Morgan Freeman, when he played Hoke Colburn in Driving Miss Daisy<\/i>, had to age a great deal over the course of the film. Freeman was 51 when he played that part, but he had to play a man in his mid-70s. How would he pull it off? <\/p>\n
Freeman, while preparing to play that part, remembered something an acting teacher had said to him way back when he first started taking classes. The acting teacher was talking about this very thing: the problem of a young person having to play an elderly person and how does one do it truthfully and convincingly?<\/p>\n
And the acting teacher said, “You should just walk as though you have glass Christmas tree ornaments for testicles.” <\/p>\n
He made all the young men in the class walk across the room, imagining they had glass balls, basically. By concentrating on THAT, as opposed to “pretending” to be old, they were able to successfully transform themselves. It’s amazing how concentrating on something simple (“pretend your testicles are made of glass”) as opposed to something very complex (“pretend you are 80”), so often does the trick. Because it’s specific. And it’s also grounded in some kind of sensory reality. It’s not intellectual, it’s not an idea. I think a lot of the times when actors play old, they’re just playing “the idea” of old – they haven’t given themselves specific small tasks to concentrate on, to keep them grounded.<\/p>\n
So that’s what Freeman did, many many years later in Driving Miss Daisy<\/i>, when he had to play Hoke, a man in his mid 70s. He walked as though he had glass balls.<\/p>\n
I love anecdotes like that. So creative, so cool. Actors. Love ’em.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Morgan Freeman, when he played Hoke Colburn in Driving Miss Daisy, had to age a great deal over the course of the film. Freeman was 51 when he played that part, but he had to play a man in his … Continue reading