Head of the Class Prominent acting teachers—like David Legrant—and the students they’ve inspired Listings start on page 18 Tobey Maguire and David Legrant DAVID BORTOLUCCI DAVID BACKSTAGE.COM | SEPT. 30-OCT. 6, 2010 | SPOTLIGHT ON ACTING SCHOOLS & COACHES | 13 0930 SPOT ASC LA Teachers.indd 13 9/28/10 3:28 PM SPOTLIGHT ON ACTING SCHOOLS & COACHES David Legrant and Tobey Maguire David Legrant By Jenelle Riley [email protected] lyson Hannigan believes that if David Legrant hadn’t become an acting teacher, he could have had a g reat career w riting A bumper stickers. “David has t hese great sayings,” enthuses the “How I Met Your Mother” star, who began studying with Le- grant when she was 20. “I wish I’d written them down because they were so clever and t hey help me every t ime I t hink of t hem.” L e- grant has a k nack for distilling his years’ worth of k nowledge into memorable phrases—one of Hannigan’s favorites is “If you’re going to paint a pic ture, are you going to p aint it w ith your own eye or someone’s else’s?”—that encourage actors to take charge. Fortunately for actors such as Hannigan, Tobey Maguire, Danny Glover, Bernadette Peters, and Steve Martin, Legrant opted out of DAVID BORTOLUCCI DAVID the bu mper-sticker bu siness a nd s tuck w ith h is p assion: teaching generations of actors the craft he knows and loves. “Acting can be Walton Goggins difficult, no doubt,” Legrant says. “But it should also be fun. Class on “Justified” is something you ought to enjoy.” Actors seem to have enjoyed their time w ith L egrant; h is s tudents s peak of h im i n fond, p assionate terms. “I’ve gotten so much from David over the years, and so much joy from being in his class and just spending time with him,” says Maguire, who was 18 when he met Legrant. “He’s helped me a lot as an actor and, really, as a person.” Legrant was born in 1923 in Los Angeles into the business—sort of. His father was a c arpenter in the film industry. Legrant was in the Air Corps (now Air Force) in World War II as a flight engineer, and when he left the service, he used the G.I. bill to study acting. He performed on a lo cal television show and appeared in small movie roles, but he opted to move to New York in the late 1940s to pursue stage work. He met singer-actor Barbara Cook at a resort where he was performing “Jewish Borscht Belt comedy,” and the two married in 1952. T he following year, t hey embarked on a n ational tou r of “Oklahoma” together. He also began studying at the Actor’s Studio with L ee St rasberg, during a g olden a ge of t he i nstitute. “Mari- lyn Monroe and I were in the same class together,” Legrant recalls. “She learned a lot from me, and I learned a whole lot from her. She FX was a gorgeous, wonderful woman.” According to h is s on w ith C ook, A dam L egrant, the e lder L e- grant g ot i nto t eaching at t he u rging of his t hen w ife. “ He h ad coached my mot her, a nd it w as her suggestion he s tart teaching,” Adam Legrant, also an actor, reveals. “And it was perfect for him. Teaching is beyond imparting information to people; it’s inspiring them and leading them along a path to a place you can’t describe in words.” Students say the teacher made a point of always being avail- able to his students. Constance Towers, currently starring as villain- ess Helena Cassadine on “General Hospital,” appeared in the 1967 Lincoln C enter pr oduction o f “ Showboat” w ith C ook. “ I w ould stand in the wings and watch Barbara, and I could just see the tools he’d given her,” Towers reveals. “When I was going to do ‘Carousel’ in 1969, I was having t rouble f inding t he character, and everyone said there was only one person to go to: David Legrant. I called him at 11 o’clock at night, and he told me to come right over. We worked until 3 a.m., and I instantly k new I had found a jewel in my life.” As a child, Adam Legrant remembers his father on the phone for two or t hree hou rs s ome n ights, c oaching B ernadette Peters. To- day, Peters r ecalls t he b est adv ice s he e ver g ot f rom he r t eacher. “The best quote from David—and I repeat it all the time when a Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel young person asks me for advice—is, ‘Never copy anyone,’ ” Peters on “How I Met Your Mother” CBS Voiceover Workshops • All Levels + Animation Study with Huck Liggett, owner of the Voicecaster. Celebrating over 30 years of voiceover casting. 818-841-5300 14 | SPOTLIGHT ON ACTING SCHOOLS & COACHES | SEPT. 30-OCT. 6, 2010 | BACKSTAGE.COM 0930 SPOT ASC LA Teachers.indd 14 9/28/10 3:32 PM SPOTLIGHT ON ACTING SCHOOLS & COACHES says. “ ‘There is only one of you in It was the jolt I needed.” the world. The best thing you have Legrant s ays si mply t hat he h as to o ffer i s y our o riginality. I f t hey learned to b e “gentle but d emand- Larry Moss and Jason Alexander already h ave a R obert D e N iro or ing.” And when it comes to the kind Meryl Streep, why would they need of s tudents he l ikes, he s ums it up By Mark Dundas Wood another one?’ ” succinctly by saying, “People who [email protected] Legrant taught in New York until are hungry. You can’t cook for peo- 1978, when he mo ved back to Los ple w ho a ren’t h ungry.” H e p oints t w as J ason Alexander’s wife, Daena E. Title, who Angeles. He continued to teach, em- to M aguire a s s omeone w ho c ame introduced him to acting teacher Lar ry Moss. This phasizing the need for na turalness to h im a nd w as a lways a nxious t o I was in the early 1980s, when Alexander appeared and believ ability. Sa ys Leg rant, “I learn mor e. “ Tobey ke eps g row- in a workshop production at Manhattan Theatre Club. tell actor s not to sho w me ‘upset,’ ing,” Legrant praises. “And he h as Title, who had studied with Moss, invited the teacher to but to be upset. If y ou make it be- the right attitude. If you’re going to the performance, hoping tha t she might con vince her lievable for yourself, you will make give t he t ime, y ou’re g oing to g et husband to w ork with him. Moss w as impressed with it believable for the audience. ” Troy better.” T hough L egrant t echni- what he saw of Alexander in the workshop. “I can’t re- Kelly has studied with Legrant for cally r etired a f ew mont hs a go, he member the pla y,” says Moss. “I can’t remember who 17 y ears and sa ys the classes ha ve still t alks of c oaching a nd p erhaps was in it. I remember this one moment of a kind of con- not only helped him as an actor b ut starting up a ne w c lass he re a nd nection he had with himself. It was very deep and emo- also in his career as an insurance there. Goggins, for one, is eager to tionally powerful.” agent. “The lessons I’v e lear ned get back to work with him. “I hope Alexander describes their fir st meeting, after the MTC have helped me speak in front of he ne ver s tops,” G oggins s ays. “A performance: “He came striding over to me. He introduced hundreds of people and sell the real- generation of actors will be missing himself, and I was well-aware of who he was. But suddenly ity that is m yself,” Kelly notes . “He something without his presence.” Continued on page 16— taught me how to be believable with GETTY IMAGES someone else’s words in a script—to make those words my own.” Another s kill L egrant he lps to t each i s r elaxation. “ The bi g- gest problem we have in acting is nervousness,” L egrant s ays. “ So many people are controlled by their nerves. They rush what they’re do- ing and don ’t truly let themselves feel what they should. Many times, teaching i s h elping t hem u nder- stand that.” It’s a f eeling t hat ac tor W alton Goggins r efers t o a s “ a s ense o f abandonment.” G oggins, s tar of the F X s eries “ The S hield” a nd “Justified,” was 19 years old when he w as r eferred to L egrant’s c lass. “I h ad no c raft but a lot of he art and a lot of e motion,” Goggins re- calls.