--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jun 10, 2007, at 11:38 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: > > > > >> Can't say I ever quite grokked what the Method method was > >> all about. Whatever it's about, though, sure seems to have > >> produced a lot of great acting. > > > > Probably a lot of divorces and breakups, too. > > And that's the result of the acting method they use? > Doubtful. More like they take themselves so seriously > they can't handle it when somebody else doesn't.
I suspect that's why they take to Method acting in the first place, so the Method is correlated with divorces and breakups, but the personality is the underlying cause of both. I also suspect there have been a lot of terrific Method actors because a lot of inherently terrific actors liked the Method. They'd have been terrific no matter what approach they used, in other words. <snip> > And I believe Olivier was divorced at least twice. Twice, yes, and his second marriage to Vivien Liegh was horrendously stormy (but probably mainly because she was bipolar). > > I mean, once...way back when, Meryl Streep lived with Al Pacino. > > Can you *imagine* that apartment if they were both > > Method actors (Pacino is, I don't know if she is) > > playing heavy roles in different plays or films? :-) > > Well, Pacino has never been divorced (never been married, to my > knowledge at least) and Streep has been successfully married for > almost 30 years. I *think* Barry may be mistaken about Pacino and Streep living together. <snip> > Undoubtedly > somebody of Olivier's stature, at the point in life he had reached, > might not any longer see things that way and wouldn't mind letting > his guard down. Would be interesting to know what he was like 30 > years before that, though. Bet he was a whole different person. I've seen a couple of interviews with Olivier in his later years, and he seemed to me completely inarticulate when asked about his approach to acting. He was never a particularly emotive actor, though; and you could almost always *see* him acting--albeit brilliantly. > In the clip, > Nicholson never moves from the chair between takes. > But in between each take he's Just Jack, telling jokes, > laughing with people on the set. And then, like Olivier, > the director calls for the next take and like that!, in > a split second he's back in character as Jessep. > Quite a thing to see. > > Nicholson almost never takes himself very seriously, as far as I > can tell. He takes his acting *dreadfully* seriously, at least according to one interview with him I read. > He's always got that twinkle in his eye and that way of forming > an almost instant bond with the audience. He's always pretty much > just Jack, which is a big part of what, IMO, makes him great. By me, he's the most overrated actor in Hollywood. As far as I'm concerned, the only good thing he's done was his smallish part as Eugene O'Neill in Warren Beatty's "Reds." As you say, he's always pretty much just Jack; and as with Olivier, you can almost always see him acting, but with nowhere near as good results. Why he even bothers with the Method, I can't imagine. It doesn't seem to me to have done him any good.
