Latest / Lydia Nicole's Acting Smarter Now Podcast / Blair Underwood shares how to bring characters alive on stage, film and TV.

Transcript

Blair Underwood shares how to bring characters alive on stage, film and TV. · Lydia Nicole's Acting Smarter Now Podcast

• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: If I hire you, if you're a plumber, and I hire you to fix my sink, and I'm gonna tell you what wrench to use and how you should turn it, the how of it all, it can be very offensive.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you're an actor, I shouldn't tell you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's disrespectful to tell you how to make that scene work.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: All I need to tell you is what I'm going for.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: What is the result of the scene?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's the actor's job not to play for results, but it's kind of tricky.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's one thing we learn in acting school.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if if you know you gotta have an argument, a blowout, you're gonna slam the door and walk out.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can't play the end of a scene, generic anger.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's all about the specificity of those dynamics.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: But but it's those things that I think an actor, a director who has been trained as an actor, it it is it can be an advantage.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think it most often is an advantage, just in terms of how you that you're able to communicate with the character, the actors to tell the story, because it doesn't matter at the end of the day.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Keenan Ivory Wayne told me this.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I went to direct something.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: One of the first things I directed, he said, tell the story first.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, if you have great performances in a crappy looking movie, you got a great movie.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you have terrible performances in a great-looking movie, you got a terrible movie.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Focus on telling the story with the actors.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to storytelling because actors are storytellers, just as directors are.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: So when you are looking at a character, how are you looking at the story of that character?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: How do you mean we're looking at the character?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: You get a character.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about the character you did in long legs, because uh he had a certain apathy to him.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was he was very uh dry, very methodical, you know.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we gotta do this, we gotta, you know, he was about chasing the bad guy, but uh his humanity was not all intact.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: He was just about, we gotta get this, we gotta, you know, we're we're losing time.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're so that when you are looking at the story of that actor, of that character, I'm sorry, when you're looking at the story of that character, there there's almost like going back to the backstory, there's something that has made them that way.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're you how you play uh the the detective in long legs is different than how you play the lawyer in uh LA Law.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's different than how you play the husband in uh uh Madam CJ Walker.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's different than how you played the the was it the corporal in in a soldier story, the the uh the captain.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The captain in a soldier story.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're all, I mean, it's all you, but they are all very different characters.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And within those characters, to me, there's a story of that, of that character.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: You we may never know what it is, but you bring it to the stage, you bring it to the screen, you have made a story about this person.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when they come, they're they are they embody the story without even saying a word.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: We know I knew who uh long the the detective was, I knew who uh the guy in LA Law was, I knew who you know, every character you play is embodied in in a story.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how I see it.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I might be wrong, but that's how I see it.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like because you did your work, because you did all the back work, you come fully, you come three-dimensional.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of actors, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of actors uh just are reading lines.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're just coming in and they're you know, they've memorized the lines, but there's no discovery.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's no, I don't feel their flesh, I don't feel, I don't feel their soul, I don't feel their spirit, you know, and and the really great actors.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you talk about um you talk about Merrill Streep, she's always bringing a uh story with her character.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's always a story.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: When you talk about uh Denzel, he always brings a story, he's different in everything.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So um I don't know if if this makes sense, but if you can um, and maybe that's not the right term as an actor, I should know better, but that's what it feels like to me when I'm doing a character, I'm bringing a story of that character.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, that's right.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you want that you I feel like you almost have to make every character fully realized because you are a character, you're not an actor standing on a stage or an actor standing on a set, you are a character within this world telling a story and responding and reacting to what's happening in front of you.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, you have to, and I appreciate you saying that, but you have to walk onto that set or stage as a fully realized three-dimensional character, human being, living and breathing with a whole history.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's our work to create that character.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: But once you walk on that set in that scene, and the director calls action, or the curtain goes up, you have to be open and spontaneous to what is thrown at you in the reality of that moment.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I love theater so much because we're all breathing the same air, the actors on the stage and the people in the audience.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Something happens.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was I remember I went to go see uh uh uh Raising the Sun on Broadway.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Chris, New York City, man.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're sitting there in the theater, and these rats run under our seats and down the whole row, all the feet, all the knees go, wow, all the scream is going on.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't on stage at that point, but you know, they took a beat for a second.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're all in the same space, feeling and hearing the same energy and dynamics.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what's beautiful.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: But when you've done the homework and you are fully realized when you walk on that set, then you can play.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's the most beautiful feeling when you can be open to whatever is gonna be said, just like this conversation we're having right now.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm responding specifically to what you're saying.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're listening right now, you're gonna respond to what I'm saying, but it's in the moment.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we have a life, we have history between us as human beings.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's the job of actors to make sure these are these are well-rounded, real life, breathing and living human beings um uh in this space that we're sharing with an audience.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: How can actors, when they're doing film and television, bring that same energy, that same um um discipline from the stage to the screen, whether it's a small screen or a large screen, how do they bring it?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got your words, you got your you got all the likes, you got you got all these people around watching you, and you gotta be present in the moment.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: You you know how do you bring it?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I think first and foremost, in order to bring something from theater to television, you gotta know theater.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think first and foremost, you gotta know theater.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, do the work if you're serious about your craft as a story storyteller, as an actor, put your time in on the boards, on the stage, in the theater.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's my respect.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm an advocate for doing the theater work first, because then you want you understand that it's so much easier, it's so much easier to bring that to the camera.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because the camera, it's it's it's smaller.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you can be bold and broad and project on theater in the theater, it's so much easier to bring it down.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you learn camera work that is very subtle, to be able to crank that up vocally, to use the the instrument of your vocal cords and your diaphragm and all that, it's a different, you're using your instrument in a completely different way because you have to project and you need to translate um uh your your thoughts and your emotions and your gestures to a larger audience.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's important first to know what the what theater it is, what theater training is, if you're serious about it, then you can easily transfer that to to to camera work.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm reminded you did a trip to bountiful on stage, and then you brought it to the screen.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: How was that?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I it just I I just remembered that that you actually were talking theater and bringing it right to film.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question because I had never done that before.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sicily Tyson, Sicily Tyson, the trip to Bountiful and Vanessa Williams.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we had done well, she did the Broadway play first, Sicily Tyson, Vanessa Williams, and Cuba Gooding Jr.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then um I played the part that Cuba did on Broadway on the tour.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we did the tour on stage first, and then we did the film version, which was uh which was just that.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm glad we had done those first.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have you know, switching techniques just like a different gear, but it was great to do that with the exact same words, the exact same story, and in this case, the exact same actresses playing opposite.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was fun, it was a fun exercise.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I had never done that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: What did you learn from it?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: That just because something works in the theater, I learned this.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I thought maybe this might be the case, but I learned it for sure.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Just because you know, you do weeks after week after week, you know, you can play for months at a time.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you get used to something that works so clearly.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: The audience always responds, and whether it's a joke, whatever it is, doesn't always work on camera.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not just because it's more subtle or smaller, it's just it's a different cadence, it's a different rhythm.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: You have a live audience, it's gonna break the rhythm and laugh.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: You hold for the laugh, and and to ride that wave of laughter and and pauses and all of that.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a different rhythm.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very, it was very eye opening actually to like again again to take the exact same script, words and lines, and transfer it to a different medium.