The Books: Acting Professionally: Raw Facts About Careers in Acting, by Robert Cohen

Daily Book Excerpt: Theatre

Next book on the acting/theatre shelf is Acting Professionally: Raw Facts About Careers in Acting, by Robert Cohen

This book was given to me when I was 16 years old and for the life of me I cannot remember who gave it to me. I think it may have been my aunt Regina (an actress), although it also may have been Barry, my dad’s best friend. I was getting crazy serious about acting at that time, and Robert Cohen’s book is a practical and very scary dash of cold water about what it takes, professionally, to make it. Not to become a star, but to just get a damn JOB. Much of the information is out of date, although in later editions I am sure financial realities are reflected. He goes into everything. This is not strictly an acting technique book, but more of a professional handbook. He breaks it all down: casting agents, managers, New York vs. Los Angeles, making budgets, what you need, all of the different unions and the pros and cons of joining them. For a 16 year old girl gaga about acting (and also, truthfully, not particularly naive about the realities of the business since my aunt Regina was a living example of a working actress), it was a terrifying book. I tore through it in high school and remember having to take breaks, because the book was so intense. I had to talk myself off the ledge. You can do this, Sheila. You can figure it out.

It is strictly for beginning actors. You learn the ropes pretty quick.

But Cohen is a great guide, not only for how the business itself is set up, but for the other side of it, the art side of it. He’s sneaky that way. The book is not just a business book. Because show business is, in the end, about art – and how do you keep that belief/love intact through the difficult pursuit of just getting a job in a commercial? This is, actually, THE MOST IMPORTANT thing a beginning actor needs to do, because love of the art itself can, indeed, be killed. I have seen it happen. It happened to a couple of friends of mine, and their bitterness/cynicism actually impacted their work. You have to do what it takes to keep it alive. Yes, get your headshots, and get an agent, and audition. But never forget that what you are doing is pursuing something you love. It can be battered out of you, and it is up to YOU to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Cohen really really gets that.

But he also knows you have to devote time to creating a good-looking resume, so he tells you how to do that. He advises you on how to contact casting directors. He gives you a list of resources. It’s a handbook.

Bracing exciting scary stuff for a teenager hungry to get started.

I haven’t looked through this book in over 20 years. I can’t get rid of it because it was an important book for me as a teenager, and I will never forget reading it.

Here is an excerpt from the section entitled “What You Will Need”. Here is why Cohen’s book is so good (and I highly recommend it as a gift for any young actors you might know, even teenagers who think they might want to pursue it). He tells you what you need. Resumes. Headshots. Subscription to Backstage. Practical stuff. But then he throws a wrench in the works, and says you will also need Talent, Personality, and Luck. So don’t think this will be EASY.

Here is an excerpt from his section on “Personality”.

Excerpt from Acting Professionally: Raw Facts About Careers in Acting, by Robert Cohen

Personality is the second most important characteristic of the successful actor, a ranking that inevitably draws shrieks. “What does my personality have to do with it? I’m an actor, not a prostitute! Use me for my talent – for what I can do; not for what I am! My personality is my own business!” As the American actor William Gillette said more than three generations ago, however, “Among those elements of Life and Vitality, but greatly surpassing all others in importance, is the human characteristic or essential quality which passes under the execrated name of Personality. The very word must send an unpleasant shudder through this highly sensitive Assembly; for it is supposed to be quite the proper and highly cultured thing to sneer at Personality as an altogether cheap affair and not worthy to be associated for a moment with what is highest in Dramatic Art. Nevertheless, cheap or otherwise, inartistic or otherwise, and whatever it really is or not, it is the most singularly important factor for infusing the Life-Illusion into modern stage creations that is known to man.” Sixty years later have not changed the import of Gillette’s well-capitalized comments.

American film and theatre performances today are dominated by the Stanislavski/Strasberg/cinema verite school of acting. Whether one is happy or sad about this, it remains true: so totally true that even directors and producers who publicly condemn “the method” nevertheless refuse to cast any actor who does not follow its basic precepts. They are, of course, unaware of this, but it is nonetheless true. Particularly in film and television work, actors are cast largely on the basis of “personal quality”. The major casting decisions are made without, or before, auditions. Fifty people may be interviewed for one role. The three or four who have the right “quality” for the role are then given copies of the text to read aloud for the producer. Thus, 92 percent of the decision is based on the candidate’s personal behavior, and 8 percent on the actor’s talent and ability beyond that. Professional stage work is determined more by auditioning than interviewing, but the importance of a stageworthy personality – one suited to the role, of course – is still enormously great.

The reasons for this are many. Primarily, directors are seeking naturalness and they are commercially pressured to get it quickly. Unlike Stanislavki himself, the modern American stage director must get good characterizations in a matter of three or four weeks; the television director has at most a couple of days and frequently only about fifteen minutes. On a normal television shooting schedule, the actor will appear on the set, lines learned and ready to shoot, at eight o’clock in the morning. Having received no instructions whatever, and having had the script for maybe twenty-four hours, the actor meets the director minutes before the actual shooting. There is a quick rehearsal, the blocking is set, and the director may give a reading or direction or two. Minutes later the scene is filmed and they are on to the next. Clearly there is no time to work at developing a character. Television directors, therefore, must use personality as a basis for casting. The foundation of this short-order work is simply Stanislavski’s “Magic If.” What would you do “if” you were Linda, the delivery girl, in Lou Grant, and Lou is yelling at you while your boyfriend is trying to get your attention? Linda will do it as you would do it, and Linda comes out looking a lot like you – which is why they cast you in the first place; that is how they saw Linda.

Acting in films is almost as rushed; Henry Fonda reports that of his ninety films, only five had the luxury of a rehearsal period in which characterization could be carefully developed. And while the legitimate theatre remains a medium where characterization can be created through the rehearsal process, directors even there, working improvisationally and according to contemporary versions of the Stanislavski method, seek to employ the actors’ personal characteristics and idiosyncrasies in their roles as much as possible, gaining thereby an individuality otherwise unavailable. All this demands “the real you” – the actor’s own personality – to be employed in the service of the performance.

Still, it isn’t sufficient to have a personality that is “right for the role”. You must also have, or seem to have, a widely appealing personality. “Likeability” is the most important requirement for an actor, according to Bud Robinson, an actor’s manager, and in Hollywood a formal personality rating system, known as TVQ, is sometimes used in casting decisions. “A low Q score could spell disaster,” says the Screen Actors Guild in surveying this commercial service, which seeks to quantify what most directors and producers do by the seat of their pants.

What is a good acting personality? It is no one thing in particular, but it is something definable in general terms. You are shy, you are fascinating, you are profound, you are aggressive, you are hostile, you are nasty, you are fiery, you are sensual, you are youthful, you are idealistic, you are wacky, you are serene. Plain ordinary old NICE will get you nowhere. Thousands of aspiring actors have wasted interviews simply by being polite and forgotten. Yes, there is an interview technique. A hundred actors will explain, “I didn’t get the job because I don’t play their games at the interview. I’m just not that kind of person.” But it’s not a game. Interview technique is simply letting them see just what kind of person you are. If that is hidden behind a lot of “pleased-to-meet-yous” and “thank-you-very-muches”, you will find not only that you have lost your chance at a further audition, but that you have in fact been playing your own game – the parents’ and teachers’ and business school’s interview game – and that for perhaps the first time in your life it was the wrong game to play. The casting game is the business of projecting (for you) and discovering (for them) your real self, whatever that may be.

Successful actors are not bland people. That is not to say that they are brash, either. Most of my acquaintance are people with depth, sensitivity, dedication, and artistry. Their personalities are not applied for the sake of calling attention to themselves. The surest way to lose your personality is to fake one. Your real personality will follow you in every role you play; it will become your trademark. In the classic days of Hollywood such trademarks were Bogart’s toughness, John Wayne’s reckless virility, Fonda’s sensitive passion, Marilyn Monroe’s soft, defenseless sexuality, Marlon Brando’s vulnerable egotism, W.C. Fields’s cynicism, Mae West’s leering defiance, Grace Kelly’s poise, and Clark Gable’s cockiness. These were not “put on” personalities, they were intrinsic to their owners and vital to their success. The personalities of today’s rising stars are more subtle, perhaps, but just as ingrained in their performances, even in varied characterizations. One need only remember John Travolta’s petulant sneer in Saturday Night Fever and Grease, or Richard Dreyfuss’ rasping laugh in The Goodbye Girl and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The day of the “personality actor” is far from over; in fact there is no indication that it is even beginning to end.

You cannot create your personality – your stage personality – but you can liberate it. What are your personal characteristics? What do others see in you? Find out and let those characteristics come out. Do not worry about “your good features versus your bad features.” Just have features. Don’t be afraid to be different. Don’t opt for the ordinary, for the nice. Don’t try to be what you think they want you to be. Don’t worry about yourself. Be proud of yourself. Like yourself. If you don’t it is hard to see how somebody else will.