From Blank Canvas to Oil Painting:
Why Theatre is the Best Film Training You’ll Ever Have
by Penny Templeton
 Actors often come to me and say, “I want to be a film actor! I know you teach theatre classes, but I only want to concentrate on film.” In my studio, I have a movie screen to help actors experience the craft of film acting consistently. But this is what I say to them: “To become a great film actor, the first thing you need is theatre training.”
If you don’t have theatre training ….what’s it like?! I would say it is like trying to swim a race without learning the basic strokes and you don’t even know how to float... Or becoming a race car driver because you like to drive fast. Or anything else that might look easy because it requires mastery and skill.
Film is like putting yourself under a magnifying glass. The place to train your deepest emotions is in the theatre. When you pull your emotions inward for film work, the camera will see depth and complexity. In other words, there will be something interesting going on in there. You pull that bonfire inside while being simple on the outside.
Just like ballet is the foundation for all types of dance, theatre is the foundation for all types of acting. Theatre is the hub. It’s the base. You have your foundation in theatre training and then you make adjustments to the technical demands of other mediums such as film and television. Theatre teaches you how to know what you’re doing. If a casting director sees you on stage doing great work, he’ll know that you have a process. And you have to have a process. Many of the great artists in film are theatre trained: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Liev Schreiber. The truth is the truth. We’re not talking about actors that “act” theatre. We’re talking about theatre artists that live the role and bonfire that truth to reach the very last row of the audience.
When the actor puts himself through the paces of theatre training, you work each muscle in the deepest way possible. You go to the depths of your soul as an actor. When you’re in the rehearsal process, you’re layering and layering, making discoveries. You have to bring a fully layered performance every single night, eight performances a week. Theatre artists find a new truth every night in the moment to moment of the play. Artists paint every day, musicians practice every day, and dancers dance every day. Artists must consistently do the work to be consistently great. As Pablo Picasso put it: “It is our work in life that is the ultimate seduction.”
So what can you bring to film acting besides your limited personal experience? Shakespeare gives you a Grand Canyon experience. The Greeks take you through the wringer. When you’re working on the great characters of theatre, you’re working on creating a complex human being: a Hamlet, a Lady Macbeth, a Medea, a Richard. As you explore the character, you literally swim a sea.
Actors return to explore the great roles again and again because as you see life differently, you see the characters differently. That’s why great plays are timeless. That’s why they still work. And that’s why people are still performing them. They relate to the truth of the human soul.
To say, “I’m not interested in Shakespeare,” or “I don’t want to do the Greeks,” or “I don’t need to be in a scene study class,” is building an artistic foundation on sand rather than stone. I have seen professional film actors regret not completing their training. They know they are lacking some of the great techniques that would make them feel more confident and at the top of their game.
What’s the most difficult thing to do as an actor? Stand on a stage, say nothing and hold an audience. What’s the most difficult thing to do on camera? Stand on a mark, say nothing, and hold the screen. What is the audience seeing in you: a blank canvas or an oil painting? •2007
Written exclusively for “The Soul of the American Actor”
PENNY TEMPLETON opened her studio in 1994 in New York City, working with actors on Broadway, Off-Broadway, television and film. Ms. Templeton has been a finalist judge for the NY Film Festival, Daytime Emmys and Cable Ace Awards. She was invited by Kristen Linklater to teach her Advanced Camera Class for the MFA Acting Program at Columbia University. She is featured in Ronald Rand’s Acting Teachers of America, and Promoting Your Acting Career by Glenn Alterman. Her articles on the craft of acting have appeared in “The Soul of The American Actor,” as well as other national publications. Ms. Templeton is currently writing her own book, Acting Under Fire: Creating Acting Lions. Ms. Templeton directed “A State of Union,” “Another Damn Scene Night,” “F Train” and “Idiot’s Guide to Life.” www.pennytempletonstudio.com |
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