I’ve figured out what to do so far, but it’s always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting – whoosh! in your face. That’s why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do. ~ Dame Judi Dench.
Originally this little meme was designed for books, I found it on The Bookworms Hideout and thought I’d have a go, only adapting it for my movies challenge.
Here’s how it works: using only movies you have seen this year (2009), answer these questions, trying not to repeat a title.
Describe yourself:
Bedazzled
How do you feel:
Still Crazy
Describe where you currently live:
Pleasantville
If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Manhattan
Your favourite form of transportation:
Secondhand Lions
Your best friend is:
Keeping Mum
You and your friends are:
Dancing at Lughnasa
What’s the weather like:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
You fear:
Stage Fright
What is the best advice you have to give:
Analyze That
Thought for the day:
Any Which Way You Can
How I would like to die:
Walk the Line
My soul’s present condition:
Doubt
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with .
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When I hear that somebody’s difficult, I think, Oh, I can’t wait to work with them. ~ Glenn Close.
Some more quotations, starting with my new mantra: I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come. – Abraham Lincoln
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. – Will Rogers.
My education was doing good plays and also stinkers. When you do a stinker, you learn how to act. – Jeffrey Tambor.
The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh. – Carl Reiner.
Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter. – Chuck Jones.
Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation. -Bette Davis.
All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening. – Alan Rickman.
Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over. – Alan Rickman
To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty; to interpret it his problem; and to express it his dedication. – James Dean.
I need somebody to reflect me back, or to give me their reflection. – Judi Dench.
It’s so important in this business to stay open and childlike. You don’t want to block yourself. – Kirsten Dunst.
Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. – Coach John Wooden,UCLA
Few filmmakers concentrate on the story. With little rehearsal time, anything you do onscreen is speed painting.- John Malkovich
I think a lot of the instincts you have doing comedy are the same for doing drama: it’s essentially about listening. – Will Ferrell.
When given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit. – Robert Rodriguez.
A lot of what acting is is paying attention. – Robert Redford
To be an artist means to search, to find and look at realities. To be an artist means to never look away. – Akira Kurosawa
Collaboration is like the sex of creativity. – Francis Ford Coppola
There is no formula for success. But there is a formula for failure and that is to try to please everybody. – Nicholas Ray
We all steal, but if we’re smart we steal from great directors. Then, we can call it ‘influence’. – Krzysztof Kieslowski
A film director is a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him. – Jean Renoir
An actor is at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize innocents. – Alec Guinness
Talent is as common as horseshit in a stable. The cultivation of it is extremely rare. – Eric Morris
Work for the actor lies in two areas: the ability to consistently create reality and the ability to express that reality. Strasberg
An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words. – Sanford Meisner
An Actor has to burn inside with an outer ease. – Michael Chekhov
A good artist should be isolated. If he isn’t isolated, something is wrong. – Orson Welles
Anxiety is the Handmaiden of Creativity. – Chuck Jones
A lot of actors talk about ‘doing their homework’. Very few of them do it. – Tony Scott
Shut up and listen. Then react. And then act. – Lucille Ball
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that. – Mark Twain.
90% of success is just showing up. – Woody Allen
For fast acting relief, try slowing down. – Lily Tomlin
Show me a great actor and I’ll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you’ve seen the devil. – WC Fields
Playing Shakespeare requires technique. You don’t play a Bach toccata by ‘getting in the mood’. – Kevin Kline
Acting is mostly about listening. If you focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself. – Alan Rickman
Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality. – Eugene Ionesco
Your self-confidence is directly connected to how much you feel you are making a difference in your world. – Brian Tracy
Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary. – Mark Twain
Take your beating, go back to your corner, rest, and take a beating again. Believe in your own talent. – Bruce Paltrow
If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you. – Billy Wilder
Don’t be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also. – Billy Wilder
Quit now, you’ll never make it. If you disregard this advice, you’ll be halfway there. – David Zucker
An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal – falling like a cat…moving like a fox. – Francois Truffaut
All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen. – Sidney Lumet
(This one makes me feel a little bit better)
Experience is what you get while looking for something else. – Federico Fellini
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. – Frank Capra
The magic doesn’t come from within the director’s mind, it comes from within the hearts of the actors. – James Cameron
Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. – Samuel Beckett
Ensure that your script is watertight. If it’s not on the page, it will never magically appear on the screen. – Richard E. Grant
On film you put all your energies into a single glance. – Alan Rickman
The key to acting is the reality of the doing. -Brent Noel
Success in show business depends on your ability to make and keep friends. – Sophie Tucker
Acting has to do with saying it as if you meant it, so for me the words are always very important. – Christopher Walken
Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters. – Seneca
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General, Quotes category with the tag(s) actors, directors, lists.
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The most precious things in speech are pauses. ~ Ralph Richardson.
The answer to that is a resounding no, but in my quest to find an intriguing post title I got stuck. What I have found, however, is another minor plethora of resources that make home-study possible.
The Stage has posted a round-up of new training resources. Their Education and Gradsclub sections also keep providing lots of excellent articles that keep me off the streets.
Elsewhere on the web UK based Strasberg Method teacher, Brian Timoney offers Method Acting tips vial email update and a VIP service that includes answering your personal questions. Quite dogmatic about his theory being the only one, and this Stage writer is a little scathing, but could be useful … especially the free trial. Always good to keep an open mind and try new things, hey?
On DVD, the BBC has released the series of Acting Master Classes broadcast in the 1980s with leading practitioners including Jonathon Miller and Maria Aitken. This is going on my wishlist. Looks like it’s proving very popular as Amazon.co.uk are already down to their last copy. Come on Amazon, get some new stock in!
And musn’t forget two of London’s best theatres run their own series of ‘masterclasses. National Theatre Platforms and TRH Masterclasses. Both providing one off dates that make me wish I could get to London regularly. The National has just completed a programme with Janet Suzman on Shakespeare, Simon Callow on Restoration Comedy and Maria Aitken on High Comedy, sure to be lots more fabulous nights to follow.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with the tag(s) web round-up.
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I’ll always be there because I’m a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I’ve any talent is beside the point. ~ Michael Caine.
- Acting doesn’t have to be threadbare misery all the time.
- People who are good at film have a relationship with the camera.
- So I just play the character, I play the lines.
- The energy released by it is enormous and it becomes quite addictive, the power between the audience and the actor.
- Theater is dangerously open to repetition. It’s exciting when you hit on a new way.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with the tag(s) actors, Fiona Shaw, lists.
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Surely we have always acted; it is an instinct inherent in all of us. Some of us are better at it than others, but we all do it. ~ Sir Laurence Olivier.
The more work I do the larger my wishlist of things (would it be unreasonable to call them “resources”?) become. Omitting the big stuff, like 3 years at Drama School, here’s a realisic list of the achievable. (Well realistic-ish).
- Video Camera (Probably most important as I need to see what I’m doing)
- Tripod (Can’t do everything one-handed or bent over to table height)
- Microphone (Be nice not to have to shout at computor)
- Playing Shakespeare
– John Barton
- Tea With Trish
- The Vocal Arts Workbook and DVD
– David Carey and Rebecca Clark Carey
- What’s My Motivation?
– Michael Simkin
- Actions: The Actor’s Thesaurus
– Terry Johnson
Think I need to find some work.
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with the tag(s) lists.
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I’ve figured out what to do so far, but it’s always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting – whoosh! in your face. That’s why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do. ~ Dame Judi Dench.
Did you see any of the BBC Poetry Season’s ‘My Life in Verse’ with Sheila Hancock? The whole programme was generally fascinating but the part at which my ears specifically pricked up (so to speak) was her chat to John Barton about verse-speaking.
If you’ve never heard of Mr Barton, he was the co-founder of the RSC, alongside Sir Peter Hall. He gave some little titbits of advice and then launched into Henry Vs “Once more unto the breach” speech – in an about 80% authentic Shakespearean accent! (His percentage, not mine). Bloody brilliant, it sounds so warm. To my untrained ear it was similar to a West Country accent but richer. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting but it sounded more modern than I’d have guessed. Much closer to us than to Chaucer, who was chronologically nearer (at 200 years vs our 400). How our language had changed in that time! Only the slightly different proununciations show it’s of the past. Tiger is prounounced ‘Tigger’! It’s made me want to hear so much more.
He did write a book on the Bard, “Playing Shakespeare” published by Methuen in 1984, and a series of workshops were also filmed for TV. Although they’re no longer available in the UK (typical – we’re denied all the great old BBC arts programmes) it’s being re-released on DVD in the US! For $79! Here it is.
Do you reckon it’s worth the extortionate price?
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General, Shakespeare, Verse Speaking category with the tag(s) John Barton, Shakespeare, Shelia Hancock.
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Acting is the ability to dream on cue. ~ Ralph Richardson.
- There’s really no way to teach you how to act, but there is a way to teach you how to teach yourself to act. That’s kind of what it is; once you learn the little tricks that work for you, pretty soon you find yourself doing that.
- My old drama coach used to say, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing.
- You have to trust your instincts. There’s a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it. Behind the camera you can feel the moment even more clearly. And once you’ve got it, once you feel it, you can’t second-guess yourself. You can find a million reasons why something didn’t work. But if it feels right, and it looks right, it works. Without sounding like a pseudointellectual dipshit, it’s my responsibility to be true to myself. If it works for me, it’s right.
- Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.
- We boil at different degrees. class zelnorm suit action
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General, Quotes category with the tag(s) actors, Clint Eastwood, lists.
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I don’t know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself. ~ Sir Laurence Olivier.
I 
Twitter. Just got two fabulous pieces of advice about (post) drama School acting training from one of the West Ends most influentional and (imho) talented actors, Kevin Spacey. V. interesting, and useful, pov.
He said understanding how the business really works and to take advice from those who are already in the biz. V. useful. But how to find someone who knows from long experience and is prepared to share with a rooky?
The most thought-provoking was his advice to think in the “long-term”. I can see how this would the best perspective to have. I wonder how that can be achived. Is continued training the key?
Hmm, lots to think about and to do. Thanks Mr Spacey 
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Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with the tag(s) advice, twitter.
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The actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand. ~ Sir Laurence Olivier.
- Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.
- Acting is the ability to dream on cue.
- In music, the punctuation is absolutely strict, the bars and rests are absolutely defined. But our punctuation cannot be quite strict, because we have to relate it to the audience. In other words we are continually changing the score.
- The most precious things in speech are pauses.
- You’ve got to perform in a role hundreds of times. In keeping it fresh one can become a large, madly humming, demented refrigerator. online atrovent 25mg lamictal dispenser women using mens rogaine mexico ventolin
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with the tag(s) actors, lists, Ralph Richardson.
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Have a very good reason for everything you do. ~ Sir Laurence Olivier.
- I don’t think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find.
- I work out the other bits, too, but I need to know what I look like, very early on. And then it’s like a template; I’ll fill that person out. If I get that out of the way, then I’m all right.
- I’ve figured out what to do so far, but it’s always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting – whoosh! in your face. That’s why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do.
- It is not good to cross the bridge before you get to it.
- It was good to learn so early. They’re not going to be kind to you. You have to do it and get on, and then gulp down and get better.
- Some things you know about, you know what the ingredients are – maybe not all of them. But it’s up to you to put in the amount. It’s up to the director to nag you until you get it right. on remeron thyroid levels lipitor due baldness to
Spoken by Madame Arkadina in the General category with the tag(s) actors, Judi Dench, lists.
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