Crazy Marie
As an actor I go back and forth on method acting...there are some parts of the technique that I love and some that I am not sure about.
I have been acting for the last 17 years of my life. In that time I have probably only done method techniques a handful of times. I am not sure if this is out of choice or necessity. Method acting can be a very difficult thing to do when you have to live a normal everyday life at the same time. I can't wait for the day when I have a month or two to dedicate entirely to becoming my character.
An example of this was my character preparation for The Harmony Theory. I play Marie who is an incarnation of Edward and is also, for lack of better description, a crack whore who ends up in an insane asylum. Wel,l I envisioned her being very confused and weak in the insane asylum, and in my ideal world I would have been able to eat 800 calories a day for the 2 weeks leading up to filming and lock myself in my room to sleep and listen to music that makes me feel crazy. But because I still have my day job working at Starbucks and because I have a social life plus 2 other projects I am filming I could not do these things. So I did the most I could within my conditions.
There are many things that method acting can do for a character that nothing else can, it helps to pull the emotions in a more real and raw fashion, and it puts you into the mindset of the character. But it can also be hard to come out of character once you delve completely in. For instance, this last couple weeks in preparation for Marie I cut my calories dramatically and the day of filming I ate very little and all of it was sugar, because I know how my body feels when I do that...I feel jittery and my mind can't focus and I feel weak. But now, today, one day later I am having a difficult time coming back out of the depressed and crazy Marie. I am struggling to stay positive and I find myself thinking of things the way Marie would.
I also feel sometimes that a great actor should be able to pull the emotions from themselves without taking drastic measures to get there..which is what method acting is. I have heard coaches tell me before that a great actor should be able to differentiate themselves from the character and should be able to switch back and forth freely.
But there are plenty of great actors from both sides of the tracks on this one.
So as of now, the jury is still out on how I feel about method acting.
Hope this gave you a bit more insight into my most recent character development.
I have been acting for the last 17 years of my life. In that time I have probably only done method techniques a handful of times. I am not sure if this is out of choice or necessity. Method acting can be a very difficult thing to do when you have to live a normal everyday life at the same time. I can't wait for the day when I have a month or two to dedicate entirely to becoming my character.
An example of this was my character preparation for The Harmony Theory. I play Marie who is an incarnation of Edward and is also, for lack of better description, a crack whore who ends up in an insane asylum. Wel,l I envisioned her being very confused and weak in the insane asylum, and in my ideal world I would have been able to eat 800 calories a day for the 2 weeks leading up to filming and lock myself in my room to sleep and listen to music that makes me feel crazy. But because I still have my day job working at Starbucks and because I have a social life plus 2 other projects I am filming I could not do these things. So I did the most I could within my conditions.
There are many things that method acting can do for a character that nothing else can, it helps to pull the emotions in a more real and raw fashion, and it puts you into the mindset of the character. But it can also be hard to come out of character once you delve completely in. For instance, this last couple weeks in preparation for Marie I cut my calories dramatically and the day of filming I ate very little and all of it was sugar, because I know how my body feels when I do that...I feel jittery and my mind can't focus and I feel weak. But now, today, one day later I am having a difficult time coming back out of the depressed and crazy Marie. I am struggling to stay positive and I find myself thinking of things the way Marie would.
I also feel sometimes that a great actor should be able to pull the emotions from themselves without taking drastic measures to get there..which is what method acting is. I have heard coaches tell me before that a great actor should be able to differentiate themselves from the character and should be able to switch back and forth freely.
But there are plenty of great actors from both sides of the tracks on this one.
So as of now, the jury is still out on how I feel about method acting.
Hope this gave you a bit more insight into my most recent character development.
posted by Alissa Christensen | 3:12 PM
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