Brian Timoney’s World of Show Episode 26: Acting books that will make your acting great

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One man – One mission: To rid the world of low-standard and mediocre acting, once and for all.

Brian Timoney, the world’s leading authority on , brings you powerful, impactful, volcanic acting and ‘business of acting’ techniques in his special Acting Podcasts.

It’s Brian Timoney’s World of Acting – unplugged and unleashed.

Brian: Hi everyone, it’s Brian Timoney here – and welcome onto today’s podcast. I’m joined with Joe. Joe, welcome!

Joe: Thank you for having me, Brian.

Brian: So, today we’re going to talk – you know, one of the things I get asked quite a bit, Joe, is can I recommend any books on acting and what are the best books to read on acting? And there’re a lot of books been published over the years on acting – what are the best ones? So, we’ll get mine out of the way right away, yes?

Joe: Well, yes!

Brian: You know, and I don’t want to be too sycophantic about this, right? But, yes, The Ultimate Guide to Method Acting by Brian Timoney – yes, I would definitely recommend that.

Joe: So would I! He goes into a lot of detail on The Method and it really is a lot of detail, and you can learn so much from it – so get it! Buy it. Learn from us, you know?

Brian: So, let’s park that one now, because I want to talk about I guess books that have influenced me – and I guess you’ll be talking about some that have influenced you…

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Joe: Myself, yes.

Brian: …that I think have made a difference to and acting training in general. Maybe let’s start at the beginning: Stanislavski’s An Prepares has been widely recognised as…

Joe: The cornerstone.

Brian: …the source book of acting training.

Joe: Yes; since he wrote it, yes.

Brian: And, I mean, there’s some really interesting – obviously there’s very important work in there. It can get a little bit heavy at times I’ve found…

Joe: Yes.

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Brian: But I think as an actor you should have a copy and make it a point to read through it because there’s some really – and I guess it’s really the foundation of The Method is where it all came from. And Stanislavski being a Russian geezer at the end of the 1800s, the early 1900s, you know, he really revolutionised actor training. He really got people to think about what was creating real and believable acting as opposed to, at that period in history, “declaimed” acting and sort of type of work. So that was one book that I’d definitely recommend.

Joe: And also that I recommend as well. It’s always a little bit tricky with books as well because we’re actors, and acting is sort of threefold, isn’t it? It’s emotional, it’s physical and it’s mental – you know, psychological. And when you read a book, it can be quite a sort of a passive kind of experience, can’t it, Brian?

Brian: Yes.

Joe: You know, you’re going to read it and it’s going to sort of wash over you a little bit and you’ll forget about it – but with acting books, some of them stayed with me for quite a long, and I go back to them as a kind of a reference point almost, it’s like how different am I as a person? Do I understand this book differently? And one of the

www.worldofacting.com ones that I always enjoyed was Richard Boleslawski’s Six Lessons, which is a very, very – it’s a simple, very small book; it’s not overcomplicated, you know?

Brian: Yes.

Joe: And he sort of writes it like a screenplay, like a play, where the girl comes to him and wants to be a brilliant actor and he sort of sets her these tasks, and each time she gets better and better as she develops through these six simple exercises. And they’re not simple; it’s just the way that Richard Boleslawski was so clever at putting that into a book. And I’ve always found that one to be really, really compelling and very enlightening, because when I first – and it was one of the first books I ever read on acting, and I thought, ‘Oh, they’re all this simple and easy,’ whereas some of them aren’t! [laughs]

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Brian: [laughs] Yes!

Joe: It’s like you’ve really got to trudge through some mud to get to some books – so we’re trying to give you an option as well. And Richard Boleslawski’s book was written I think, if I’m not mistaken, in the mid-1930s, and it’s still relevant today.

Brian: Yes. Because like Boleslawski was one of Stanislavski’s troupes of actors...

Joe: Yes.

Brian: …from what I understand, and he stayed in New York.

Joe: He stayed in New York with and he developed…

Brian: And ultimately he taught Lee Strasburg.

Joe: Yes; Lee went to him for lessons, yes.

Brian: Which brings us on to Lee Strasburg, because there’s a few books around The Method that are either – well, one written by Lee and one in which is taped sessions at the Actors’ Studio. So, the first one that Lee wrote himself was A Dream of Passion, which I think is a very interesting book. It kind of gives you the background to The Method more than anything else, and some concepts.

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Joe: Yes – and where it evolved from, and the concepts and how he evolved those, yes.

Brian: But the recorded sessions – it’s called Strasburg at the Studio.

Joe: At the Actors’ Studio, yes.

Brian: Yes. And I think that is a really, really interesting book because it’s the closest you’re going to get to hearing Strasburg in session, if you like, in class. So it’s basically taped sessions of Lee Strasburg teaching at the studio, and then somebody took those recordings away and transcribed it into a book. The only thing I would say about it is unless you are going through The Method, it can be very difficult to understand some of the finer detail.

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Joe: The terminology he’s using and what he’s worked on.

Brian: And what he’s getting at. But I’ll tell you; if you are learning The Method, that book is fantastic because it really goes into some detail.

Joe: It really does – and he goes into a lot of detail about the craft of theatre acting and of acting, the problems that arise with actors, the problems that arise in actors and us being human beings, and he really tackles a lot of different individual problems, and you could find something in there that’s really relevant to you, with an actor who presented work in front of Lee and he responds and gives them feedback and critiques, and helps them – which may be useful to you as an actor if you’re listening and you read this book and you start to understand a little bit more about The Method; you might be able to connect to it as well.

Brian: Yes.

Joe: I actually personally find it more interesting than the Dream of Passion. I get the Dream of Passion because it’s such an important book for us, and I get the relevance, but hearing him talk, you know…

Brian: I totally agree, yes.

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Joe: …you know, I feel like, ‘Ah, yes – this lesson’s really relevant to me,’ or, ‘Oh, wow – how amazing that problem occurred for that actor,’ and how he solves the problem.

Brian: Yes, and I think when you’re going through the technique, you’re learning the technique, you can see the issues that come up and you face as well, and you can hear how a lot of them are resolved. Actually it reminds me of another book as well, which came much later, by Eric Morris, which is No Acting Please.

Joe: Yes – or No Acting Required – or No Acting Please.

Brian: I think it’s called No Acting Please.

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Joe: Yes.

Brian: And it’s a very interesting book because Eric Morris was somebody who learned The Method and he went through all The Method, but he also started to, in his book and his way of working, started to draw attention to the fact of the actor themselves, before they even get to the technique in a way, preparing their instrument – and the psychology behind what we bring to acting; he says, for example, conditioning and so on that we bring to the work – how do you overcome that, even before you get to work on the technique and beyond?

Joe: That’s right. I think he does deserve that I mention who it was, because he did sort of start to tap into something that Lee, or possibly others – it’s not that they didn’t care about it but maybe they’d overseen or they were not quite maybe enough time to investigate – and Eric Morris’ small little exercises in there; he explains some things. I find them very, very relevant. Very, very powerful as well.

Brian: Yes, because I’ve followed a bit of this and I’ve thought in a way I think Strasburg might have gone into this sort of area…

Joe: Yes.

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Brian: …but I think at the time there was so much going on with The Method – people saying, ‘Oh, this is this “shrouded in mystery technique”’ and I think Lee had had his fair share of this being in the spotlight and criticism as well at the time.

Joe: Yes.

Brian: I think if he’d gone into that area at that time in history, I think he would have got a lot of heat.

Joe: Yes; he’d have got too much heat and it would have distracted from the work that he was sort of trying to do, which was for actors to develop, you know?

Brian: Yes. But I think later on, Eric comes along and starts to look at and address this issue, and I think that was interesting.

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Joe: Yes, because he has the foundation from Stanislavski, from the group theatre, from Lee, to then evolve that, and he’s given the opportunity, or Eric Morris saw the opportunity to be able to develop that side of the actor’s instrument, because he didn’t have – possibly, you know, just a suggestion – that he didn’t have Lee’s battles that he’d have to fight all the time, about justifying the work. Eric was slightly not in the limelight, as Lee always had been, and therefore he’s allowed himself to develop this investigating the actor before he steps on stage, which we’re really into as well.

Brian: Yes, exactly. I think it’s very important as well. I think it’s a very important part of the work. So, yes, any other books spring to mind?

Joe: Well, I’m a bit of a kind of a buff on it as well, so I would certainly recommend Tennessee Williams because we do so much work with Tennessee Williams’ plays in terms of getting a really good biography – not an autobiography but a biography – because he has a really compelling life, and you really start to learn where his writing came from, his artistic struggles; it will also help you investigate some of the plays he wrote, which we use a lot in our work.

Brian: He was just an amazing individual.

Joe: Just an amazing guy, yes. An amazing individual.

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Brian: Just amazing – I mean, really he’s like the American equivalent of Shakespeare, isn’t he…

Joe: Yes.

Brian: He’s just such a phenomenal writer of characters and plays. And I think – you’re right – his own life was such an important part of his plays; he put such a lot of himself into his plays.

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Joe: Yes. And that really could help you, because the reason why it’s so important is because when you read his plays, that’s one thing, but when you act his plays, he cares so much about you as an actor; he gives you so much to work from, to work with that you want to understand – he can help you understand where he’s coming from and be of benefit to you as an actor, because you can draw so much from his work.

Brian: Oh, yes.

Joe: It makes you such an accomplished actor, working on his plays, that you can turn around and really learn and develop so much from him. One of my favourite plays has always been the one that’s – oh, gosh, the one that we use as well, in Mexico.

Brian: Ah, yes, The Night of the Iguana.

Joe: The Night of the Iguana – thank you. When I read Night of the Iguana, that sort of compelling behaviour from the character that he developed, I just thought, ‘Oh, my God. This is so rich and so formed.’

Brian: Yes – and he was brilliant at writing these flawed characters, wasn’t he, and you just fall in love with them because they were so…

Joe: Yes. And nobody comes into acting because they’re perfect little diamonds, aren’t we?

Brian: [laughs]

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Joe: No! We come in because we’re flawed! [laughs] And I love that understanding. I also recommend – actually, now we’ve come to mention it – I think it’s called Timebends (or Time Flies, I can’t remember), which is an Arthur Miller autobiography. And he knows how to write. And there’s another one as well, if you want, which is all part of the work that we do, which is Elia Kazan’s autobiography. And he goes into so much detail. Don’t forget, this is the guy that directed the original Streetcar Named Desire, directed On The Waterfront, directed Streetcar Named Desire – the film version. He worked with Tennessee all his life – I mean, he’s really, really, really interesting…

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Brian: You’re right – that’s a great one. Here’s another interesting one, Joe: I think that some people might consider this one slightly boring, but I actually think it’s an important one, which is like I think every actor should have read or have in their library a book on theatre history.

Joe: Absolutely!

Brian: You know, there’re all different ones out there, but getting a book that covers theatre from day one, back in the Greek early days…

Joe: Yes – pre-Greek, you can go back.

Brian: Yes, pre-Greek even. And right up to today. It’s a must for an actor because in a way it educates you on the different styles of theatre, the different important playwrights as well that have come along – I mean, that’s probably another book somewhere, the important playwrights of the last hundred years or beyond. But I think theatre history, even if you only want to do TV and film, you’re really into screen work, I still think you should get a book on theatre history. I think it’s part of our history as actors to know where it call came from – the different styles, which are still relevant today. You know, a director might actually say to you, ‘I want you to do this like a Manet script,’ or, ‘It’s got a certain sort of style – it’s a bit like a Harold Pinter play,’ or whatever. And having the knowledge and understanding about what that is – and also what if a director said, ‘Joe, this is a bit like a Restoration play,’ would you know what that was? And I think it’s important that you educate yourself and really know the full history behind what we do.

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Joe: Yes, because if you’re coming into something, why wouldn’t you? It’s not to say that you need it at the forefront, but in the back of your mind, this knowledge gives you wisdom, and with wisdom it gives you a kind of an assurance of what you’re in. so when you’re called upon to – and this does stem back to getting work – when you’re called upon it, it will be there. It’s just something that’s there in the back of your mind that you can call on that’s an idea that can then help you connect to the director, or help you connect to the writer or help you connect to the other actor. It’s like you’ll find something in common rather than feel like, you know, too often actors feel so isolated – it’s just like about them, when actually you are a part of a whole artistic movement. It’s like since the first Greek actor stepped out from the chorus – it was Thespis (that’s why they call them thespians); he stepped out and spoke those first words, outside of the chorus. You have that – somebody like you wanted to speak about something and had a passion enough to step in front of other people and do it. And I think that’s quite important, that you wrap yourself up in and know that history.

Brian: Yes, and I think it’s part of being a professional. I got into a conversation the other day about pantomime and where pantomime came from and what it was about, and I was talking about it, just looking back in history. And it was connected to Commedia dell'arte, which is an Italian form of theatre. And knowing all of that…

Joe: And – sorry, Brian – because Commedia dell'arte is the cornerstone of improvisation, if you don’t know that…

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Brian: Yes.

Joe: Because if you guys don’t know that Commedia dell'arte were four different masks; they symbolise a kind of character type – so we were already typecast. And each of these four actors would travel around Italy and they would improvise stories; people would shout something to them and they would develop emotional content and use their masks to be a certain kind of character with certain kind of types. And through that they would improvise these stories and they’d take them around. And that’s where improvisation came from – and then Commedia dell'arte with the masks represented a certain idea. And you should know that. Well, you do now – but you should know why.

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Brian: Yes, absolutely. A good knowledge of theatre, playwrights – so any books revolving around this I think are good for you to read. And I think even now educating yourself on film history as well.

Joe: Film history, yes. Uta Hagen as well is a good one for theatre – we shouldn’t forget her.

Brian: Yes; Uta Hagen has produced some great work.

Joe: Two good works – hold on, I’m on the spot – Respect for Acting and the other one; I can’t remember the other one right now off the top of my head. Just google Uta Hagen (A Challenge for the Actor).

Brian: Yes, Respect for Acting is a very good one.

Joe: Yes, it’s a really good one, and really teaching you something that – you know, you can sit on the train or on a journey and really absorb yourself into somebody’s life.

Brian: Indeed, indeed. So, Joe, what I’m going to do as well is, because we do the transcripts for the podcast each week as well, and what we’ll do is we’ll put links in to all of these books that we’ve mentioned. So if you go and download the transcript, then basically you will be able to look at all the links to these books. If you go to WorldofActing.com, you’ll go to the page where you can sign up for our transcript, and we’ll make sure we enlist those links to those books. So, I think that brings us to the end, then, Joe.

Joe: Yes. Thank you very much.

Brian: A little trek through book history! Joe: Through book history, yes – it was amazing. I hope that this has helped you and enlightened you – and until next time. Thank you for your time.

Brian: Okay. See you next time.

You’ve been listening to Brian Timoney’s World of Acting. For a full transcript of today’s show, go to www.worldofacting.com. We’ll see you next time.

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