Things That Matter Most
Frances McDormand on “Being the Other” Actress
McDormand points out that one of the reasons why she pursued more character-based work is because her “look” didn’t seem to fit any roles. She says, “I was too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too blond, too dark — but at some point they’re going to need the other. So I’d get really good at being the other.”
For example, McDormand’s character in the acclaimed film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri isn’t the type of character an actress McDormand’s age would traditionally play — in fact, McDormand views the character in a masculine light. She reveals, “I really played it like a man. I completely based the character upon John Wayne and John Ford movies, because that’s a two-hour arc. Those characters can come out of nowhere, they don’t need a lot of background, you don’t have to explain why they’re like that, they just are the way they are.”
(via)
Barbara Hannigan with Reinbert de Leeuw – Sylvie
Use a Positivity Cheat Sheet To Stay Optimistic Before a Big Audition
Take action
So while it might seem a little silly to create such a thing, try putting together a “positivity cheat sheet,” listing a range of topics that would be helpful and empowering to think about the night before a big audition. Or when you’re stewing in a warm-up room before a high-pressure performance.
Maybe it’s simply a 3×5 notecard (inches, not feet!) that you keep in your case. Or perhaps even better, an Evernote notebook on your phone (so you could make each cheat sheet item a separate note and flip through them more easily).
The idea being, your poor brain already has a lot on its mind the day of an audition or performance. Why make it work even harder than it has to?
Instead of expending extra effort to will your mind into a good place, use your cheat sheet to help trigger memories of the last time you had a great performance. The supportive comments or compliments you’ve received from teachers or colleagues whose opinions you trust and respect. Or even post-audition plans to hang out with friends at the new Vietnamese taco place you’ve been curious to try for months.
(via)
Interview: Marcus Paus, Composer
What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles and orchestras?
What’s great about working closely with an ensemble or a performer, is that you get to know each other, and can play to each other’s strengths. Just as individual instruments will suggest how and what to write for them, so, too, can a particular performer inform the material. Many of my works are in fact portraits of the musicians they were written for. The better you know someone, the better you can write for them.
But sometimes you get so specialized, so idiomatic, that you might end up writing a piece that can only ever really be performed by one person. I suspect that much of the music I have written for Norwegian saxophonist Rolf-Erik Nystrøm will suffer this fate.
(via)
23-Year-Old Eric Clapton Demonstrates the Elements of His Guitar Sound (1968)
Eddie Izzard on Learning to How to Be an Actor
The actor admits it’s something he had to work at, and cites his role in Circus as his turning point:
“I learned, there’s a film called Circus, I was offered this rather flash character. It was a great script, which I don’t think we landed, I don’t think it was handled right, and came out not as good as it went in. David Logan wrote it. Everyone was lying to each other, there was so much lying going on, I loved it. My character had four scenes, one of which was cut out, and of the three scenes, I filmed one of them, and that was bad, I did a bad job of that. I did the second scene, which I was OK in, I think, and I went back and they did an assembly, and they showed the assembly to cast and crew, I saw my first scene and I thought, ‘I don’t believe me, I’m not doing anything, I’m not committed to anything, there’s no attitude, I’m not driving anywhere, I’d better get it right’.
So the third scene I did, which I think comes out – might have come out second or first, it might be the first scene that you see – that’s where I learned how to act. That’s where I began to turn. And after that, The Richesreally helped me, because it was 45 minutes of drama shot every seven days, that’s an incredible speed, so you’ve just got to get on the rails and do it, and in the end, for most things, the more we do something, the better we get at it. So I just had to keep going back when some reviewers, logically, I haven’t read them all, but I assume they would have been – I think I read some of them – going ‘this is not so good’. I do know somebody said “Why is he trying to be a so-so actor when he’s a brilliant comedian?” That was an interesting quote, and the answer is because I used to be a so-so comedian.
I’m so-so at everything that I start, most people are, but if you have enough stamina, you can get to be OK, and you go ‘ah, that’s OK’, and then you go, ‘ah, quite good’, and then ‘good’, and now I’m happy with what I did as Bertie, I’m happy with what I bought to the table.”
(via)