My acting mentor and friend Sam Schacht has died. I’m so mournful. How do you talk about someone who made such an impact? Who was so wonderful? I love you, Sam. Thank you. Thank you for all you gave me. You live on in my head: your comments, observations, your support, your attitude towards work, your dedication, your humor! Since the news came of your passing, my FB feed has filled up with people sharing memories, crying, mourning, laughing.
You were one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, certainly the last best teacher. (Eerie that my first great teacher also just died.) I am so grateful, too, that you became a good friend. You were one of my champions – you SAW me – and I really needed it at the time I studied with you. I know I’m not alone. He taught generations. The outpouring has been amazing. My last communication with him was last year. I reached out to see how he was doing in the Covid era. He said he was doing fine, holding tight. We then discussed our shared love of Kristen Stewart. Sam always had good taste. He was such a good man, and a GREAT teacher.
In 2017, irritated at critics pontificating on “the Method” and “the Studio” when they clearly didn’t know what they were talking about – I got an idea and reached out to Sam. I was listening to these smart people make generalizations or just get things wrong – and they were wrong with such certainty! – even down to the most basic shit like calling Montgomery Clift a “Studio” actor which he wasn’t at all. Facts matter. Brando wasn’t a Studio actor, either. Brando studied with STELLA. There’s a DIFFERENCE. Just ask Lee and Stella. A whole WAR was fought about it. Research exists. I grew up steeped in this stuff and spent years AT the actual Studio so I thought Okay, well, stop bitching about it, let’s interview Sam about the Method and actually put some clarity into this situation from someone who actually knows this stuff firsthand. He and I met up at his office on a rainy night and talked for a couple of hours. It was so fun! It was difficult editing it down but I am proud how it came out. And it’s even more meaningful now, because except for his various professional positions – as teacher, as Dean, as whatever – there aren’t any articles about him, or interviews. And so my 2017 interview with him is 2nd or 3rd on Google when you Google him. This is not about me: why I mention this is because his former students have obviously been Googling him and they trip over my piece, and they’ve been emailing me thanking me. This is so meaningful for me and makes me even MORE proud – and glad – that I decided to interview him, to get him on the record about the Method, which he devoted his whole life to.
So here’s my interview with Sam Schacht:
Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances: Sam Schacht on Method Acting
Some photos from Sam’s career as an actor:
In the off-Broadway revival of True West, with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. (It was also filmed. Seek it out. Sam, to me: “They were very good to me.”
Listening to Faye Dunaway in Puzzle of a Downfall Child
Puzzle of a Downfall Child
With Walter Matthau in Elaine May’s brilliant A New Leaf
And I’ll end with Sam’s own words. He was one of the most quotable people I have ever known.
I used to keep a notebook during acting classes. I took Scene Study with Sam. I took his private class for years. And then, during school, there was the insane rambunctious PD Unit (the Playwriting/Directors Unit) – which took up the entirety of Friday afternoon. We all dreaded it. It was DREARY and STRESSFUL, simultaneously. People were all working so hard, and there was so much creative work going on at such a fast speed the mood got slap-happy, especially since Sam headed up the PD Unit. Sam was always all about the work but he was also a very very funny person. He did not stand on ceremony, he did not suffer fools and he also didn’t coddle. But the atmosphere in there was so free-wheeling and safe that he could basically say to you after you did a scene, “Okay, that stunk” and you could be like, “My God, I know, please help me” and then he would help. It wasn’t precious. He wasn’t hurtful or dismissive. Every single thing he did had the goal to make you better. You literally would not survive 5 seconds in Sam’s PD Unit if you had a huge fragile ego. He could be rough, but it was always with a purpose. So. Here’s another tribute to this man who meant so much to so many: a small portion of Sam quotes (with some supporting cast members from my equally funny classmates) from the PD Unit:
“A half-hour where you stink is no great shakes.” – Sam
Sam: “I wanted people to be ready to bring in work today—”
Barbara: “Oh, for cryin’ out loud.”
“Okay, everyone, settle down. We have 2 striving artists up there yearning to be free.” – Sam
Sam: “Not everything is Hat Full of Rain.” (SUCH a good comment. Never forgot it.)
Sam: “Working on this play is like trying to revive a 2nd rate dead horse.”
“Anything can be good. If it’s good.” – Sam
“If there’s any poetic dimension to this, it escapes me.” – Sam
“She’s not a waif physically. She’s a waif emotionally.” – Sam – on This Property is Condemned
Playwright: “Then why these scenes in this specific order?”
Sam: “I have no idea.”
“Tom, you fuck-head, listen to me!” – Sam
Actor who finished a scene where she was supposed to play a professional singer, and she had sung a song. She declared: “I am a soprano.”
Sam: “I don’t care what you call yourself. The high notes stink.”
“Do whatever you want to do. Just don’t have a rod up your ass and think you’re playing Shaw.” – Sam
“Cast well, and then shut up.” – Sam, to the directors
“All the plans that you think you’ve made may be just delusions on your part.” – Sam
“I know I’ve been manipulating you, but I think I’ve been helpful to you.” – Sam to Barbara
Barbara: “You have.”
“It looks like your soul is adrift in the wrong play.” – Sam to actor
“You talk a little bit like a French art critic.” – Sam to Rich
Two actors finish a scene. There’s a pause. Then Sam says: “This was a bore.”
“You act like you have parentheses around you at all times.” – Sam to an actor
Sam: “Renee Taylor, in reality, is larger than life.”
We read German Lullaby – we finished. There was a long long pause. Sam turned to Lesley : “Lesley, you should be very proud of yourself for what you have created.”
Sam on subtext: “It is the subterranean tide pulling us forward.”
Sam on issues with the PD unit: “The main issue is the bored actors.”
Sam to me and Jen: So how are you 2 Irish broads doing?
Me: We were just sitting here appreciating you.
Sam: Oh – really? (he got all excited – stretching his arms)
Me: Yeah. You’re not afraid of anything, are you?
Sam: No.
Me: I can tell. Have you worked really hard to get that?
Sam: Yes.
Sam to the directors: “Actors at their best are fantastic creatures. If you give them the correct stimuli – character, circumstance, objective – and then Get Out of the Way – they can work miracles.”
“Relaxation should not be a spectacle.” – Sam
Sam, at one particularly low PD Unit point: “Who do I have to fuck to get out of here is what I want to know.”
Sam: “I’m just trying to keep my spirits up.”
Sam: “You know who originated this part? It was Geraldine Page.”
Kara, interjecting: “I bet she sucked!” (Sam lost it.)
Sam: “Fences is a masterpiece of structure.”
“Speaking of surly and disrespectful, where is Kara?” – Sam
Sam: “If you do a high-class piece that lays an egg, no one will think: ‘Boy, that’s a high-class broad.’”
Sam to D.: “To whatever degree you can get it up, try to create some authentic misery.”
Sam: “Method acting the stereotype is eyeballing your partner, mumbling, breaking up your sentences in illogical ways. You can be 100% full of shit and be a Method actor.”
Sam: “I studied with Strasberg for 21 years and I never felt that gave me the license to be an asshole.”
Mike Z.: “So where’d you get your license then?”
lol again: Sam just totally lost it.
“The PD … boring or otherwise …” – Sam
“While she’s making all this money on a soap opera, she can do her creepy parts off-Broadway.” – Sam on being practical as an actor
“Don’t try to pull yourself together. Fall apart.” – Sam to K.
“I feel like a two-bit whore. Next!” – Sam on a grueling day where we had to get through 6 scenes
“I don’t think it’s self-indulgent unless it’s self-indulgent.” – Sam on crying in stage
“Are you a spy from Juilliard?” – Sam to B.
Sam: “If you’re stuck in a scene, just remember: Every scene is either Fight or Fuck. Choose. See where it gets you.”
“You were doing some oddly inappropriate emotional work …” – Sam to Tom – lol
“Here we are … in the hallowed halls of ivy …” – Sam
“I’m totally confused from an organizational point of view.” – Sam – who was the head of PD, remember.
“Totally uninhibited. No apologies. Go.” – Sam after working for some time with an actor – telling them to start the scene again
Liz: “Every woman in this room has gotten their period –”
Sam: “I don’t want that kind of talk here.”
“Do you want to speak, Richard, or are you just breathing?” – Sam
“Life is short. Keep moving.” – Sam
Sam on bad Method acting: “I’m flopping around honestly in my moments.”
Sam: “The punchline is ‘The cocksuckers are throwing paper clips’ – so you can work your way backwards from there.”
Sam: “If you really go after your objective, that takes care of the pacing.”
“Go out, say the line, and get the hell off.” – Sam
Sam: “Trust yourself. Don’t be conservative. Go out on a limb.”
Sam: “It’s always a mistake for an actor to fight his own instrument. It is like a violin saying, ‘I wish I was a piano.’”
“Get Strasberg out of your ass and think about somebody else for a second!” – Sam
Sam to an actor: “So I saw that you had such ecstatic oneness with the part that you were barely in the room with us.”
Sam: “The scene lays a royal egg. And I’m thinking: This is not what Stanislavski had in mind.”
“And if you’re a talented prick, who needs you?” – Sam
Sam: “Lee Strasberg always used to say – your trump card is always the disaster that’s befalling you in the moment.”
Sam, after watching a particularly bad series of scenes, “I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.”
Mike Z.: “You’re lucky.”
Rest in peace, Sam. The world already doesn’t feel the same without you in it.
