Cliff Osmond -- Acting Philosophy

Los Angeles :: (310) 393-6022
San Francisco :: (310) 393-6022
Dallas/Austin :: (310) 283-8110
Houston :: (832) 722-9069

Email :: cliff@cliffosmond.com

"Good acting is like Rome. It has one center, with many roads leading to it."

I am often asked by a prospective student: "What kind of acting do you teach? I say: "Good acting." They respond: "No . . . I mean, do you teach the Stanislavski method? The Meisner technique? Strasberg? Or do you emphasize voice and movement? External technique? Script analysis? Scoring?"

I repeat my same answer: "Good acting." Before they get frustated, I add: "Good acting is like Rome. It has one center, with many roads leading into it. Therefore, I don't limit myself to a single path, or technique, in the teaching of acting." Then I add, "In fact, I don't teach acting. I teach people acting.

Some actors need to be freed emotionally
Some fail in their inability to understand the text of the script
Some need to structure
Some need "tough love"

All human beings are different. Their educational needs and learning receptivities are different. Some actors need to be freed emotionally. With them, I highlight Stanislavski or Strasberg. Some need to learn to look and listen while acting. The repetition exercises of Meisner are excellent for that. Some actors fail in their inability to understand the text of the script...its obligations, its suggestions, its possibilities...I emphasize textual analysis with them, focusing on strenthening their intellectual and logical capabilities. Some need to structure, subtlize, elegantize the outer, overt physical release of their already powerfully developed emotions. I emphasize body and voice work. More than a few actors need more than anything else the constant prodding of "tough love." I am willing to apply that technique, also.

I will follow whatever path leads an actor to Rome; apply whatever technique or series of techniques that will efficientize the actor's process to becoming an excellent actor: which is nothing more or less than the ability to move an audience with the fullest power at the actor's human command, within the logical dictates of the given script.

Scenework defines specifically and tangibly the requirements of being an actor.

There are two other elements involved in my teaching approach that a prospective student/actor should know before we start to work together:

1.		I use scenework as a primary teaching tool in all classes, and
2.		I tape and review all students' scene work at least once a month.

Scenework defines specifically and tangibly the requirements of being an actor. It weeds out the lazy and discourages the dillatant, it culls out wasted learning, the arcane and the irrelevant that acting training is too often prone to emphasizing, and it keeps the student/actor focused on the proper goal of studying: becoming a good performance actor and not just a perpetual student.

Would you stay home on a Saturday night to watch that performance?

And I tape scenes so the actor can continually see his or her own work, strengths and weaknesses, and to chart the development of his or her craft over time by means of a compiled body of his or her ongoing taped work.

Sometimes this scares prospective students. They don't want to see the truth; all they want is to maintain a good illusion. If so, I'm not their teacher. I want them to honestly confront the present level of their developed talent by asking the ultimate question: Would you stay home on a Saturday night to watch that performance? Would you walk out of a theatre, having paid $20 to see your work, feeling that you got your money's worth and if not, why not?

All journeys -- including education -- must begin with an honest definition of a starting point.

Reading and film study are excellent preparation.

Reading is strongly encouraged. Read the best. The best in others stimulates the best in you. Read the Greek dramatists: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes. Read Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw. O'Neill, Miller, Williams in America. Mamet. Shepard. Fugard. More, more, more.

Read psychology. Read history. Actors are in the human behavior business. Learn as much as you can about how humans behave, now and in the past.

Read books on acting. All books by Constantin Stanislavski; also "Six Lessons" by Boleslavsky, "Act of Passion" by Lee Strasberg, "On Acting" by Sanford Meisner, "Actors on Acting" (a history of remarks on acting by great actors) edited by Toby Cole and Helen Chinsy, "The Way of the Actor" by Brian Bates, etc. Bring your reading confusions and illuminations to class so we can discuss them.

See films. Great films. Once again, greatness stimulates greatness. See films with a fellow actor. Discuss what you saw afterwards over coffee. The following is Cliff's personal list of favorites: "Casablanca," "Citizen Kane," "The Third Man," "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "La Strada," "Zorba," "On the Waterfront," "The Bridge Over the River Kwai," "Wizard of Oz," "Spy Who Came in from the Cold," "Shane," "African Queen," "Cinema Paradiso," "Bambi," "Il Postino," "Shadowlands," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Rules of the Game," "From Here to Eternity," "Gone with the Wind," " Annie Hall," "Lonely Are the Brave," "High Noon," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Godfather I and II," "Sunset Boulevard." Also, the films of Kurasawa, Bergman and Truffaut. There are many more. Make up your own list.

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