Give me a pack of cards and I'll memorise that in minutes, but a script… " He's been madly studying performers he admires – Kevin Spacey, Dave Chappelle – as well as talking to other magic-makers, and watching TED talks.
Filming a difficult scene in "The Man Who Would Be King," "he came up to me and said, 'Chris, just take the music out of your voice.' " But even with that rarified history, Mr. Plummer said he was still studying performers and directors.
Study performers you like and learn from them.
Stanley is a professional, Sophie is an inspired amateur who displays a world-class talent, and the differences between them, and between their modes of art, are the crux of the movie: the contrast between the stage actor and the movie star, between the skill of the trained, seasoned, and studied performer and the emotional power of the charismatic cinematic natural.
Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer, golf, surgery, piano playing, Scrabble, writing, chess, software design, stock picking and darts.
As with the recent Brown event in New York, a dance audience in a gallery is primed to study the performers almost as though they were art works, circling round them, focusing on certain small details, moving away, returning.
I wanted to study exceptional performers..
This weekend's free events include a tribute to Pearl Primus, performed by the Urban Bush Women (today at 6 30 p.m.) and a tribute to Katherine Dunham by young performers studying with her at the Pillow (tomorrow at 6 30 p.m.), both part of the outdoor Inside/Out series.
Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University, has spent decades--the majority of his career -- studying prodigies, superior performers, geniuses--those who succeed in ways that we think that we can not.
After raising her three children, acclaimed actor/director, Rob, Annie, a gifted writer and psychoanalyst, and Lucas, a painter whose work shows in the U.S. and Europe, Reiner began a career as a performer, studying with Viola Spolin and Lee Strasberg, and was soon cast in "Fatso", the directorial debut of her old friend, Anne Bancroft.
Doesn't it seem logical to start by studying what the top performers in education do?
