Archie Leach day: Playing himself

Here are Cary Grant’s words on “playing himself”.

“Playing yourself” truthfully is one of the most difficult things an actor can do. Many of them canNOT do it – and that’s fine, it’s not a skill every actor needs to have. But the ones who do have it? The John Waynes? The Clark Gables? The Humphrey Bogarts? You mean to tell me you think there’s something “less” about those guys because they “played themselves”? You’re ignorant and you don’t know what you’re talking about. If I tried to pontificate with expertise on topics about which I know nothing, like hedge funds or genetics or brain surgery, then you can bet that I would be called on my bullshit. “Playing yourself” is not an insult, nor is it easy.

Here’s Grant:

To play yourself — your true self — is the hardest thing in the world. Watch people at a party. They’re playing themselves … but nine out of ten times the image they adopt for themselves is the wrong one.

In my earlier career I patterned myself on a combination of Englishmen — AE Matthews, Noel Coward, and Jack Buchanan, who impressed me as a character actor. He always looked so natural. I tried to copy men I thought were sophisticated and well dressed like Douglas Fairbanks or Cole Porter. And Freddie Lonsdale, the British playwright, always had an engaging answer for everything.

I cultivated raising one eyebrow and tried to imitate those who put their hands in their pockets with a certain amount of ease and nonchalance. But at times, when I put my hand in my trouser pocket with what I imagined was great elegance, I couldn’t get the blinking thing out again because it dripped from nervous perspiration!

I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at someone I wanted to be until I became that person. Or he became me.

His process sounds so self-conscious, doesn’t it … so NOT natural. THINKING about how he was going to put his hand in his pocket, IMITATING guys he thought were suave … and yet, the end result, finally, was total naturalness. He became that guy better than those he was imitating, if that makes sense.

How many times have you seen someone who is basically POSING their way through their life? You know? And maybe it started out that way with Mr. Grant … he wanted to APPEAR relaxed, hoping that that would relax him INSIDE. And eventually, it worked. I mean … nobody lights a cigarette, comes through a door, takes off his jacket, kisses a girl … with as much naturalness as he does.

And yet … he created “that guy” from scratch.

Amazing.