Kim Stanley: Acting Cannot Be Taught

 

Interview with Kim Stanley conducted by James Grissom/1992/Los Angeles

"I'm going to stop you right there, because I do not teach acting. Acting cannot be taught, and anyone who tells you that it can is a charlatan. You are either born with the talent to act or you are not. A teacher, a guide, a coach can only enhance what you've been given, and this is done primarily through showing the actor where to look--at books, at theatre, at films, at art, at people, at life all around. Expand their minds and hearts. You can give them confidence by the foundation you build beneath their feet, and then you can hold those feet to the fire by demanding that they be truthful--in life and in any scenes they do before a class.

"There is so much out there to learn and to ingest, and we can share our experience of a book or a painting or a performance by incorporating into our roles what we saw and felt. We have to think and be big. A class is where you dare to take on parts you know are beyond you: Shakespeare, Shaw, Congreve, Sheridan, Ibsen. I tell the shy girl who has talent she can't even find or touch within her to become Mary Tyrone [in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night], and something is awakened within her. She realizes she can be so many people. If you don't make your students stumble toward greatness, then you really have no business calling yourself a teacher. Acting class is not therapy. Acting class is not affirmation time. There are twelve-step programs to let you know you're loved and encircled. Acting class is to let you know that time is running out on all the beauty in the world, and you are dispatching those students to harvest and husband it and take it to the world.

"But you have to have talent. No matter how much love or money you throw at me, if you weren't born with the gift, as far as I can see, you do not belong in a class or on a stage. Your passion for the theatre can take you to other places within the theatre, but the stage is holy, and lowered standards kill it."

© 2022 James Grissom