Is there a difference between film acting and stage acting?
I get this question a lot and my answer, having acted and directed onstage and on film, is always the same. No. Acting is acting just as truth is truth. There may be minimal adjustments that one has to make regarding the camera versus a large audience but these adjustments are as natural as how one would behave when having a conversation with someone across a dinner table, versus speaking to someone from across the street. Because you are onstage, it doesn’t require you to behave in a “theatrical” way. One should be as natural in one’s behavior onstage as on film. There are classes that believe there is value to on-camera workshops. I don’t. It would be nothing for me to set up a camera and monitor to record the work, but I strongly believe that it puts the emphasis on how an actor looks, rather than their internal experience. Also, if you look at the greatest American actors, actors that we all admire, very few have ever taken on-camera class. What they have taken, in the 70 years or
