I was always under the impression that acting is an innate gift. One of the first things I heard them say at Koothu-P-Pattarai was that actors should realise the art of acting through their training.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think acting is a gift.
Everyone brings their own particular skill set to the job, and acting training can work for a lot of actors, and it can't. I've seen a lot of really good actors go into acting schools and then come out a little bit corrupted.
I think acting is a gift. I look at someone like Ben Kingsley, and he's incredibly charismatic, even when he's not acting. He's an incredibly hard worker, and he has a very specific system that he does with his work.
Actors have an innate sense of self and humanity, the good ones do, and of being generous of heart and generous of spirit.
My acting experience has been a benefit. What I learned from directors is how to listen to and talk with actors. I know how they think and what they need.
Actors, their greatest tool, their greatest resource is imagination. You can take things, power objects, you can recruit your dreams, you can access your memories and get there. So the idea is not to act but to just be.
I thought acting was all about natural instinct but I've realised, through working with so many talented actors on 'Wild Swans' and 'Run,' that I can see the training. That's why I am back at drama school.
It's not like every actor needs to train, but an actor will either develop their process through training or through working.
I trained at the Lee Strasberg Institute at Tisch, which is a huge foundation for young actors. They teach you their methods and give you the sense that acting is much more tangible than most people think. I think there's a mysticism of what acting is, in the fact that it's this ungraspable, spur-of-the-moment thing that nobody can understand.
There's so much to learn about acting and performance in general... I mean, acting is a very complex art, and there are a lot more theories and methods and techniques to it than I think anybody would think.