WEEK THREE IN THE ACTORS' STUDIO

I’ve been given on hundred lines and a seriously withering look by our fearsome Latvian acting teacher. I’m in the dramatic dog house. Despite being sober as a judge this week (detoxing after last weeks’ Oliver Reedian excesses), I’ve managed to offend. Apparently Stanislavski’s ‘system’ is not the same as ‘method acting’. Oh what a novice I am. What a fool! There was a sharp intake of breath (particularly from the yanks in the group) when, in discussion, I conflated the two. Method acting is something of a dirty word so it turns out. I felt like I’d just surmised that there wasn’t much difference between Jesus and Mohammed to a bunch of fundamentalists (of either stripe).

These people are remarkably dogmatic given that Stan himself reportedly told an actor who’d taken many notes during endless rehearsals with him to burn them all and that each actor should keep reinventing himself. And they are bizarrely exacting given every teacher we have seems to say something contrary about him. ‘His ‘system’ is a technique-less technique’. ‘It’s complex but simple’. ‘It’s all about the body but you shouldn’t try and embody someone else’ but then again ‘you should deeply analyse your character’s emotions and motivations’. ‘It’s all about acting ‘as if’’, I can only conclude: ‘everything is acting, but there’s good acting and bad acting’. It’s about the most confusing method (!) of teaching I’ve ever been subject to.

Given the evangelism of those who write and talk about him I can’t help wondering if he wasn’t just a rather grand and daringly charismatic man who charmed/scared people into doing what he wanted? Just a good director? I might not propose that view quite yet in the seminars …

I keep having flashes of Ian McKellan in ‘Extras’ when describing to Ricky Gervaise his role as Gandalf: ‘How do I act so well? I pretend to be the person I am portraying in the film or play …. You are aware that I am not a wizard … I thought what it might be like to be a wizard and then acted like that on the day …. You are pretending, and that is acting”. Genius. And he got knighted. Perhaps I should stop trying to act and start pretending.

The remaining question of the week is what is Juliette Binoche doing trying to dance with Akram Khan at the National Theatre? Akram, Akram, get a grip on yourself! That and her mortifyingly bad charcoal portraits of friends and family emblazoned across the foyer in the BFI, and the retrospective of all her films at the BFI. What a south-bank-ego-fest. Embarrassing. At least this is something that we all managed to bond on, after a class trip to see her loveliness herself plieing across the stage (well, peeing and fighting is more accurate). Of course we’re not jealous of her stellar acting career, it’s just, stick to what you’re good at darling. Meeooow.