Building the Actor Body

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In the Studio / Kym Longhi

Instead of thinking that we can teach acting, what we need to do is build actors. When built to do its job, an actor will innately know how to act. Consider a sponge. We don’t have to teach a sponge to absorb up water -- it is built for the job. At the fundamental core, actors are storytellers; storytellers that can manifest the metaphysical in the physical realm, giving tangible life to thought and emotion. Therefore, actors must be able to muscularly embody emotions, physically express the seed of ideas, suggest multiple options and give meaning to a character’s ultimate choices. Actors must have complete control over the specificity of their physical choices or they may inadvertently communicate unwanted information or even a completely different, unintended story.

Practice Makes Perfect

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In the Studio / Jalyn Knobloch

Margolis Method exercises work, through repetition and practice, to build an actor who can control the audience’s focus, affect them viscerally and bring them into the inner soul of a character so as to better understand and question their choices. No concept about acting has value unless it can be practiced and honed.