works with many creative people to help with issues such as stage fright. In our podcast interview about her new book Emotional Freedom, I asked her: “Many actors get anxious about auditions, not getting work etc, issues that are kind of built in to the profession – do you have [...]
James Earl Jones, who is getting a lifetime achievement award Jan. 25 from the Screen Actors Guild, still radiates wonder at being part of the acting profession. “What fascinates me is that every actor is given a charge, a task — no matter what your motive was in taking the role, even if it’s just [...]
Cynthia Bain has been training young actors for 10 years and has established herself as one the premier coaches and performance consultants. Her students include some of the top young performers in film and television. In our interview, she addresses a number of questions, including : How important is it for your students to have [...]
A multitalented woman Venice magazine: You began writing poetry when you were nine.. Do you feel like it has become somewhat of a second form of expression for you? Amber Tamblyn : Definitely! I did a lot of writing with my father (actor/choreographer Russ Tamblyn) who always encouraged my budding imagination. I think all true [...]
A role that resonated Summer Bishil stars in “Towelhead,” about a Lebanese American girl’s coming of age in Texas during the first Iraq war. In an article about the film, Rachel Abramowitz notes Bishil was 18 when she played 13-year-old Jasira in the film directed by Alan Ball (“Six Feet Under,” “American Beauty”), based on [...]
Melora Hardin plays “Jan” on the tv series “The Office” and has roles in a number of film and tv projects. She sang as Fantine in “Les Miserables” at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this month; made her feature film directorial debut in 2007 with the movie “You,” and has produced two albums of her writing [...]
An inherited gift From article: Child actors: Sofia Vassilieva, ‘Medium’, By Lisa Rosen, Los Angeles Times NBC’S “Medium” centers on Allison Dubois (Patricia Arquette) and her psychic abilities — in her dreams, she sees how people were killed. A great part of the show’s charm comes from the fact that Allison is also a wife [...]
A recent article by Lynn Smith in the Los Angeles Times described a journey that many committed actors experience. Here are some excerpts: Austin Highsmith finally landed her first big break as a guest star on CBS’ “Ghost Whisperer.” But as luck had it, her episode aired the same week the writers strike began. Hardly [...]
In SherryBaby (2006), Maggie Gyllenhaal portrayed Sherry Swanson, who returns home after serving a prison sentence to reestablish a relationship with her young daughter. Gyllenhaal describes for Interview magazine her experience with the character, and the big change in her attitude toward appreciating roles that are “not so wayward.” Maggie Gyllenhaal: We shot Sherrybaby in [...]
“Actors and actresses, because that’s their career, can be sort of self-obsessed.” Kristen Bell says that for her new film “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” she “just looked into the depths of the most hard-to-admit or vulnerable or bad characteristics of my own personality and what an actress can become if given that kind of self indulgence [...]
Brooke Smith plays heart surgeon Dr. Erica Hahn on “Grey’s Anatomy,” and her extensive filmography includes the series “Weeds” and movies Vanya on 42nd Street and The Silence of the Lambs. In an interview, she was asked if she has any advice for actors who “would love to have a career even half as fruitful [...]
Mare Winningham and Tennessee Williams Mare Winningham is playing Amanda in a stage production of Tennessee Williams’ classic ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at the Old Globe in San Diego. In an interview, she commented about how rare it has been to find such deep, complex roles. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but so often during the [...]
From her article Lesson From a Young Actress: When I was little, my mother had a host of rules of “gentlemanly” behavior that you had to follow on a movie set if you wanted to be labeled a “professional.” Of course, Mom was wrong about a lot of things. As I have grown older, I’ve [...]
Gabriel Byrne on auditions “It’s important to present oneself as relaxed and confident..” Gabriel Byrne commented that the audition process “is really a most inadequate way to determine if an actor is right or not for a particular role. Unfortunately, it’s a situation that most actors have to accept. “Work on developing an unshakable trust [...]
Brooke Shields: My hope is that my kids won’t want to go into show business, just because of the heartache… I thrive on the experience of working. I don’t know myself any other way. [But] I’m not enamored by [fame]. I don’t covet it, the way someone who’s anonymous wants it, and then their life [...]
“With most people when there’s a pain in their life there’s mental scar tissue that forms over the pain and helps you go on living. “An actor’s scar tissue really never covers over things the same way, not if you’re going to be sensitive. With good technique, an actor can do that and walk through [...]
Referring to his role of Brick in the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (directed by Debbie Allen),” Terrence Howard says, “I always tell directors, ‘The role I want is the role I can’t accomplish, the thing that’s going to make me fail.’ Every warrior is looking for that fight [...]
Melissa George plays Laura in the HBO series In Treatment: “An attractive young anesthesiologist in the midst of a relationship crisis” seeking the help of a psychoanalyst, played by Gabriel Byrne. HBO: Did you have any personal experience with therapy or was this a completely new world to you? Melissa George: A completely new world, [...]
Liev Schreiber on emotional isolation “Acting kind of insulates you from the world. Ironically you go into this job that you think is going to allow you to be expressive to people and to connect to the world.” Liev Schreiber continued, “And the more successful you are in a strange way, the less emotionally connected [...]
Comfortable being alone In an interview about “Tristan and Isolde,” James Franco commented about how acting relates to being someone who is more comfortable being alone. Question: You talked about being a loner when you were at school. How hard is it going from being a loner to putting that aside an being an actor [...]
“I’ve always felt more comfortable [with comedy] because I was scared of drama. I didn’t really know how to access my emotional side without wounding my own person. “Once I learned how to do that it opened up all these doors to me and I realized, You know what? Real life contains moments of laughter [...]
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