Backstage: Every once in a while, a role comes around that demands just a little bit more from you. Of course you need to learn your lines, get to know your character fully, and get to the emotional truth in each scene, but sometimes you’re ask to perform a skill you just don’t possess. But as a true artist, you have the ability to fully become your character—even if that character is fantastic at double back handsprings and cartwheels.
13 comments:
This is a great reminder that even if you have no clue what the heck you're doing, you can figure it out long enough to make a movie. I saw Hail Caesar in theaters and I had no idea that that was Channing Tatum, partially because my knowledge of celebrities is abysmal and partly because I didn't realize he could dance. I often get overwhelmed when I realize that getting from point A to point B is going to require tackling an issue I've never faced before (I'm looking at you, Arcade). It's so easy to underestimate yourself, especially when learning a new skill is involved, because no one wants to put in hours of hard work just to discover you can't achieve what you were going for. However, reading this article shows that what seems impossible simply isn't. These artists are given extraordinary tasks on top of all the other physical and emotional things they have to focus on, and they're able to put on award-winning performances and fool audiences into thinking they have years of experience in that skill.
This is something that is so obvious, but so easily forgotten. Especially in the film industry, it is easy to forget that the actors are real people, and they do not necessarily possess the same qualities and skills that the character they are portraying does. This is, obviously, common sense, but it is still very easy to overlook. Of course Natalie Portman is not actually a ballerina, but it still surprised me to see her on the list. I had a moment of "What? But she was a ballerina!" until when I remembered a second later that she just played a ballerina. She was not actually trained in ballet. I think that actors learning skills for roles is enormously impressive, but it is even more impressive when actors can learn a skill in a matter of months and convince millions of people that they have been doing it for years.
Sometimes people give actors a bad rep for not being that smart or not working very hard. I completely disagree with those accusations. I believe that actors are extremely hardworking in a different manner than people on the production side. They need to put on a show no matter how they are feeling that day and they need to completely transform into a different person. I think it is amazing that these actors trained very hard to learn these new skills for the movies they were in. They proved that they really wanted to portray the characters they were playing with authenticity. Learning new skills is very hard especially as an adult because you are better at learning new skills like music when you are a kid. I really respect actors who put in a lot of extra effort into their characters than just during shooting days. All of them spent so much time prior to filming to learn and actually be very good at these new skills to look like a professional on screen.
I think the fact that there are so many more skills than acting which actors often need to have in order to do a role justice is a reminder to anyone involved in the dramatic arts that the learning never ends. No matter how professional one is or how much experience one has, there will always be that little extra something which brings a role, a scene, or a design element to life that much more. And thank goodness this is true, because it would be pity if there was nowhere else for someone to go at the realization that they did not have that one particular skill which could put their production over the edge. Quite often it isn't that someone can't do something - it's simply that they have never tried or been taught. But with enough dedication, a moment can be ten times more real and an audience can be ten times more moved. And what's more, all of these actors walked away with a skill which can never be unlearned, and any casting director with their ears and eyes open will know that when they walk into their next audition. Their resumes benefit in more ways than one and audiences eat up a hard-earned, spectacular performance. It's a win-win if you ask me.
Some of these make sense. Tatum and Portman learning how to dance for movies where the main part of their role is dancing makes sense. Otherwise, why wouldn't they have just hired a dancer? The Pianist even makes sense, although the "selling my car and house and moving the Europe" thing is a little out there. But learning how to skin squirrels and hunt your own food? Who is that helping? What happens when you get a tape worm because you didn't do it properly? Who taught them how to do this???
This is kind of my dilemma with the arts. When is the art your job and when is it your life? Where is the line? Why are artists expected to live, breathe, and die for their art while no one expects and accountant to? In my eyes, there is a distinction between a job and your life. When a certain someone said "Skip a wedding or funeral to go see another show so you can always be improving," I thought "No, way." What is the point of living if not to enjoy my own life, outside of my work? There are times when walking into a theater would make me want to cry, and there are times that make me feel amazing. But I know where the line is, I know what I won't miss for another show, I know where theater does not blend into my life. My job is my job, my life is my life, and theater is not my life. It is my passion, but my friends and family and hobbies are my life. They are what I am doing all of this silly theater for. I'm not skinning any animals any time soon, when I can take my friends out for a wonderful steak dinner instead.
I agree with Cassidy that some of these seem a bit extreme. Its one thing to learn an instrument or dance style or sport for a movie, and if they manage to master it then even better, that’ll make their performance even more believable and they get a new skill out of the bargain. But selling/giving up all your possessions and living in the wild seem like a bit much. I get the argument that the knowledge will carry over and give their performance that extra bit of realism but at the same time I find it hard to believe its worth the potential risk and the cost. Is that little bit of extra added realism (if it even happens) really worth giving up your entire life for, even temporarily? I guess it would be possible to have those experiences in a safe way but if the actor wants to go to those lengths they probably don’t want some kind of oversight to keep them safe.
As a person who reads articles like this and are skeptic of them, and as a person who hasn’t seen all of these movies, I am skeptical of a few of the phrasings that were used to describe the performer’s new found talent. I am not skeptical of Channing Tatum knowing how to tap dance, because if you’ve seen ‘Hail Cesar’, boy can he tap dance. That entire sequence was very impressive, and very hilarious. But, focusing too much on whether or not all of these claims are as true as they want to sound to be may lead one astray from seeing a larger moral. You can learn a lot of things on the job if you have the right attitude, and being able to remain a flexible person that learns new things instead of quits because they can’t manage to try is a valuable lesson, one that I know that I personally still am learning. At the very least, you can say you tried.
This article really displays the courage and dedication professional actors need to have if they are truly serious about their roles and careers. I remember seeing The Pianist and thinking how much preparation and modeling it took to get the shots correctly to make it appear as though Adrien Brody was actually playing the piano, and the shocker was that he was actually performing. The one thing I don’t particularly like about this article is how it labels these tactics as method acting in most cases. In my opinion, method acting is when you physically live like the character that is to be portrayed in order to understand their intentions. I don’t think that avidly practicing a new skill is considered method. This point again goes back to Adrien Brody who actually gave up his current lifestyle in order to live like the main character in The Pianist, this dramatic change is really what I consider method.
It is easy to frequently assume that when it appears as though an actor or actress is doing something requiring a great deal of talent, or something that would likely be out of their normal range of skills and abilities, that the shot is simply the product of a body double (actually versed in the necessary skill) and excellent video editing. It is nice to hear in these instances about the actors' dedication to authenticity and their willingness to work hard to gain enough mastery over a skill to believably execute their characters. In a way I almost envy them the time they can dedicate exclusively to developing a skill (for example, piano or ballet) in the months before a production starts. It would be nice to have that time to devote. I remember reading quite a bit about how Natalie Portman prepared, and - though I have never seen the movie - it sounds as though her exhaustion and dedication paid off.
It’s amazing to see the hard work and dedication that actors put into their craft. Sometimes backstage when we’re spending endless hours building, loading in, striking and then doing it all over again, the incredibly hard mental and emotional work that the actors are doing can get overlooked. But an article like this reminds us just how much work actors put into their performances. Taking on a job where you have to learn an entirely new skill set would completely scare me, but I’m trying to get to a place where I would be willingly to jump at the challenge. But for these actors, it’s just another part of what they do. Actors can’t do what we do and we could never do what they do, and you need everyone working at the top of their game to create a great show, that’s what I think is so beautiful about theater and film.
This article was so cool. I love hearing about what actors have to do bring a character to life and to really be true to the story. It shows so much dedication, determination, and bravery to learn a new skill for a role. I can't imagine learning something in such a short amount of time that I would normally learn over the course of a few years. Take Channing Tatum for instance. The first time I saw him in any movie was Step Up, and all I could think was how they were able to get such good dancers who could also act. The fact that Tatum learned how to dance hip-hop for the part just brings a smile to face. I just think it is so great that on top of being in a movie and being successful, actors are constantly learning new things and changing their way of living a bit for their characters. By working, they are developing so many more talents and bringing their value up so high.
I’m always impressed with the things actors do for certain roles, whether that’s learning entirely new things or changing their physical appearance (by losing or gaining weight, for example). Sometimes I wonder, however, why an actor would be cast in a role while lacking such an important skill. Some instances are understandable, such as Channing Tatum in “Hail, Caesar!” We all know Tatum can dance, so it’d make sense to cast him in a role that required dancing, even if one scene was a new dance style for him. But situations such as Natalie Portman in “Black Swan” and Adrien Brody in “The Pianist” leave a bit confused… if you have a movie about ballet, or a movie about a pianist… why wouldn’t you cast someone with those specific skills? This isn’t to doubt the abilities of the actors, but it just seems a little weird to me. My only guess is that it may be harder to make a dedicated ballet dancer or pianist a good actor than make an actor appear to be a great ballet dancer or pianist… they are actors, after all.
I love hearing about the amazing things actors do in order to perform best for a certain role. The fact that an actor can just up and learn ballet, piano, tap dance, etc, is pretty astounding. I do think it's sort of weird for famous actors to be cast as ballerinas or tap dancers when they don't actually have those skills. You'd think it would be easier to find an actress AND ballerina than have to have your actress learn an entirely new skill? However, I understand that people want to see famous actors and actresses in these roles, not semi-famous dancers or pianists. It would be awesome if Hollywood opened up to allow not-so-famous people with these specific skills to come and play these roles, but I don't know if that's a plausible hope for the near future. Regardless, I do enjoy seeing Channing Tatum tap dance, so I'm not sure if I would have preferred a professional dancer...
Post a Comment