31/08/2022
This is such GREAT ADVICE TO ACTORS from Liev Schreiber talking about Scarlett Johansson on the play "A View From The Bridge." It's about Film acting v Theatre acting and the mistake a lot of actors make putting emphasis on 'emotion' before anything else. Great article!
Indeed, the learning curve was punishing. Schreiber continued, “She had no idea about blocking or that you have to project in what sometimes feels like an artificial way to reach the back of the house. Those are things that actually take a lot of training and years to develop, and they completely confounded Scarlett. And initially she had the beginner’s instinct to cry all the time. Oscars go to roles that make people cry a lot. But when you come to these sophisticated plays, you’re articulating the idea of a playwright more than you are acting. And if you articulate the idea of the play, there will be emotion behind it. But if you’re ahead of it with the emotion, then the audience just perceives it as narcissistic. It’s about the actor acting. You’ve got to get egg on your face to learn those things. And here was someone who hadn’t really done that, but wasn’t afraid to go right into the most difficult of problems, which is dealing with one’s own narcissism. She was completely open to anybody’s suggestions, no matter how personal, no matter how scary. I said to her, ‘Why would you want to cry here? What happens if you resist that instinct in this scene, and resist that instinct in that scene, so that when you actually do cry, it’s not redundant.’ A lot of actors would get really upset if you said something like that to them. But not Scarlett. I felt like I was witnessing somebody making a huge leap forward in her career as an actor. She was in over her head, but through sheer intelligence and perseverance she made that role happen. She used to joke about this ulcer that she had, which I think was the extent of her nervousness. I figured maybe she learned that from Woody Allen.”
