East of Eden Screentest

James Dean: “Kiss me.”
Paul Newman: “Can’t here.”

Paul Newman screentested for the role of Aron, James Dean’s goody-two-shoes older brother in East of Eden. Dean was already cast. Newman was up-and-coming, trying to find his spot in the increasingly huge shadow cast by Marlon Brando (and in certain photos he looks uncannily like Brando). Needless to say, Newman was not cast in East of Eden – but here’s the screentest.

I find the dynamic fascinating to watch. And Newman’s laugh – that sort of devilish masculine laugh – was something he wasn’t asked to use in his acting for, oh, the first 15 years of his career. He was in the 1950s tradition: the angst-y Method-y emoting school of acting – which is all well and good, but it wasn’t his thing. I mean, it was – in that his work always has a disciplined and focused sense of character and motivation – and his creation of physical stimuli (drunkenness, his broken foot in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or heat – Long Hot Summer, Cat) is 100% in the Method tradition. But that laugh … that laugh of a bad boy up to no good, but he’s so charming about it you forgive him everything … that is HIM … and it wasn’t until the 60s and 70s that he got a chance to really let loose. No more angst. Just cool (sometimes icy) guys, with rakish rebellious personalities sans angst. These guys weren’t rebellious in the 1950s tradition, of Rebel Without a Cause or The Wild Ones … the lone angry individual against an establishment interested in convention above all else. These guys were rebellious in a more free-wheeling cocky way, guys who fucked, drank, drove fast, swore, ate voraciously, burped, connived, charmed, manipulated … He played men who were true to their own natures. It took him a while to find that dynamic, and to find the roles that would let him express it … believe me, it was there in his earliest roles – but the style of acting was different, and the expectations put on him were different.

He would never be “another Brando”. He didn’t need to be.

Just being Paul Newman ended up being more than enough.