So You Wanna Be a Star

The great Russian actor, teacher, and director Constantine Stanislavski revolutioned how we think about acting back at the turn of the last century, and yet today most young actors think about acting the wrong way. They're consumed by the idea of being real, and yet films, plays, and television dramas are not real. Even the most gritty naturalistic work isn't life, it's a synthesis of life, a condensation and rearrangement of events in order to tell a story, be interesting, and move us emotionally. Stanislavski knew this, but the misunderstanding is partly his fault. As a director he liked to fill the stage with details that created an illusion of reality. The great playwright Anton Chekov complained about it. "If I cut the nose out of a genre portrait," he said, "and replace it with a real nose, the nose will be real but the painting is ruined." He threatened to begin the script for his next play with, "Scene: A Room in a farmhouse. There are no dogs barking, babies crying, birds chirpring, or water dripping."

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