Michael Zelniker – An Actor’s Love Affair: Entry 13

A (long in coming) response to Angelita’s question in the hallway concerning her experience that the “technique” or conscious desire for better and better work appears to be halting her progress toward that freedom of expression, that instinctive reflex of natural/organic expressability we all search for.

Gestation and its (false) impression, as we seek the result of a creative expectation. We’re in such a hurry to meet some self willed destination that we forget the journey itself is the destination. So even as we MUST be determined, insatiable pigs in our quest for growth and development,  progress and evolution, we must remember to be patient with this creative process that by nature must have gestation/assimilation time.

Think of the mysterious, yet magical transformation of the caterpillar to butterfly. As it builds its own cocoon/coffin, sealing its own demise, so it embodies perfectly the confident instinct (or instinctive confidence) that its own determined and evolving survivability is dependent of and guaranteed by the reborn state of the magnificent butterfly that always follows the chrysalis of the cocooning period

As we pursue the work in hopes of coming nearer and closer to a conscious and reliable understanding/technique of this ephemeral, mysterious thing called creativity we must be as confident and patient as the caterpillar/butterfly. Not to in any way suggest that there is anything like too much work, because I have never experienced this to be the way. But a necessarily necessary part of any creative process is gestation.

The sperm cell and egg cell meet in a female human and some nine months later a viable human progeny is produced. This does not happen at the moment of conception. The mother must carry that multiplying cell mass through this gestation period/process in order that at the end of pregnancy the miraculous result of that necessary coming together, is a new creation/baby.

Gestation is very much a part, an important part, of this natural process. In the same way as we seek to create as artists, even as we pursue our work relentlessly, we must recognize and allow those moments/periods of gestation/assimilation. This is why I’m a big believer in rehearsing as frequently as possible, but for short periods of time with brief breaks from the conscious work. These brief breaks represent the intrinsicially important period of assimilation. That’s not to say those periods are inactive or represent a pause in the process. That is not what gestation is. What those moments away from the conscious work is is the time when the subconscious/nature itself is collaborating/contributing its absolutely necessary and mysterious aspect that is known as gestation.

And so it must be. It is done in the dark, in the stillness, in silence, in private, in pain (child birth).

Remember, only the Gods have been endowed with the rights of creation. So those of us who approach and assume creative lives must understand the arrogance that accompanies that choice and the overwhelming requirement of humility. As we understand it now, water is a necessary component in all life/creation. When we seek to hold water in our hand, if we try to hold it too tightly, we succeed only in squeezing it through our fingers. That overtight grip results in our losing our ability to maintain our possession of it.

We cannot possess creativity…we must allow it to possess us. And those of us so possessed must remember that we are simply hard working laborers attempting to set in motion the conditions that allow creativity to take place.

Similar to the farmer who plants his seed…he must be sure the soil is fertile and receptive and well watered and insure that plenty of sunlight is available. He must then step back and patiently and confidently allow nature to take its organic course. If he becomes impatient and tries to rush the process by pulling on the newly visible green shoots as they break the soil, he will only succeed in uprooting the new life/creation and kill it.

In the same way we actors dedicated to advancing our work deeper and higher and fuller must over time learn to trust that even when it is not apparent, so long as we persist in our need to find the best possible work each and every time, so it will be. Not necessarily as good as it might be, but perhaps as good as it can be at this moment.

I find it disturbing that a certain expectation of instant success accompanies the performing arts, perhaps more than any other of the arts. When we go to a museum and see the awesome work of the great masters, (Monet and Rodin), we are invariably experiencing the work they created much later in their lives. I recently saw a quote of Renoir’s, spoken in relation to work from late in his life that is to be part of an exhibit that is coming to Los Angeles in early 2010. He spoke of how he finally was beginning to know how to paint, now in his 60s. Sadly, not many of us are prodigies like Mozart and Rimbaud and Van Gogh.

So even as we seek to grasp this thing called creativity, hold it gently. Be persistent and relentless AND PATIENT. Nature itself beckons us to this understanding of creativity. Assimilation and gestation are also growthful moments, requisite moments in the process of creativity. Even when it feels like nothing is happening, we must be vigilant in our willingness to protect the mysterious/ephemeral aspects/processes always in motion, quietly at work. It is then that we must avoid being impatient, confident in the knowing that nature itself is willingly and unfailingly doing its part.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 12

Why, not how.

As actors we are handed a script or screenplay, words on a page, and we are led to believe that our work lies in figuring out how best to say those words, how to take that vocal/verbal action. The intonation and inflection, the pace and rhythm, the flavor and nuance, the volume and tone. This is among the biggest mistakes we make as actors as we follow a society and system that is intent on being obsessively concerned with and working on the effect/appearance thereby losing sight of what’s truly important, the cause/intent.

Human life is driven by human necessity/need. As human beings/human doings we are purposeful organisms, by nature, not by choice. We identify something we want or need, we must then take action in order to attempt to fulfill that need or desire. Every action we take, everything we say or do, is rooted in the need that justifies it.  If we want to understand how an action is to be taken, we must first understand why we are taking it. We must first analyze carefully the human need/intention that underlies the action.

Therein lies one of the complexities of the human condition. We are not always accurate in our assessment as to why we are taking action to begin with. We are not always honest or actualized enough to successfully appraise what is truly going on with us and why we might want (or even think we need) something. It is this human frailty/failing that sometimes leads us to decisions that result in us hurting ourselves, (at least that’s how it feels in the moment), rather than benefitting ourselves.

But if we assume that life must be toward/for itself and its own growth and evolution, as life individualizes itself within each one of us, then life being lived through us, must be for us. It cannot be against itself. Otherwise we would have to call it something other than life. I will concede that there are times when life’s circumstances leave us almost no other choice but to feel a victim, when life feels like it is indeed against us. Perhaps those are the moments to be even more rigorous in our questioning to motive and intent that pre-determined the so called self destructive behavior or choice of action.

Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun talks about the idea of “groundlessness”, a word meant to capture the concept of the impermanent, uncertain nature of life.  It seems coming to some form of understanding and acceptance around this idea of impermanence and groundlessness is among the most important aspects to the human journey, thereby freeing us from the desperate attachment we all have to outcomes, in the sense that do any of us really know with absolute certainty what the right or desirable outcome is in any and all circumstances. It seems unless we learn the idea of non-attachment, (not detachment), we are bound to suffer. If only in the struggle against the impermanence of this life form itself.

That being said, the real challenge for actors seeking to understand the motives of their characters, the answers to all questions lie in the why (cause) and not in the how (effect). As we seek to know how to play a moment truthfully, we must first be mindful of why the moment is happening. What does the character want. What is the character seeking to achieve. When the actor can clearly define this the rest will tend to fall into place. When we know why we are saying or doing something, the how to say it or do it tends to render itself organically, all by itself.

Of course this idea organizes itself around the first requisite in an actor’s studied journey: The work of developing a finely tuned instrument. The instrument that is fine tuned in order to master its utility is an instrument that has become sensitive and responsive. The membrane between conscious technique and subconscious process has become thinner and thinner and more and more permeable. A deeply simple connection to the why then sets in motion an organic rendering of the how. Acting is no longer an intellectual contrivance generated around some distant/remote concept of character, it becomes a natural/intuitive, a personal/universal response to the needs and demands of the story/character.

First and last, simply link yourself deeply to the why, in hopes of allowing an organic connection to the natural how/response.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 11

“So I’d best do some living, so the dying won’t hurt.”

The playwright, Tom Gallant wrote those words and they are contained in a beautiful play titled Stepdance that I did some years ago in Nova Scotia, a simply breathtaking part of Eastern Canada. I was invited to do this show by John Neville, the artistic director of the Neptune Theatre, one of the very fine regional theatres in Canada. This came a few years into my career after I looked around my immediate Canadian environment to determine who I hadn’t yet worked with but  really wanted to work with. So I  contacted John Neville, (amazing actor/director), offering to fly out to Halifax, Nova Scotia to meet him and if he was willing to take the time I would buy him a scotch. He agreed to take the meeting, demurred on the scotch, and one week later called to offer me this show. Sometimes sticking one’s neck out and taking a risk, pays off.

Stepdance is a play about families who live and work by the sea and how until recent times when men would go to sea for the winter catch, several of the men would not return. This is where the architectural feature and term, “widow’s watch” comes from, as the women would perch themselves at the top of their houses watching the ships roll into harbor in the spring looking to see if their man had made it back. You find these all over New England and the eastern Canadian port cities where the communities made and make a living fishing at sea.

Anyway this play details the life of one such family and I played the son, Jimmy Joe. I worked with and met some awe inspiring people during this early-ish experience in my life and career and for the first time I began to understand the leadership role that an actor can play in a company and how rewarding that can be. Working with John Neville and the amazing troupe of actors helped me learn so much. After a run in Halifax, we toured the province and played to the families that this play was written about. It was a truly moving experience as I got to visit some of the most beautiful countryside on this planet. The south shore of Nova Scotia, Lunenberg, the Bay of Fundy with its worldwide highest tides, and Cape Breton Island. Ahhh, Cape Breton Island.

Halifax is a very interesting community of artists and students and intellectuals and this confluence results in a mix that was perfect for that moment in my life’s journey. And I was exposed to and had confirmed the absolute necessity of that simple invocation, “So I’d best do some living, so the dying won’t hurt.”

The tour finished in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on November 21st, the day before my father’s 54th birthday. Instead of flying back to Toronto, my home at the time, I flew to Montreal to be with my father and family for his birthday on the 22nd. 4 weeks later my father dropped dead of a heart attack and that week home to celebrate his birthday (and my older brother’s birthday) turned out to be the last time my entire family would be together in tact.

It has always struck me as ironic that at a time in my life when I begin to fully appreciate the preciousness of this thing called life and pass a personal and artistic experience that serves to confirm deeply that idea, my father passes away. But not until after I take advantage of the opportunity presented me to spend some time with him.

“So I’d best do some living, so the dying won’t hurt.” I don’t think it can be said any better than that…Thank you Tom Gallant and John Neville and Nova Scotia and the initiative I was blessed with to follow my need to work with another great artist.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 10

Respons-ability, (not responsibility), and the intrinsic importance of listening.

The ability to respond…this is the real meaning of responsibility. There is nothing that conjoins us to the human condition more firmly than the obligations of interaction. We are a community driven species. Even though experience by nature is an undeniably solitary phenomenon, there is no stronger need in we humans than the one to share that experience. It is our nature to want to do so.

As we engage in that natural aspect of the human condition called interaction, we set in motion the requirement of response. Developing the ability to respond effectively, (respons-ability) is the single most important charge we assume as we walk the human path.

So the actor seeking to emulate human life as truthfully as possible must learn to embody this respons-ability fully. And the single most important quality needed in occupying this necessary position is the one of listening. Not mechanical listening, but the kind of listening that results in hearing. Hearing what the person conveying the idea, thought or feeling, via the words selected, hearing what they intend. And so the act of listening must be complimented and completed by the art of hearing/understanding.

If we take away something different than the person speaking to us is conveying, then the attempt at communication, (to commune, to come together) is a failure. And so the need underpinning the verbal expression is not fulfilled. All action, whether physical or vocal/verbal is inspired and motivated by a human need that underlies it.

Listening to hear enables us to respond in an organic fashion, because the expression of response is then rooted in cause, rather than effect. We don’t have to intellectually contrive how to say a line, when we know why we’re saying it. When we are anchored to the why and when we’re in touch with the why, the how takes care of itself. As I like to illustrate in a room with a group of actors: I yell unexpectedly, people then have a small seizure of fright at the unexpected happening of the yell. No one has to think of how to react, in fact no one has the time to figure it out. The yell/stimuli is received and a response is rendered without thought and rendered perfectly and organically.

Effective listening allows for spontaneous response. (It has always struck me that spontaneous and response both carry those same four letters, spon). Spontaneous response that is rooted in cause and results in organic expression. This is the only kind we must be seeking and finding in our work as actors/artists.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 9

The genius of Stanislavski.

Konstantin Stanislavski, the grandfather of all modern day acting technique. Before him, no one had ever constructed a system or method for actor’s to do their work consistently, reliably, repeatably and at a high level of expression.

Some history: Stanislavski was the director of the Moscow Art Theatre in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. In developing his “Technique of Physical Action”, he came to realize through his conscientious observation of human life that humans are purposeful by nature. Not by choice, but by nature. We realize or recognize something we want or need, we must then take physical or verbal action to make manifest that outcome in our life. Even as we are purposeful, life by nature is designed to encourage its own growth and evolution through our individualization of itself.  This interface between human nature and life nature creates a requisite of obstacles. Were we humans not to encounter obstacles in our life, we would never have to overcome anything in our quest for fulfillment and therefore we would never evolve.

It is this simple interaction – human necessity bumping up against life’s obstacles, that always results in conflict and conflict always yields drama (story). As we actors seek to emulate life as truthfully as possible, (“to hold the mirror up to to nature”, as Hamlet says), so in our study of a piece of fiction, we must come to consciously understand the human necessity or need that defines our character. As important as the given circumstances (the factual information given by the writer) and imaginary circumstances (those not provided by the writer that must be filled in by us) are, the factor that most clearly defines a life is the human need that governs and drives it.

When we want or need something, we tend to begin by using a form of verbal/vocal action. An infant wants to be fed or changed, he learns very early how to get his care givers attention: Shriek and cry. The infant gets tired of having to ask all the time, and it takes too much time, so in his impatient quest to gather what he wants more quickly he starts trying to get it himself. The toy on the other side of the room. Why ask for it, when he can crawl over and get it himself. Over time, crawling starts to take too long, so the child observes and learns the muscle nature and memory to get up and walk. This inevitable evolution shortens the period of time between recognition of what we want and our ability to get it. We see how need, driven by inner dissension and dissatisfaction, in the human encourages our evolving independence. And so the natural development of human life goes.

It is this understanding of human dynamics that inspired Stanislavski to develop his technique that now forms the backbone for all modern day acting technique.

Another equally important element is the ability to train and direct our focus and concentration. Not the least of which is the necessary ability to direct our focus inside the imaginary fourth wall where our story lives in order that we keep away from where the actor’s focus wants to go, out there beyond the footlights to the audience. To the extent that we follow our preoccupation with the audience, now we find ourselves outside the life of the fiction we seek to portray, the life of the character we seek to embody, and thusly we fail at our quest to tell the story of the fiction.

Human nature and life nature converging/conspiring perfectly to insure the evolving survivability of the species. All observed, perceived, understood and articulated inside Stanislavski’s technique. It’s no wonder his system, conceived of so many years ago, still forms the foundation for all modern day acting technique and practice.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 8

Before Mozart…After Mozart

In many ways, this statement represents the defining mark or dividing line when it comes to my work. The overwhelming challenge of opportunity that playing Mozart represented forged a quality of work in me that I never knew I was capable. But there is another life component to this story that is just as relevant.

A simple twist of fate and its invisible intersecting lines and the undeniability of that idea inside this story…Soon after arriving in Los Angeles I began studying with Peggy Feury, the acting coach to many well known actors including Sean Penn, Nicholas Cage, Anjelica Huston, etc. I had met Peggy on a movie called “Heartaches” a couple of years before, as she was there as the private coach to Margot Kidder, one of the actors in the movie.

During my brief time studying with Peggy, I was assigned to work on a scene with a woman named Lynette. We enjoyed our work together and Peggy and the class seemed to respond well to it. Toward Christmas of that year, just as we were completing our work on that particular scene, Lynette asked me if I would sit in with her on an audition she was to have for a production of Peter Shaffer’s play about the life of Mozart titled “Amadeus”. I was shooting a television mini-series with Christopher Plummer for ABC at the time and told her I wasn’t sure I could make it but would try.

As fate had it I wrapped on time, and made my way to the audition site where I met Robert Elliott, the director. Even though I had very little chance to  prepare for the reading, (I was really there to help facilitate Lynette’s audition anyway), I was aware of a powerful kinship to this character of Mozart, so not having much of a choice, I had to trust the always and long sought after thing we call instinct.

We read together and it quickly became clear that Bob was not very interested in Lynette but was very interested in me and I ended up being cast in the production. So a series of seemingly disconnected and yet intersecting lines led me to one of the truly great challenges of my creative life.

I relate those events that led to my meeting Robert Elliott and being cast to play Mozart in this production of “Amadeus” because sometimes if one tracks the trail backward, those so called coincidences (or miracles) seem to lay a perfect path, but in truth always inspired by a series of simple twists of fate. Second, any opportunity to do our work and to meet new people, even if only to service someone else’s opportunity, can always turn into an opportunity for ourselves. Frankly this is not the only time in my career that this has happened where I’m somewhere to read for someone else and I get cast in the role and they don’t.

Two weeks later I’m on my way to Albuquerque, New Mexico to play Mozart. I am filled with a mix of excitement and terror driven by the amazing but profoundly challenging role I’m about to play. Of course the moment I receive the news, I begin my research. Obviously there is a veritable ton of information available and most important of all is Mozart’s music. Ahhh, his music!

I spend one beautiful, solitary 12 hour day in my little white, Fiat convertible driving from Los Angeles to Albuquerque. Approximately 40 miles from my destination, I’m hit by a snow storm and end up in a snow bank on the side of the highway with my front end sticking out into the one passable lane. Fortunately no other car drives into me and after less than 5 minutes in the pile of snow, my car slowly dragged itself out and I resumed my journey only to be greeted at the theatre by George Luce, the co-owner (with his wife, Betty) of the Wool Warehouse Theatre. He pours me a drink, as I’m kind of shaken by my snow bank episode and gives me a tour of his magnificent theatre and restaurant. There is an immediate connection between George and me and I know I’m in just the right place.

I had already made two firm commitments to myself going into this experience. I was not going to rely on anything I knew about myself as an actor/artist or anything I had previously tried and I was intent on being willing to make a fool of myself.

Short rehearsal period of less than 3 weeks. The woman playing my wife Constanze, Lisa Bostnar, turns out to be hard working and dedicated and very gifted. And so is the rest of the cast. Beautiful set and lighting and costumes. Everything came together. So much so, one day Bob Elliott (who is also playing Salieri) and I are being interviewed by the local newspaper and in the course of the conversation I say something that Bob had said to me a few days earlier. He turns to me right after I speak this little nugget of produndity and says, “gee, did I say that? I wish I had said it the way you did.” (For those of you who don’t know the play, that story kind of captures the essence of Mozart and Salieri’s relationship).

But the reason I divide my work as an actor into before Mozart, after Mozart (remember I was not just beginning my career, I had already done more than 20 equity plays, appeared in more than 10 feature films and won a Canadian Academy Award), is because I was able to honor that commitment I had made to myself. To not rely on anything I had done before and be willing to make a fool of myself.

This resulted in the work coming through me in ways that was transcendent and glorious. Ways that I had NO IDEA I was capable of. I have been fortunate in my working life to be a part of and even a contributor to some great work. Not often, but those times are so powerfully intoxicating, they are truly addictive. And it is this quest for a moment, here and there, and now and then that guides me everyday and in every way when it comes to what I seek and why I pursue it so determinedly.

We never wait on the work. It always waits on us. The work does not want to express through us in mediocre ways…it wants to be seen and heard and experienced in all its potential glory and beauty. It is only through us that it might be expressed and the more fully we embody its magnificence, the more thrilled the work feels and the more thrilling the work feels to the artist. Given the inherent difficulties of this soul less business, can there be any other reason for pursuing it?

So thank you Heartaches, Peggy Feury, Lynette Howell, the AD on “Crossings” that got me out on time, and most especially the creative Gods that endowed Robert Elliott and me with a connection that caused him to cast me to play one of the great geniuses of all time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It’s that privilege that inspired me to take risks that I never before thought myself capable and that led to an experience of the work that I will always treasure and be profoundly grateful for.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 7

Breath is the key.

Whether it’s seeking enlightenment through meditation, trying to sink a putt worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, dancing to kick a leg higher, singing to reach for that high C, or an actor seeking to avail themselves of that spontaneous present moment, they all require EFFECTIVE breathing.

We know that a damaging symptom of the nervous tension that accompanies performing is the diminishment of our breathing. We stop breathing when we’re nervous, the decrease in breathing makes us nervous. So the cycle goes. The negative effects from this limited breathing capacity is far and wide. Considering it is our breath, oxygen, that is the very fuel that animates our muscles and gives sound to our voice, any interruption in the flow of this requisite fuel will be harmful  to our work. This is not theoretical. Try lying down on the floor and tensing every part of your body to an extreme. After only a few seconds, you are bound to be holding your breath, in order to sustain the muscle tension. Tension demands enormous amounts of fuel, thereby leaving less fuel for the desired expression of character and story.

Our breath is also our guaranteed connection to the spontaneous present moment, the only place an actor can allow themselves to be. It is more than metaphorical to say that each new breath inhaled, represents an opportunity to welcome new life, each new exhale provides the release to empty old life, what is unneeded and obsolete, the moment now gone by, already past. The breath does give sound to our voice. As a sizable part of an actor’s expressability is through this vocal/verbal component of the instrument, effective breathing allows the voice to be endowed with greater expressive capacity, nuance and variation.

Often an actor feels compelled to justify the change that is inevitably happening in the true portrayal of life. Change is automatically contained in each and every new breath…it is the guarantee of this autonomic function. Michael Shurtleff, known for the book “Audition”, said, “Actor’s make transitions, people don’t.” Human beings are too busy changing to have time to justify the change. Yet actors constantly feel a need to justify the inevitable changes of living life. This is a mistake driven by the actor’s need to explain to the audience what he/she is doing or what is happening to him/her. Anytime an actor’s playing is governed by concerns with the audience, bad habits are bound to follow.

Our work lies in persuading ourselves to be lost to the illusion of the story we seek to portray. To the extent we can make believe by using that Stanislavski lever into our imagination, that magical “what if”, the audience comes along with us. Not only does the audience want to be transported into the world of the fiction with us and by us, they are dying to. In fact, in most cases they paid to come along with us.

The other casualty of ineffective breathing is the work becomes general and therefore uninteresting and predictable because we have lost contact with each and every individual moment, one moment at a time. Life is a series of spontaneous now moments, as must be our playing at life as actors. What we find so compelling in watching infants and children play is their curiosity and connection to the present as they experience the always unexpected inevitabilities of life. They are too busy living and discovering to get locked in to some regretful past or some anxious future. As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while we’re busy making plans.”

The specificity of each and every moment and our availability to access that spontaneous present moment depends in large measure on maintaining an understanding connection to our breathing. Each new moment is the response and by product to that new breath. Each moment passing is released with each now gone exhale. As quickly as we identify the present, so it is past and gone. Try it: The very second you make conscious contact with the present, so it is already gone into the realm of history.

The one unchangeable factor of life is that life is ever changing. This is not a philosophical conclusion, it is practical reality. Strap yourself to your effective breathing, and your ability to hold fast to the ever changing spontaneous present, the must be place for every actor, becomes your most likely destination on your ever moving journey. But only for the moment.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 6

Clint Eastwood made my day.

Sorry for the cliche, but the most common question I get asked about my career is, “What was it like to work with Clint Eastwood?” Spoken quite simply, it is among the very highest of highlights of my working life.

For those of you who don’t know, I played Red Rodney in “Bird”, Clint Eastwood’s biopic about Charlie Parker, the legendary jazz saxophonist from the 40s and 50s. “Bird” was Clint Eastwood’s 13th film as a director and began his ascendance into the highest echelons of American filmmakers. In fact after the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, to which I was invited by Warner Bros. to attend, Forest Whitaker, Diane Venora and I then traveled with Clint to Paris as the Cinemateque Francaise was holding a retrospective of his work. More about that later…

As you can imagine, getting cast in a Clint Eastwood movie takes some mighty good fortune. For that I owe my introduction to Olivia Harris, who was working as Phyllis Huffman’s (the casting director) assistant. Olivia and I had become friends during a time when she was working at an agency that represented me and when she moved on to casting, she was kind enough to remember me.

Auditioning for an Eastwood movie is somewhat different than normal in that (at least at that time), Clint did not meet actors. He  looked at tape. So, after he was shown my demo reel, I was asked to put some scenes from the movie on tape. I was in Toronto at the time shooting, “Glory Enough For All”, for PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre. I flew to New York where I met with Alexa Fogel, (who also showed me great support and kindness), the New York casting associate. We then put down these various scenes over a couple of hours. It was absolutely grueling and exhausting, but needless to say very exciting and satisfying.

Back to Toronto to  resume work on “Glory…” and pray my heart out that I might be offered this role, a role that I knew I could play the living crap out of. Hours turned into days and days turned into weeks. After about 3 weeks, I was contacted by Olivia. Clint had looked at my work on tape and wanted me to redo one of the scenes with a small adjustment. Which I did at some studio in Toronto and shipped it off to Los Angeles.

Another few days passed as my mood vacillated from joyful expectancy to worried doubt. Then one late afternoon in the middle of August, Olivia called me to say they were offering me the part. I cannot express how deeply moved and excited I felt. I immediately called my mother. These are the moments that an actor dreams of getting to share with one’s mother.

Even though I had a few weeks left on my shoot in Toronto, I took off for a couple of days to New York City to spend time exploring the jazz community. Among the many aspects of an actor’s work that I love, perhaps the one I treasure and rely on most is research. It is among the most important elements in an actor’s arsenal as we seek to live in the life of the fiction. I am  especially grateful to Jon Faddis, awesome trumpet player, who took me everywhere and introduced me to everyone. They all knew of Clint’s love of jazz and were only too happy to share their story with me.

A few weeks later I’m back to Los Angeles to begin prepping for production. The day I finally meet Clint Eastwood is the first day of recording the sound track for the movie. It is also the first time I meet the real Red Rodney who is there to record the playing I am going to emulate in the movie. Wow, right?

I arrive at the scoring stage on the lot at Warner Bros. Joe Hyams, who ran publicity for Warner Bros. at the time, meets me there and introduces me to Forest Whitaker, who is to play Charlie Parker. Immediate rapport between us and we become fast friends.

It is a very moving day for all the musicians assembled to play on the sound track of the movie. The technology has allowed Charlie Parker’s playing from recordings more than 30 years old to be isolated, so these musicians, headsets on listening to Bird’s (Charlie Parker’s nickname) playing of years gone by, feeling like they’re actually playing with the master.

I sit down at one end of the scoring stage just soaking in the energy, talking with Joe Hyams when I feel this hand extended toward my chest. I look up and it’s Clint Eastwood introducing himself. To be honest I don’t really remember what transpired, except for me saying thank you over and over.

The moment I remember most from that day is after several hours of being there, not being able to sit still, (a frequent problem for me), I begin pacing discreetly on one side of the scoring stage trying to release some of my pent up excitement. When I looked across this huge scoring stage to see the real Red Rodney doing the same I knew I was in the right place.

What more can I say: I spent 2 weeks with the real Red Rodney (a movie should be made about his life), I got to explore and work on an amazing moment of musical history with some of the greatest artists ever. Working with Clint was everything you’ve heard it to be. He works very fast, he shoots the rehearsal and if he’s happy he moves on. He trusts his ability to hire well and intervenes very little. In fact he gave me 2 suggestions during 8 weeks of shooting which made me feel mostly insecure. It wasn’t until weeks into the shoot when I saw him do 8 takes in a scene between Forest and me because there was something he wanted from Forest that he wasn’t getting. Years later I read an interview with Meryl Streep discussing her experience working on “Bridges of Madison County” with Clint and how insecure she got because he said so little to her. Important lesson I learned: Good directors, when happy with an actor’s work, try to stay out of the way as much as possible for fear of interrupting a working process.

In May of the following year we all traveled to Cannes with the movie. What can I say. To be invited to attend the grand daddy of all film festivals with a movie I was so proud to be a part of and with Clint Eastwood to boot. The closing night before they announce the Palm D’Or and other prizes, they play clips from the movies in competition. The clip they played at the Palais, (state of the art theatre at Cannes), was the scene between Forest and me when Bird discovers that I’m slamming heroin. It was so awesome that out of a 2 hour and 45 minute film, one of my scenes was the one selected to represent the movie at the awards ceremony.

I could  go on and on, but I hope I have successfully captured the flavor of what an exciting opportunity this movie was for me and why it remains a high point in my memory. For those of you who have never seen the movie, please try to. I know Clint considers it one of his very best, as does Steven Spielberg.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 5

Knowing, not showing. Living, not acting.

Working with Dustin and Kevin on “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, arguably the greatest American play of all time. Certainly among the most personal and painful as Eugene O’Neill details a day in the tortured life of his family. Those of you interested in Eugene O’Neill, and this play in particular, may I commend you to Ric Burn’s PBS American Masters documentary about O’Neill. It is remarkable!

We are working on the final  scene between brothers Edmund and Jamie when Jamie confesses to Edmund, warning him to be on his guard. That even as Jamie loves his brother’s guts, he can’t help but want to destroy him. It is a deeply evocative scene that is incredibly difficult for any actor to master. Jamie has been drinking excessively through the night and his confession is almost a puke up of all of his self hatred and loathing as he seeks acceptance and absolution from Edmund, who himself just this day has received confirmation that he indeed has consumption.

One of the unique challenges of an actor’s work is that we are both instrument and player. The instrument of expression on which the actor plays is his body, his voice and his inner emotional life. It is this understanding that leads one to the undeniable conclusion that fine tuning the instrument of expression in order to master its utility is the actor’s primary obligation. Anyone who plays an instrument will tell you that no matter how fine a player one may be, if one sits down to a poorly tuned instrument, no matter how proficient a player one is, one cannot produce beautiful art on that instrument. This requisite mastery is above and below all other considerations in learning our work.

Over a long period of time and countless hours of work, Work, WORK, the instrument slowly and gradually becomes more malleable and flexible and responsive. This growing malleability and responsiveness is the actor’s indication of this necessary and growing mastery. The athlete talks about having it “dialed in” or “being in the zone”. They tell us of those moments being the result of years and years of arduous and relentless practice. Remember, the french word for rehearsal is repetition.

The actor’s laboratory of experimentation and exploration is this thing called life. The life being lived around us and through us. As we consciously and purposefully become observantly present, available to the wonders of the human condition in all of its variety and glory, so we begin to grow our resource library. So we begin to fill our treasure chest. In heightened states of human emotion and experience, it is imperative for the actor to be acutely aware of the physical and vocal/verbal response to whatever the internal emotional state is. As there is no doubt that the outer physical and inner psychological live in a sympathetic relationship to each other, so the actor must become acutely aware of the nature of this sympathy.

When you feel tickled or amused by something, you have a predictable physical and vocal response. The corners of your mouth and cheeks rise, your eyes squint, your teeth show and a rolling staccato sound emanates from your throat. This is the sympathetic/compatible physical/vocal response to feeling tickled and/or amused. This is the emotion and the body/voice working in organic harmony. As we observe this response, without intervening anymore than the observer must, we begin to accumulate the awareness of this symbiotic relationship. We begin to accumulate the muscle memory that accompanies the physical/vocal/verbal response to these various emotional states. This conscious process allowed grows our treasure chest of necessary awareness.

Combine the growing awareness of this symbiotic relationship between the outer physical and the inner psychological with our growing mastery of the instrument that is becoming more and more malleable,  more and more responsive, and now we have an instrument worthy of the artist seeking great work.

And now it is no longer a matter of intellectually conceiving or contriving how to play the effects of excessive alcohol consumption. It is simply a matter of applying clearly the given circumstances of the fiction to the emptied, available instrument and the confluence of our patiently acquired instrument responsiveness and aware muscle memory that allows the natural organic behavior to come through us truthfully. The process is no longer a contrived, intellectual pursuit to figure out how to play a moment. We no longer play moments, we allow moments to play us. We no longer need to try to find the way to play, the way to play finds us. We no longer play drunk, drunk plays us.

But this is the result of countless hours and days and months and years of conscientious, consistent, relentless work. Of which there cannot be too much. This is the privilege and responsibility of living an artist’s life. It is a 24 hour a day job. If you get to endeavor away at work you love to do, indeed work  you must do, then every moment of every day must be a testimony to that love/need. And then there is no such thing as too much work, because work is not a job, it is a joy.

Max Beckmann, the German painter said something to this effect: “I’m going to paint and paint and paint and paint…until I empty myself of this damn obsession.” Which takes me back to Eugene O’Neill, who by all accounts left his life’s blood on the page to write “Long Day’s Journey into Night.” So we seek to be  worthy of this great piece of writing as we work to understand it in all its pain and sorrow and glory.

Michael Zelniker: An Actor’s Love Affair – Entry 4

Just do it.

That simple, yet perfect admonition as captured by the Nike marketing team. Its application to an actor and our working effectively is wide and deep. Its clear and resonant echo confirms the necessity of that instinctive human behavioral place that we all must seek and find.

David Mamet has often expressed a critical view of actors and their “technique”. That story attributed to Noel Coward…how a young actor working with Coward on a production of “Private Lies” comes to him one day desperately crying for some understanding of her motivation. Coward looks at the actor and says to her, “Your motivation is to say the words and not bump into the furniture.” This story makes us all laugh as it captures so cleverly how SIMPLE our work should be. (please don’t equate simple with easy).

Somewhere between the lure of an audience and our need for them to like us, and the requirement and responsibility “to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances” (Sanford Meisner), lies our biggest challenge as actors.

It is the natural human response to feel nervous, tense, and self-conscious when placing our selves in front of an audience or the camera. Any artist or athlete will tell you how damaging that tension can be to doing our  work well.

There is only one way to overcome that natural response of nervousness and self consciousness. And that’s to crowd it out. Crowd it out by replacing it with the life of the fiction. Our first job as actors is to empty ourselves of ourselves, thereby providing the space and place for character to come through us.

Stanislavski understood that human life is defined by human necessity. If you want to know what drives an individual life, discover what needs and desires that life embodies. Those needs will be the presager or motivator of the action, both verbal and physical, that life engages in. When a human being wants or needs something, and we always do, action must be taken to fulfill it.

Unlike Samantha in “Bewitched”, we can’t just twitch our noses and suddenly that horse we’ve always wanted magically appears. We must first find a job to raise the necessary funding. We must find a stable that has horses for sale. We must travel to that stable and see if they have a horse that suits us. We then must negotiate with the stable owner on terms of sale, etc. Human need identified inspires a whole series of actions designed to gather fulfillment of that desire or need. So life goes.

And so this quest to crowd out this natural tendency to feel nervous and tense, as a result of being in front of an audience, requires we both understand and then play the needs or objectives of the character. To the extent that the actor can release themselves from the needs that govern the actor’s life, (ie I want the audience to like me), we begin to offer the instrument of expression up to the character. And that means filling our now emptied selves with the wants and needs of the character we seek to portray.

Live in the life and the life will live in you. Understanding the circumstances as offered by the writer. Knowing the objectives, (wants and needs) of our character, and the compatible action, both physical and vocal/verbal. These are important parts of the technique that allow us to crowd out that natural human response we experience when in front of an audience or camera.

Acting is doing. In fact we are much more human doings then we are human beings. To the extent that we can align ourselves fully with the needs of our character and the accompanying, compatible actions, so we begin to free ourselves from the constraints of audience induced tension/actor driven need to please the audience, and release ourselves to the instinctive place of organic human behavior driven by the now well known needs and circumstances of the character and fiction.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if somehow magically we could find that instinctive knowing/voice, that “just do it” place without any technique. But somewhere between our desire to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances and our desire to ‘Just do it” lies the audience. And truthfully accounting for what an audience does to a performer makes it virtually impossible to free ourselves to “just do it” without a conscious technique.

We use a conscious technique in order to access a sub-conscious, organic response. As Hamlet said, “To hold the mirror up to nature.”