September 8, 2024 • 62 mins
For any actors out there; Lesly Kahn is one of the most celebrated acting coaches in America and probably the world! She's worked with so many of the greats.... from the infancy of their career to now actors that are household names. From Glen Powell to cast members of Yellowstone!
In this episode we talk about her story and the incredible acting school she's set up in Los Angeles. I've been lucky enough to train with her, and I love her whole vibe and ethos.
I tell my friends who ask me what training with Lesly is like, i say you'll never read a script the same way after training with Lesly, she teaches you how to make text based choices.
As you'll hear in this chat Lesly says its:- 100% organic- 100% technical- 100% fuck it
This episode is for any actor, writer, director or creative with a dream!
You can find out about Lesly's classes here: https://leslykahn.com/
You can listen to her podcast here: Lesly's pod
And you can follow her on insta here: https://www.instagram.com/leslykahn/
Hope you love this ep - tune in Wednesday for Lesly on the hotseat.
Thank you Lesly for sharing so much for yourself on this pod, it was an absolute honour to have you on the pod!
Big love,
Lola
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Get a I'm Laala Berry, nutritionist, author, actor, TV presenter,
and professional oversharer. This podcast is all about celebrating failure
because I believe it's a chance for us to learn,
grow and face our blind spots. Each week, I'll interview
a different guest about their highs as.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well as their lows, all in a.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Bid to inspire us to fearlessly fail. Hello, gang, Today,
I've got to rip a guest for you. Celebrated acting
coach Leslie Kahan is such a good human being and
she's full of spark and passion, and she cares so
(00:48):
much about actors. So if you are a creative, a writer,
a director, an actor, this.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Episode is for you.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Leslie is very inspiring, very honest, and like I said,
just cares. So I think that if you are any
kind of a creative you will get something from this chat.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I hope you love, love, love love it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Leslie, thank you so much for sharing your afternoon with me.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I could have hung out with you all day long.
I think you're wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Welcome to the pod, Leslie Kahn, acting coach, teacher, and
I have to say in the beautiful Khalisi Calisi, potato
chip and how old is beautiful?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Kalis Calissia is thirteen or fourteen.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I adapted her and they weren't sure how old she
was when I got her, so that's why I said
she's thirteen or fourteen. She's gorgeous. She is completely blind.
She went blind during COVID. I think she just couldn't
deal with it.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
And she has a herd condition she has.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
She's turning a corner though. Right I got the update yesterday,
we got the fantastic news. We're I'm still beside myself
because basically they said it was a death sentence. So
I can't even believe.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I can't believe.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
What a brilliant genius you are. How did you do that?
You're a miracle.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And the power of your love, the power of your love. Yeah,
so thank you for yesterday letting me retake class with you.
I have had already done your intro and your comedy intensive.
And the thing that I there's so many things that
I love about learning from and we're going to unpack
a few of them if that's good, as that's good.
(02:31):
But the thing that I love that every time I've
trained with you, one of the first things you say
is listen we're not here to method act, we're not
here to do substitution. And you're like, nothing against it,
It's just not what we're going to do here. Can
you unpack that a little bit for me?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
When I was an actor, that's of course all I learned.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
You know, I went undergrad and it was, you know,
a derivative of method, or many derivatives of method, and
my graduate school was another derivative method, and you know
it what ended up happening is I nobody was ever
really happy with my work. I mean, I did well,
(03:15):
but at school, you know, they were always bitching at
me about something. You know, you're not listening, And I'm like, great,
tell me how to listen. You're not, you know in it? Great,
tell me how to be in it. You're not. You
actually have to find your censer where the fuck is it.
I will find that fucker, and I will be in it.
You need to be in the moment, you know. And
(03:35):
they kept telling me to do things, and I'm like, yes,
let's do that how And nobody was ever telling me how.
They would say, you have the wrong objective, Great, how
do I find the right one? You have the wrong actions? Great?
Tell me how to find the right ones, and it
just it made me insane, you know, And then you know,
to finish with like a master's degree from the ritziest
(03:57):
school on the planet, right, and I come out and I'm.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Like, I don't know what the fuck I'm fucking doing.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I don't know what I'm doing. And I remember this
audition that I went to and they really wanted to
give me this job, this part in a movie. I
could tell they were like desperate to give it to me.
They loved me, and they were I think they said
something like, can you just take it down? And I'm
like sure, And I took it down and they go, great,
can you just take it down some more? And I'm sure?
(04:23):
And I did. And that went on for quite some time,
and then finally I felt like I was doing absolutely nothing,
and I was doing absolutely nothing, and they said, can
you bring it up? And you know, obviously I didn't
get that part in that movie. But what really bugs
me in retrospect is that I didn't know why, and
(04:43):
so I've sort of spent I spent the next few
years inadvertently. I wasn't doing it on purpose, but trying
to figure out what the fuck was the problem. And
that's I don't know if I'm even answering your question,
but that's how I came to realize that there's got
to be another way, and I started inadvertently putting together
(05:06):
another way. So I got this teaching job at a
school in Manhattan, which was amazing, and I started teaching
what I'd been taught, because you know, that's what I
had an agree in. But I just sit there and
I'd watch it not work, and then it wouldn't work again,
and it wouldn't work again, and I was all alone.
You know, it's not like anybody was in the room
with me. So I just started going, well, why don't
(05:26):
you try this and try that? And little by little
I started to realize that there wasn't there were other ways.
There were many, many, many, many other things that we
needed to be doing in our acting in order to
be able to look at the material, know what the
writer wanted us to do and do that. And I
really feel like that's our job. In a preread, it
doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what the preread is for.
(05:49):
But we haven't yet heard from the director or the
casting director or the producer of the studio and the
network or anybody. We've heard from, no one at the
very beginning. It's between it's between the script, the little
information we get on the breakdown, and me, and so
right there, it's the cleanest it can be. I get
to respond to that script, and what I guess I
(06:12):
feel like I learned in my actor training was respond
as myself, bring.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yourself to the cares. How many times have we heard
that just be real, just be yourself?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And what I've come to realize is just be real,
and I prefer to go Real's that's how we need
to say it. You just have to be well. Is
that that's just acting one on one and we never graduate,
and that's not acting at all unless they're looking for,
for example, a Leslie Cohn type, in which case I
(06:43):
can just come in and be real. Yeah, but that's
only as long as I am in Leslie Khan's genre,
given circumstance and relationship. But if any of that changes,
then I can't really be Leslie Khan. How often do
you hear I hear these stories all the time. That
a role was written for Joshma, Joshmo had to go
in an audition for it. Because we live in a
lunatic asylum in our business, and he doesn't book the
(07:07):
role of Joshmo, even though he is actually the exact
Joshmo that they wrote it for. Right, So we can't.
What we have to learn to do is read, and
we learn how to read in school. We learn how
to read in an English literature class. We learn how
to find out what our character's tragic flaw is, but
we don't really learn how to act. And so I
(07:31):
have a huge problem with that. Now. I do understand
that nobody deliberately withheld how to act from me during
my actor training, but I also realized that they didn't know.
And it's kind of insane to me that we are
still utilizing a technology that was created in the eighteen
nineties in the mountains of Russia. When we're not doing
(07:52):
Chekhov plays over a nine month period of time, right,
we're getting our audition for some freaking lawn order five
pm at five pm, have to have it on tape
by tomorrow morning if we're lucky, at eight am. Right,
So we don't have the time to do all the
wonderful things that method tells us to do. I am
(08:13):
not here to say that any of that stuff is bad.
I'm saying, if you get nine months go with God,
you just go out into the mountains of Russian and
have a good time. But we don't.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
That's not our world that we're living in.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And I don't understand why we're not utilizing the things
that will in fact enable us to pick up the
script and know exactly what they want us to do.
I worked with them, so sorry. I worked with a
woman this morning, and and this is her thing. She's
not a young woman, she's an older woman, and she's
been at this, working in a derivative method her whole life.
(08:48):
She can do any method you want.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
She just doesn't know what the writer wrote, which is
Kate like one, I want you have to How do
you move forward without knowing that?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
But that's We're not tough to do that. We're taught
to bring what we want to do to the writer.
And I'm like, I understand that you think that she
is feeling these devastated feelings of loss as now what's
on the page, just but if I were in that's
the circumstances. She said, that's what I would feel. And
I said, nobody cares. Nobody cares what you would feel.
(09:19):
They have written this, this has been purchased, they've spent
a lot of money on it, and now they're going
to invest a lot of money making it. They want
you to play in this story, not in the one
you want to tell.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
And this is where it comes into my two favorite
And the thing about the technique that we get to
all that am I using the right terminology here, that
we get to learn with you is it's so heavily
focused on thinking the character's thoughts, not Lola's thoughts, not
Leslie's thoughts, the character's thoughts, and also listening.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And not our feelings, yes, what we don't realize. And
I can't tell you how often I think about this,
at least daily many times.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Thought feelings are a product of thought.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Correct, So why are we skipping thought and going right
to what we think we would feel in these given circumstances.
That's crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Also, like feelings can be a bit unruly, So you
might be able to access that feeling for some grief
deep scene, but then if you're doing eighty takes that
or twenty takes of that, you might not be able
to access that.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And also, can you think of a time when you've
cried hysterically. Were you never You've never cried no.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yea the time, but it would be if you said,
replicate that now, it.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Would be well, but listen, if you were lying down
on the floor and thinking of your dead grandmother, I'm
sure you could get there.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
But the problem is that that grief that you're talking
about is not present in all three to five pages
of that scene. Correct, you know, I would say in
that scene, maybe three moments of the scene need that
exact grief. There are another ninety seven moments in the scene,
right totally? What are we doing in those? Yeah, So
we nail the shit out of the one feeling that
(11:00):
we've prepared, what about the other ninety seven percent of
the scene? We wonder why we're not booking. Sometimes actors,
well sometimes daily actors come to me, why am I
not booking? You're not doing this. You're playing your childhood
And I get it.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It was bad.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
It was a bad childhood. Here's the name of a therapist,
and we have to learn how to do this paper.
So yes, to me, it's much easier to figure out
if you go, well, what would I think if that
tree outside suddenly smashed into the building, what would I think? Now?
The question that we are asked is, well, how would
(11:38):
you feel? I have no idea how I would feel,
but what would I think? I would think? Shit?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
All shit?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Are you being bound? What is happening right now? As
a result of that, I am feeling nine thousand days.
I don't even want to begin to identify one of them,
because they're not my business. My job is to think
that thought, reduce the nine thousand feelings, and go on
with my life and keep responding to what's happening. Sometimes
(12:06):
my Midwestern ancent really comes.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Oh I love it, go leand clean, lean in, and
I think as well, it sounds I think actors and
we love to complicate stuff and be like, no, I
need to attach this settler, I need to attach a
piece of myself to that.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Or that's not I want a new one.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And get there's a lot of feedback like just be different,
just stand out you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
We please talk about that. Yes, Oh my god. It
just is the thing that drives me insane. It's like,
for example, let's say that that.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
That you are going to get cast in the in
this thing.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Are you going to call me and say Leslie I'm
getting cast in this thing. Can you look at my
contract and all the perks that I'm getting and how
it works, and and look at all the language in
that contract for me, and I will go No, I
am an acting teacher, i am not a contract person,
and I'm not a casting director. I'm not an agent.
I'm not a manager. I'm not a lawyer. Why would
(13:04):
you ask me to do those things? Those are not
my skills. Yeah, casting directors are amazing at the big picture.
Somebody can come to them and bring them a script
and they see, oh my god, it would be amazing
if we got this one in this role, in Meryl
Streep and that role, and then let's get you know,
freaking one of the Chris Hemsworth type people in this.
You know, they see it, and they know the second
(13:27):
you read they know, yep, No, that's it. It's not
their job to teach you how to do it. It's
their job. They're being hired to find the perfect person
to do that role. It's their job to put it
all together and to make it cohesive and believable and
make it seem like you guys are and let me
believe that you guys are a family, or that you're
her boss, or whatever else is going on. We have
(13:50):
different job descriptions. You don't go on set and ask
the prop master to do your makeup, No, totally. And
so we are being unfair to the casting director by
asking them to help us with our acting. And you
would be being unfair to the acting teacher to ask
her to look at your contract when she doesn't know
shit off about contracts. Right, So what we want to
(14:12):
do is we want to we want to be so
great at our job.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
And again, our job is this paper. Now that's our
first job.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Then maybe, if we're lucky, we get to go to
a casting office. I understand that those days are over, yeah,
But in the old days, young ones, in the old days,
we did this thing called getting into our cars and
driving across town in terrible traffic, and then we would
(14:42):
park somewhere that would be terribly expensive, because God forbid
we should be allowed on the lot, And then we
would find the place where we were auditioning, and we
would sit and wait for five hours, surrounded by women
who looked exactly like us, and then finally we would
be allowed in the room and there would be three
scenes and they would say, did you receive the new size? Okay, anyway,
(15:08):
that shit isn't happening so much anymore, but let's just
say it was, because that would be great. Then we
would go in and Casting would say, yeah, I see
what you're doing. That's great, But I just had a
meeting with them, and they now want you to be this, this,
and this at which more we could do this cool
thing called taking an adjustment. Now I understand that that's
(15:29):
very old fashioned, because God forbid we should ever go
in the room again. But now every once in a
while we get to go on zoom and Casting might
actually talk to us and give us an adjustment. So
that's the next phase. Can we take an adjustment? Can
we do what casting is asking us to do? Or
are we going to have an aneurysm and nervous breakdown,
get defensive, you know, faint, I don't know, have a
(15:49):
panic attack. None of those things can happen. And then
maybe we're lucky, and then casting says, please come to
this work session. Please come to the session with a director,
and then we have to be able to take direction
from him. At that point, at no point in time
is it our story. It goes from the story that
it goes from the writer's story through us more like
(16:10):
the vehicle you said, vessel. Excellent. I say, we're the vehicle, right,
like my body is the vehicle. But the character the
writer wrote and the character's gonna is going to drive
my vehicle. The vehicles are going to look like me.
It's going to have wacky hair and right, you know,
thank you very much, and a massive cleavage and you
know that's what the characters, that's what the car is
(16:31):
going to look like. Yeah, right, And so then we
are affected. Then you know, we go to casting and
they go, what's your car was blue? So then I'm
going to wear a blue suit the next time I go.
And then I'm going to meet with the director and
he's going to go, you know, I wish she was taller,
and I'm gonna wear heels. Do follow me, and I'm
going to make these adjustments and it's going to become
this thing that we've all created together. Did I answer
(16:53):
your question one thousand? Yes? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You're brilliantly and I'm here for all of it. Can
we tell about listening because I love the way you
talk about it, But I also think, like sometimes something
that I know I trip up with is like we
get now head and we're like, oh, well, is my
yline okay?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Do I look okay?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And like you're completely gone like the but then the
moment that, like you listen to the other character, it
gets you out of your head and you become curious
and in that space of like thinking the thoughts about
what has just been said in front of you.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Well, I think.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Listening has become very will will and we don't know
how to do it. I know that I didn't know
how to do it until till i'd been teaching for
a while. And again, I got a master's degree from
a ritzy place, so nobody ever taught me how to listen.
I just always assumed listening was allowing the words to
go by my ear, and I was doing that, And
(17:54):
then people would tell me I wasn't doing that, and
I would say something like that, why do I have
the great misf of being able to respond to you?
Because I just nobody was explaining anything to me, and
I was so frustrated. Lola, I'm still frustrated, but I'm
only frustrated by the past. I'm not frustrated now. I'm
just anyway. So yes, I think acting is completely organic.
(18:20):
Organic is all listening. It's all listening in in this
situation of this script. It's also one hundred percent technical.
And this is where we get in trouble because people
are like, oh, Leslie Khan, she's so technical. You bet
your sweet motherfucking bippy, I'm technical. Acting is one hundred
percent technical and one hundred percent organic. So yes, it
(18:45):
is all listening. But also the guy wrote technical things
on the paper, and every one of those things you
miss casting notices and you don't get to miss any
of them and played this character.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Theoretically, what the casting wants is what the guy wrote.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Casting isn't sitting there going, oh, well, I see what
the guy wrote, but I'm going to go in this
whole other direction. That's not what they bought. They bought
this script. They want this script. Casting is trying to
cast this script. So we all have to be on
the same page about what this script is and just
coming at it organically with decent listening will definitely make
me believe that you are a person, but not necessarily
(19:23):
this person, and they're casting somebody who can play this person.
Now there we have that phrase. But I can play okay, yes,
you can play anything. I can play you know, a
fourteen year old, you know, pre adolescent boy in Budapest, Budapest.
I can do that if I want. Nobody gonna cast
(19:45):
me is that. But you I can damn well play
that little motherfucker, right, So we've got to get out
of our minds whether we should play it or not.
I think it would be pretty dumb to cast me
as that kid. Okay, it's not going to be good
for your movie because move these TVs, the TV shows,
these are all moving pictures. They're visual. So it would
be dumb to cast a loud, older jewess in the
(20:09):
role of a fourteen year old whatever. Follow me. So
what we have to do is take that off the table.
That's not our business. If they want to bring us
in to play that role, fine, fine, I'll do it.
It's great. I can play it, but again, I just
don't think they're going to cast me as that.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Now I got way off on whatever I was doing.
Get me back, please, No, No, you were perfect. You
were just saying about you can still step into that
space if you are listening and thinking the thought like essentially,
like you can even though you're not a fourteen year
old boy living in Budapest.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yes, so I have to do all three things, and
I haven't even gotten to the third one. I know.
I'm excited that I can think the fourteen year old
whatever thoughts. Yeah, and I'm gonna get cast, but I can.
That's my skill as an actor. I can do that.
I can also look at the paper and I can
see all the clues on the page that the writer
has written for me. There are Agillian things. It's almost
(21:02):
like what many of us like to do is we
just want to play. We just want to do jazz, improv. Okay,
that's a good way. We don't want to look at
any sheet music. Yeah, okay, and if there is sheet music,
we kind of want to use it as a jumping
off point and then ignore it as quickly as humanly possible.
And listen. You can say to me, but I heard
about somebody who went in and he didn't do what
(21:24):
was on the page at all, and they cast him.
It was an exactly. And what I say to people
when they say that is, yeah, how do you know
about that? I don't know. I read it somewhere. It
was some article. Exactly. It was news because it doesn't
usually exactly, it doesn't usually happen. Usually, if they say
they want, you know, a shitsu minipin, you know they're
(21:46):
going to cast this thing sitting on my lap here, right, So,
and yes, every once in a while they've seen so
many people for so long they just want to shoot
themselves in the head. No one is coming in and
doing what they've written, and so they're like, Okay, well
that guy's at least funny, and he's obviously talented and charismatic,
so let's just cast that motherfucker, right, But it's not
(22:06):
what they wrote. And maybe it turns out great and
everybody's really really happy. But I don't think that that's
a good game plan for us. I don't think that's
a good risk. It's very risky. I think we already
all decided to get in this business, and that was
crazy of us. I think we already made a big
mistake thinking that we had a chance in this business
(22:29):
that everybody in the world wants to be in, and
there just aren't that many opportunities. So what I'd like
us to do is up our chances by by being
unbelievably organic with our listening perfect unbelievably technical with the
technicals that are on the page.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
And then only then do we get to fuck it.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
And not only do we get to fuck it, but
it's required we do our work and then we kind
of have our characters first thought, and then we have
to see what happens. But most of us don't do that.
In the olden days, we would pack up our characterization
in the trunk of our car. We'd drive to fucking
Santa Monica. We'd go into the audition.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
We'd heave that, you know, huge thing out, We'd schlep
it across a lot. We'd sit down and the trailer,
wait the four hours for our audition, schlep that into
the casting director's office, and hope to God.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
That we could get it on My fairst favorite Udah
Hagan style claus was that you would bring everything but
the kitchen sink into there and it was just wild.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And listen, there is a really good place for that. Yeah,
it's a great acting one oh one thing. Yeah, that
private moment. I have private moment stories. I'm happy to
tell you if you want. But but but the bottom
line is we have to understand that those are the
three main things that we have to do that.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Acting is not just going.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I read this and I feel this, and I think
too many I had. I had an actress recently that
said this, this movie is based on this book that
I read, and I love the book, and I am
the girl. I am her. I mean, Leslie. If you
read the book, I am the girl, and I go,
I've read the book. You are not the girl. You
are nothing like the girl. Right. I see that you
(24:12):
relate to the girl. I see that the story makes
you feel deeply. But and we get that mixed up.
We get I feel deeply as a result of reading
or watching this thing mixed up with what my character
is actually thinking and doing. They're two completely different, mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
And I feel like one is long term sustainable and
one especially if you're because I'm someone that's trained in
loads of different acting schools over the last eight years,
and sometimes I'll be like, WHOA, this is going to
cost me my mental health if I use this style,
whether it be substitution, whether it be a moment before,
whether it be method. I'm like, this is going to
(24:52):
come at a cost of not only my mental health,
but probably half for ninety perens students in this room.
And then what I love about every step of the
way with the Comedy intensive was like, this is sustainable,
This is foolproof because I can implement what I'm learning
in this technique. I want to use that word and
(25:12):
I could implement that to any audition that comes in.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, and it doesn't. It's just it doesn't matter if
it's comedy, drama, or anything else. And listen, that was
my problem with method. I remember being in school and
at some point I'm solving hysterically because that's who I was,
And I'm like, does anyone notice that I'm hysterical? Twenty
four to seven? Does it occur to anybody? And I
didn't get this until many years later, But I don't
(25:37):
really understand why it occurred to no one that the
last thing this bitch needed was.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
A substitution or a sense memory.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I was a walking substanct. I am a walking substitution
and sense memory. I had a childhood and that we
don't need to talk about right now, but I am
constantly in a state of substitutions.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
People aren't. Some people had lovely childhoods and they need
training in that.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I did not. So this one size fits all training
is that can be so damaging to some of us
is really upsetting to me. And I will take issue
with you calling what we teach here a technique. It
is not a technique. I absolutely feel that Stanislavsky, Meisner,
(26:25):
Udha Hagen, Stella, Adler, all of those, all of those
guys are absolutely methods techniques. I praise them for that.
I want you to think of us. I want you
to think of those techniques as veins in your army. Okay,
you've got your Meisner vein and your Stanislavsky vein and
(26:48):
your your Adler vein. Here we're everything else in the baddy.
Oh I love that foundation. We're everything were No, it's
not just foundation, literally everything else. I feel like I've
finished drama school and I knew how to substitute, and
I knew a few techniques. Repetition. You would have been
great at repetition. Get me started. I feel like I
(27:11):
knew a few of those vans, but those vans were like,
I don't know one percent of what I needed in
order to go get an acting job.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Can I share a story about someone that trained with you?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (27:24):
So, yeah you will. She's called Julia Morris. Yes, that's
the reason why I started training with you. Just so
you know, I'm we're very good friends with her agent,
she was like, go and train with Leslie.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You know, I love her like more than life atself.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
She's gone to the logis on the weekend.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, but what I wanted to say was, obviously she's
a very talented comedian and comedic actress, but in.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
The most charismatic human being ever to walk the earth.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
So charismatic, could not book any serious dramatic work and
no one would take her seriously at all. Came here,
trained with you, and then went back. I think she
even booked from here, and it was a very dramatic,
very gritty like role. And now she's seen as this
(28:09):
incredible force of nature as a dramatic actress after training
with you, and right before I started training with you,
she was sending me voice notes being like, all right,
you can have so much fun with Leslie, and just
just so you know, like you're and I know you
get you're so well known, especially in the sitcom comedy
that comedy space, but like which blows my mind still,
(28:31):
but so many dramas and I know you've trained so
many actors that are household names and known for their
beautiful dramatic work. And that's what I love about that
this can be implemented to whether it be a sitcom,
a multicam sitcom screen.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
It's just text analysis.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
It's just learning the rules of text analysts.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
If we go back to the jazz musician, you know,
you're just in a you came out of the world.
You're an amazing musician and you can play all these
instruments and you just hear it. And I don't even
know what you'd do, But what I'd love you to
be able to do is also play Mozart. Yeah, and
Alan Ball and Aaron Sorkand and I'm sure Dick Wolf
would like it if you could do his writing. And
I know Chuck Lourie would be really happy if you
(29:12):
could do it. And dear God, please be able to
do Max Muchnik and David Cohen. Right. I want you
to be able to do Oscar Wilde. I want you
to be able to do Tennessee Williams. I want you
to be able to do Shakespeare. I want you to
be able to do anything effortlessly and happily and excitedly.
What I don't want is you to wake up in
the morning, have an email in your G or C
or whatever mail it is that you all get and
(29:34):
go into a state of panic. I can't play that role.
I can't do that accent. I don't know how to
do that. Oh my god, I'm I don't know how
to do comedy. You're an actor, you know how to
do fucking everything, and that's got to be how you
wake up in the morning, because how else are you
going to, like do this insane you know, open up
your closet, pull out the freaking blue background, the ring
(29:55):
light and then read it with your friend and tim
buck too over zoom at five in the morning. I mean,
what they're asking you guys to do right now is insane.
Your acting had best not be the problem, right Your
acting has to be well okay that I can do.
One of the things I like to say is when
I was an actor, I was always going to audition
(30:18):
for South Coast Rep because I'd been to drama school
and so and South Coast Rep. For those of you
in Australia, Hi, it's this wonderful regional theater. I don't know.
A couple hours away, two two and a half hours
away from La and all of us theater types in
those days would drive to Orange County to audition. And
(30:40):
you know, I had a little nineteen eighty one Honda Accord.
That was my first call. Harriet the Honda. Really, yeah,
I'd hand me down. Did Harriet have one hundred and
forty seven thousand miles on her when you bought her? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
I didn't know that that was a lot of miles.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I did not really know. And my Harriet would not
make it up the four h five, which is the
highway you need to take to get to the Orange
County and the audition. And I would that's a problem.
You can have your acting career that your car won't
make it. Uh huh. But I kind of feel like
if your acting is excellent, and that's the problem, Lola.
That's what I want to talk about today, is that
(31:17):
I don't think that there is a bar for excellence
in acting, and I mean, for me, there is. I
just look at you and I'm like, Okay, I look
at where you want to go. I look at where
you are now, and I go, okay, we need to
do these things to get you there.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
You're a problem solver. I've watched I've watched you, especially yesterday.
I love the way you can look at a human
being and see if they're what they put up, and
you can see your brain just kind of like be like,
I can see that you need that and you need
like even the way we had a beautiful actor he
has said, but his regime was just a bit out
of whack and a bit wonky, and you were like, hey,
(31:51):
we just need to fix this up. It's an easy fix,
and I feel like your brain naturally problem solves.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well, that kid that you're talking about yesterday, did you
get a look at him?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah? For stomach gorgeous, Yeah, yeah, And again if you
remember that this is a business of moving pictures, because
he's gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
You could tell that he's connected by how much he
didn't want to tell us how connected he was.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yes, right, adorable, gorgeous speaking voice.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You know that kid, whether he's connected or not, is
going to walk down the beach and somebody's going to go, you,
are you an actor? Come here, I'm going to make
you a shah. And so what I want is when
that happens to that kid, because it's going to happen
to him because of what he looks like. I need
to make sure that his resume doesn't look like a
two year old wrote it, and pet makes somebody panic.
(32:39):
I need to make sure that when he picks up
the scene that they want him to read, that he
reads it and they're like, yep, exactly, that's exactly what
we thought he would do. He understands it. Give him
a freaking job. And I feel like too many people
don't understand how far away they are from that end,
And it makes me panic because I know now how
(33:02):
far away I was when I was him, and nobody
was talking to me in that way. Listen, in those days,
there was no marketing of an actor. We didn't talk
about that, but nevertheless, nobody really was looking at me
and going, curre your problems and this is what's going
to keep them from casting you. We have to fix
(33:23):
these exact things that are going to keep them from
casting you. We need to make you castable. Now. I
understand that there are all these people who might go, oh, leslie,
you just want me to be like everybody else. No,
and let's go back to that. No, that's not what
I want at all. I just there was a wonderful
casting director a million years ago who wrote somewhere, you
(33:46):
just need to fit a category that I see in
the breakdowns, because if you don't, you're literally not on
the breakdowns, which means there aren't any opportunities for you.
And I understand that for that kid that we met yesterday, he's.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
On every freaking breakdown in man crime.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And I understand that it's not fair, and I'm right
there with you, but that's life. It's going to be
easier for him. And he's hard working, and he's getting
himself all these degrees and he's studying everywhere, and.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
He's like young as anything as well, like he's got
all luck counties side. But I love that what you
said to me was you were like, let's increase your
luck and you're able to look at somem with a
fresh set eyes and just be like, have you thought
about trying this, this, and this because that might affect
your luck?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Well. Yeah, and especially in a business of moving pictures.
And some people will say, well, she's obsessed with what
people look like. Yeah, because it's a business of moving
I'm not coaching voiceover here, do you know what I mean.
I'm not coaching animation. I'm looking at you and I'm
going okay, So how do I get this face with
these blue eyes? How do I get it to pop?
(34:49):
How do I get it to be a category? The
Patrick Baka, the casting director, sees in the breakdowns, how
do I get her in the game? And then once
she's in the.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
In the game, how do I get her to be
the one they pick?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Right? And everybody thinks it's well, you have to do
something different because if we go back to that other topic,
that's what we hear from casting directors, because casting directors
think that that's what it is. So when casting directors
say to us, well, I sat there and I watched
all three hundred tips and everybody did the same thing,
They're right, everybody did the same thing. They missed all
(35:23):
of the specificity in the paper. Excuse me, they just
read what it looked like the actors and they all
did come in and do the same thing. But the
cure is not to put on a Groucho Marx mask
and have a limp. The cure is not a French accent,
or the cure is not to put a scar on
your face, and the cure is not to wear an
(35:44):
evening mam. The cure is to go more deeply into
the paper, yes, and to find out what is text
based that you are missing. One of my newest analogies
is if you think about a ruler, right, and so
you've got your zero centimeters one, two, three, four, that's
what you see on the ruler. You see those big numbers.
(36:05):
If you look more closely, though, you'll see that there's
a half a centimeter mark and one and a half
and two and a half. If you look more closely,
there's even one quarter of a centimeter three quarters. If
you look more closely, there are lines in between there,
and if you look more closely there are no more lines.
But there's so much more specificity to be gotten. And
(36:25):
if you think of it, if all you're doing is
the zero, the one, the two, and the three, you're
you're taking that paint by numbers picture and you're not
even connecting zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
eight into the picture. You're going zero three, six seventeen
nineteen twenty eight. Right, We're not getting the full picture right.
(36:47):
And you might say to me, but Leslie, that's why
this isn't fair. I need more time. If I had
nine months in the mountains of Russia, rehearsing eight hours
a day with an OH tour director, I could get there.
And what I'm saying to you is you don't need
the nine months. You can do it right now. But
you have to look at the paper completely differently than
the way at least I and I'm guessing you have
(37:08):
been trained to look at the paper. And again, I'm
not saying that the way we were trained to look
at the paper is wrong. I'm simply saying if we
do it that way, we won't get there in time
to get our tape in time. I can't talk. I
know what you mean. In time. We have to get
our tape in by a deadline.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
The cool and the cool thing about training with you
is once you learn these patterns and learn to learn
this text analysis, you can't unlearn it. So you'll read
something and you would straight away be like there's a
rule of three, Okay, there's a reversal, Oh, there's a monologue.
We're build of yees, you know, and you start your
(37:47):
brain like straight and it's almost like having a superpower,
or you're like looking at something with laser like you
feel like you're seeing something because you haven't seen it
this whole time. It feels like a magic treat because
you're like, oh, my goodness, it's like it's given to
us too.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yes, and you said that you can't nobody can take
it away from you. The problem is that everything sort
of falls apart if you don't keep at it. Of course,
for example, my trainer just moved away, and I like
to burn out. I've not gotten a new trainer, and
(38:23):
you know, I probably won't be doing it until my
husband really gets a good look at me and says,
get a trainer, because I'm really not interested. But the
fact is that I see the difference in my body
in just a month because I'm not doing it. Not
only am I not doing it every day, I'm never
doing it. And so that's what happens to us. We
take a class where like, oh, I've learned it. No,
(38:43):
my love, you have not learned it at all. You
have some things written down in a notebook, that's what
you have. You kind of need to work it every day,
and because more and more and more happens, it's not
just okay, well, if I learn this finite set of.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Things, I've got it.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
No, Because it's like you know, I like to think
of it as the practice of law or the practice
of surgery. Let's talk about surgery. Didn't you study law?
I did not. Didn't when you going to go into
law at Cornwall or something Cornell. Cornell was my undergraduate
and I was their pre law because my father.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Was a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
But look at you. I would never have been a lawyer.
I would have been a disastrous lawyer.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
My best friend is a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
But anyway, where was I This was going to be Oh, okay,
we were talking about surgery. So who do you want
to do your surgery, the guy that just got out
of surgery school or the guy that's been doing surgery
for twenty years? Yeah, the latter, why experience by experience
and know how what do you mean? He's lived it.
He has done so many operations. He has been through
(39:47):
every possible horrifying thing that could happen. You know, I
don't know anything about medicine. So you know your blood
could turn green suddenly you stop breathing. I don't know
what all the horrible things are that have happened. I'm
going to tell you one thing. The guy that just
got out of med school doesn't no shit off. But
the guy that's been doing this operation for twenty years,
knows everything. That's why we want him. That's what I
(40:10):
want you to be as an actor. I want you
to be the world's foremost leading authority on how to act.
What do we do as actors, not that you know
what we do. We go on set and we're like,
I'm so directable, Just tell me what you want me
to do, hair director. I take direction really well, and
I don't want you to be that actor at all.
I want you to go on set as the world's
(40:31):
foremost leading authority on your character in the script. And
then I want you to get with all the other
world's foremost authorities on their characters in the script.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
And the director who has a whole different job which
has nothing to do with telling you what your motivation is.
His job is making the picture look really good.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah right, And it's the lighting guy who needs to
get the light on you, and the wardrobe lady who
does everybody. You know, when you're really really lucky and
you get on a show or a movie or a
set where everybody is superb and the script is superb,
that's when we have a chance. Everybody's bringing their egg game.
I don't ever want you going to set going mold me.
(41:14):
I feel like that's what I was trained to do.
And my god that first of all, I know there's
no time, and that's not fun.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
No, I'm not a piece of clay.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I'm an artist and and and I'm a crafts person
and I want to and I'm really good at what
I do. And then when I get on set, then
I get to see what you're doing, and I get
to interact with that, and then I get to see
what that you know, I don't know sound guy is doing.
And then I get to see oh, and the director goes, oh, well,
if you go like that, and he goes like that,
it's going to be so much better, and I'm like, yes,
(41:49):
but I'm not reliant on him, and it's also not
his job to be my mother.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, A thousand. I think you can see it in
the quality of work. Like I've heard you talk about
Yellowstone Taylor Sheridan before, and you can feel like it
feels like Taylor Sheridan has touched almost like everything the writing,
set design, prop located like down to I imagine researchers
that he would have on that show.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Well, I have to say, you know, I worked with
him for a long time, and I feel like if
he took anything from me, that's what he took. He
took learning how to be unbelievably specific, and then he
had this I guessed gift that none of us knew about.
I don't even think he knew about it. With regard
to rating, he is the storyteller extraordinary. So I mean
(42:39):
I live. I live from you know, the end of
his last thing to the next. Ah, you and me.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
But like me as a consumer, I'm just like, this
is down to I'm lucky enough. I've interviewed one of
his composers and apparently once the I think they call
him the sweeps, like essentially like huge chunks of music
for the essence of whether it be eighteen eighty three,
nineteen twenty three, Yellowstone, No.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I am still do you still have that image of
your mind of what is he on the boat or
and she's on the there there's so bad You're like,
how is she going to get there? And then I
have chills. And then I've gotten to see, you know,
some of the audition, some of the gross So I'm like,
when I knowing that and seeing some of these things
come in I'm like, oh, oh my god, I cannot
(43:30):
believe he's already taken the story.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
It's like so far beyond what I had in my imagination.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Isn't it incredible?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
But do you know they give those sweeps to the actors,
so in eighteen eighty three, you know, yeah, so you
know how it's Sam Elliott. Have you seen eighteen eighty
three with a burning house? It's like a six minute
score and no dialogue. It's just very and they give
the actors the score before the scene, and.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Like, what a gift.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Oh my god, could you imagine, like just even that
beautiful piece, and even the way you were talking yesterday
to an actor and you were like, maybe you're more
right brain than left brain. Imagine if you were an
actor that was lent more into that right brain and directed.
It was like, here's the score, like go away and
enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Like what like?
Speaker 1 (44:16):
And I'm going on a tangent here, but I just think,
what an incredible, beautiful piece of art we get to watch, unbelievable.
And I remember him from Sons of Anarchy days as
he was the beautiful like hmm, not constable. He was
like a detective, kind of like police officer.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
I don't remember this back in the day.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Too much shit in this, but that's what made him right.
He was like, they wouldn't give him a pay rise.
They wouldn't. Yeah, and he was he had had his
first kid. I think he was forty. He was sitting
in a little apartment up here and wrote Sakario and
that was the beginning of wrote it over a weekend.
How amazing, unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, but again, this is
(44:56):
where like to break down the art and as an actor,
I imagine getting a script like that, you would have
so much like fun.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
But let's go back. Yes, but I want you to
know how to look at a script like that, and
I want you to tell Taylor's story, not I feel
like what I was. Literally what I feel like I
have a master's degree in is looking at a script
and or what I had a master's degree and was
looking at a script and making it the story I
wanted it to be and making Lady m who I
(45:28):
wanted her to be. And you know what, I'm just
going to go out on them and say, I think
Shakespeare knew more than I know. Yeah, and so I
think maybe I should have looked more carefully at what
he wanted me to do. Yeah, right, And that's what
I want actors to do. I feel like we are
so limited in the way we look at it, and
I want everybody to open up and see the possibilities
(45:49):
and that we don't have to feel so limited, and
that if we only became consummate professionals, people who look
at the paper, know what the paper needs to do,
and do that, then suddenly we're going to have a
lot more opportunity. Yes, I get very I was talking
to a client the other day and and and he
(46:12):
said about he was talking about working and why he
was in class. And he goes, sometimes I don't know
why I'm in class. And I said, you're in class
because you don't know how to fish. And he goes,
what does that mean? And I said, when you're booking jobs,
you're coaching with me, and I'm telling you what the
(46:35):
writer wants you to do. You've been an actor for
a while, so you're really good. When I tell you
the writer is saying this, this, this, and this, You're like,
oh okay. And when we work on it together, I
basically hand you fish. Okay, You're in class, so then
you learn to fish so that you are not reliant
on my availability to show you what the writer is
(46:58):
asking you to do right now. You don't look at
the paper and see what he wants. Well, is that possible?
And I'm like, I am the living proof. Every member
of my faculty and a gazillion people out there that
you watch in movies and on TV are a proof
that it can be done. And that's what I want
for you. I did not have that when I was
an actor. I didn't have the knowledge that when a
(47:20):
script came in that I was going to know exactly
how it should be done. Now, just because I know
how it should be done doesn't mean that that network
executive agrees with me. That network executive, I'm going to
go out a limb didn't go to a drama school.
He went to law school. And he doesn't know anymore
(47:41):
about how to read that paper than Calisi, my dog.
And I don't mean the mother of Dragons. I mean
my dog Cleisi. And it's not to put him down.
He knows a lot about business. He knows about marketing,
he knows about publicity. He knows how to make things
a hit. That's great, but he doesn't know how to
read this paper. So he read this paper. You went, well,
I think the character is X. And of course I
(48:03):
read the paper and I know what Alan Ball wants
it to be. And I'm like, well, Alan Ball wants
it to be why, So we're going to do why here?
Speaker 1 (48:09):
No so interesting and a great brain, my friend, I've
only just been doing this.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
This is all I've I'm the luckiest person. You know,
this is you know, for many many years. This is
all I do. So I don't know so much that
it's my brain as it is. Exposure, constant exposure to
all of the scripts. And so you look at these
scripts and you learn, you know, if you're doing it
every day, you're going to learn. That's what I want
the actors to do. I want you to do it
(48:39):
every day so that you learn to see what I see,
because sometimes that network executive is going to be amazing
and they're going to have that gift and they're going
to see what Alan Ball meant. Do you? I mean
sometimes when you see a script by an Aaron Sorkin,
er by somebody who's brilliant, and you read that script
and we all sit here in my class, women were like,
(49:00):
oh my god, we want to work on this all
the time. This is the greatest thing in the world.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
We're loving this, this is so exciting.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
And then the show doesn't go well. Sometimes I'm going
to go if it's a great script, it's not the
script's fault. It's that other people whose areas of expertise
are perhaps not in I don't know, storytelling, are heavily involved,
(49:26):
and so they and they have the power, and so
they said, no, no, no, you have to cast this person. Okay, well,
this person is an amazing actor, but it's not right
for this part, because if you cast that person with
that essence and this person with this essence, the story
doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Yes, right, But the lawyer doesn't.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Know that, the guy with the NBA, he doesn't know about.
All he knows is that this person is worth this
much overseas, and this person is worth this much overseas
that's going to pay their whole budget. Everybody loves those people,
so it's going to be great. But it's not great
because it's not the story that they wrote. And what
you fell in love with was the beautiful story and
you just ruined the story. And so I guess I
(50:11):
get so scared because I love TV and I love movies,
and I'm just that little girl that escaped into TV
and movies. And it's what kept me alive, you know,
when I because I grew up in kind of a
crazy house, a very crazy house, and I lived for Bewitched,
I lived for the original Star Trek. That's what got
(50:31):
me through that magic. And I'm very afraid that the
way we're running the business right now is really adversely
affecting magic. And so, you know now a lot of
what I say to my actors is we've got to
make sure the great TV and great movies don't go
(50:52):
the way of opera and ballet. Nobody really goes to
see opera and ballet anymore. Okay, So before I'm fucking dead,
I want to make sure that there are a jillion
people out there who know how what an actor's job
is and can fucking do it, and can get in
there and make things great, do their part to make
(51:12):
a great script great with other people who are doing it,
so that so that other little girls can have the
relief that I had. See.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
I feel like you are doing that because you're built
You've built such a beautiful faculty here like every seature
I've trained with here, I'm like, oh, I get a
different nugget, and it's you can see that the that
they've not only come through your teaching but live it.
It's like part of the way you describe like part
of it. It's their being and essence. And so to me,
(51:44):
that tells me that you are doing that what you
know you are. One of my favorite things about the
comedy intensive was bats and gaps.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Huh can you share a little bit with the listeners? Okay, Well,
so the thing is that we're actors run around and
we have a lot of bad actor thoughts. So you guys,
can you think of one of your bad actor thoughts. Oh,
I'm never going to get this part. They hate all
I think to all exactly, I'm I'm the wrong everything.
(52:13):
They don't like me. I don't know the right agent.
I can't even get the auditions. And that's what we're
inadvertently thinking. So one of the things I want to
do is I want to make us aware of what
we're thinking inadvertently, and then I want us to choose
thoughts that are the opposite of those thoughts, and then
I want us to throw all of that shit out
and just think our characters thoughts. And so, you know,
(52:36):
last night in class, this girl that I just love,
so talented and exquisite, but she's going through it and
she does not like to share it. And one of
the things I always say to actors is you need
to cry a minimum of once a day if you're unemployed.
If you're employed, I'm still going to give you once
a day, but you don't really need to cry as often.
(52:57):
Plus you don't want to ruin your makeup.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
But if you're unemployed, I need you to cry.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
Because most people on the planet are not running around
worried about where their next meal is coming from. We are.
That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
Plus our parents are mad at us because we're actors.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Plus we can't be in a decent relationship because we're
lunatics and we have to work around the clock. Plus
our lives. You know, we're living nineteen people in an
apartment where it's just we're very stressed out, and a
lot of us actors we know are other actors and
everybody's feeling that way. It's not special. So we're like, well,
(53:33):
I should buck up. I should be able to handle this.
I should be okay with this, and I'm sort of like, no,
the truth is that your life is pretty sucky right now,
and you can't even get an audition for the show
you want to get an audition for, so you don't
even have hope right now.
Speaker 3 (53:48):
Right So we need to be aware that.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
We're going through that. It needs to stop being the
norm and we need to go Okay, I am it
is legit that I'm going through this to have a
good cry, because otherwise we're overflowing with that. We need
just cry. Yeah, let a little of it come down.
I wish you guys could see. I've got like my
hands at the very top of my head. I just
(54:12):
need an inch. I needed to cry and just make
an inch of space for you to be your character. Yeah,
when you're so upset about your own shit, there's no
space for you to play your carrots in a way,
but you don't need a lot of space. You just
need some and sometimes we're overflowing.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
That's great advice, and it also gives cry the active
permission to like process and feel it when it's shit,
because also it is a word of rejection, and like,
even if you put up like five editions in a
week and you feel great. Even if you were great,
but they wanted a blonde and not a brunette, you're
not going to hear a word like it's donuts. And
I think, like, it's not even about being super resilient.
(54:55):
It's just about knowing it that some days are shit.
It's okay that some days issue it as well.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Well, it just is. But again, when you say that,
I immediately go to yes. But if every one of
those five auditions was superb, and yes, they wanted a
blonde in every one of them, and you were a
brunette and every one of them, the fact is that
five casting directors just saw you do something superb, and
(55:23):
five people in a week seeing you do something superb
is great. Now you might not feel the result of
that right now at all. You won't because you're not
going to get any of those jobs. But what's going
to happen is they're going to bring you back in
because you fucking made their life so much better. When
they saw your audition, they were like, oh, that's what
we need those blonde bitches to do. Okay, and they
(55:44):
can give that blonde bitch the note that you did
inadvertently and their job is done. And they love you
and they want to bring you back in. They want
to see what you're going to do. So that's what
I want. I just want you to stop going out
there giving them a nice seam performance of a seventy two. Yeah,
you have got to stop giving them a B plus.
(56:06):
You have got to stop with the A minuses only
one hundred percent. It's possible, and I think we don't
think it's possible. I didn't. I thought when I was
an actor that well, it's all about my muse and
if God is with me today and if God wants
me to get this roll, and if I'm right, well,
but it's not about this part. It's about being being
(56:28):
a consummate actor every day. And then I guess talent
will out, talent talent, I'm sorry, talent, cleft, squote, I
can't talk talent, craft and skill will out. But if
we're just running around hoping for the best at a
C minus or something, yeah, And the thing is that
it's hard for us to hear that word a C minus.
(56:50):
You know, I'll say, I'll be in class with somebody
and after class, they'll come up afterwards and they'll go,
you didn't give me any notes. Okay, Well, first I'll
go back to my paper and I'll go, I gave
you fifteen notes. You want me to give them to
you again? And they go, yeah, but you're not really,
I'm telling you exactly what your notes are. I still
remember all my notes I got from you.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
It was that because it was because you told me
what I needed to hear, and so it was perfect.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
It was most people we don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Yeah, we just want you just have to get out
of your own way, though, so you can, well you
can you please tell.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Me how to get us out of our own Yeah.
I really, I'm doing everything in my power, but I
just know too many people who are hanging on to
I'm great. I'm great the way I am. I only
want positive feedback. And you know they won't say that
to me. They'll go, no, I want to hear all
the constructive criticisms, criticism. But then they'll come up after
(57:47):
class and go, you know, I don't feel good because
you didn't compliment me what And I'm like, Acting class
is not about your feeling good. Acting class is about
this is what I've been saying. Did I say this yesterday?
I might have I'm obsessed with the Simone Biles concept. Yes,
I do not think that Simone Biles was practicing her
six hours a day every day and her coach was saying, Oh, Simone,
(58:11):
you're just wonderful. Everything you do is perfect. I think
her coach was saying, you never, you've got to get
that left foot pointed. It's not pointed, and what are
you doing with that right finger? And you've got a
then more on the left side right to do that turn.
I think that coach was bitching at her about everything.
I think that coach had fifteen fucking notes or twenty
or thirty or forty and I and you know what
(58:34):
I think. I think Samoo with Simone was would say
thank you, yes, and I because the coach she wants
to win titally, she doesn't point that foot, and that
other bitch does point their foot. She loses, she loses
and does not win gold.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
But this is what I also mean about how you
can naturally problem solved. Because I couldn't see the note
that you gave me. I was doing all that fullheit
acting and you were like stop with the forehead, and
I was like, oh, I had no idea, Like I
had no idea. I was so subconscious to me, So
what a gift?
Speaker 2 (59:06):
So you, guys, I need you to be like Lola,
and I need you to see notes as gifts. I
think we understandably because at least our school system in America.
I don't know what it's like where you're from, but
you know, I think that we feel like we're constantly
being castigated in this country. And I need you to
understand that that's not what we're trying to do. We're
trying to help. When I say, Lola, do you need
(59:28):
to use your forehead like that? And Lola goes, thank you.
I didn't even know that was happening, right, that's great.
I want you every time you hear a note, you guys,
to say thank you. That's great, even if you don't
feel that way, because eventually you'll realize that that's all
anybody is trying to do is get you the gold
medal that you want so much.
Speaker 3 (59:48):
So good, nobody's trying to make you feel like shit.
Speaker 2 (59:51):
No.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
I could talk to you all all flipping day long.
My friend is there. My final question is like, is
there a moment where you've worked really hard with an
actor they've gone ahead being able to implement brilliant text analysis.
They've booked it, and then you get to see that
on the big screen or on TV and you're just like,
I'm sure it happens to you all the time, but
are they're those kind of peep do you get those
(01:00:12):
little goose bumpy moments.
Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
That's that's what I live for.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
That's it's so it's cool, so cool to feel like
I've been a part of it and that I helped.
And it's really I really feel that way because I
had the greatest acting teacher in high school and oh yeah,
I love her, and you know, I it's very cool
for me to get to see that happen. It's kind
(01:00:39):
of everything because, as I say, I'm not going to
win that award, I'm not going to be on that
TV show and listen. I don't want to. I don't
I don't want to expose myself to that. I'm very sensitive.
But seeing you get there, I mean, I don't know
how to describe the feeling. It's right here and it's
a little breathless and it's the best.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Ah, well, keep please keep doing I know you will
keep doing this forever. But you are actually wonderful. I
cannot wait to learn with you more myself, and thank
you for today.
Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
You're just the best.
Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
Oh, thank you so much for coming. This has been
so fun, so fun, fe Calyisi. Was it fun for you?
Of course, Calisi, you had the best time, Tensu Calisi did.
Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
That's a wrap on another episode of Fearlessly Failing. As always,
thank you to our guests, and let's continue the conversation
on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
I'm at Yumo Lollerberry.
Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
This potty my word for podcast is available on all
streaming platforms. I'd love it if you could subscribe, rape
and comment and of course spread the love.
Get a I'm Laala Berry, nutritionist, author, actor, TV presenter,
and professional oversharer. This podcast is all about celebrating failure
because I believe it's a chance for us to learn,
grow and face our blind spots. Each week, I'll interview
a different guest about their highs as.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well as their lows, all in a.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Bid to inspire us to fearlessly fail. Hello, gang, Today,
I've got to rip a guest for you. Celebrated acting
coach Leslie Kahan is such a good human being and
she's full of spark and passion, and she cares so
(00:48):
much about actors. So if you are a creative, a writer,
a director, an actor, this.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Episode is for you.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Leslie is very inspiring, very honest, and like I said,
just cares. So I think that if you are any
kind of a creative you will get something from this chat.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I hope you love, love, love love it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Leslie, thank you so much for sharing your afternoon with me.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I could have hung out with you all day long.
I think you're wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Welcome to the pod, Leslie Kahn, acting coach, teacher, and
I have to say in the beautiful Khalisi Calisi, potato
chip and how old is beautiful?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Kalis Calissia is thirteen or fourteen.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I adapted her and they weren't sure how old she
was when I got her, so that's why I said
she's thirteen or fourteen. She's gorgeous. She is completely blind.
She went blind during COVID. I think she just couldn't
deal with it.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
And she has a herd condition she has.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
She's turning a corner though. Right I got the update yesterday,
we got the fantastic news. We're I'm still beside myself
because basically they said it was a death sentence. So
I can't even believe.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I can't believe.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
What a brilliant genius you are. How did you do that?
You're a miracle.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And the power of your love, the power of your love. Yeah,
so thank you for yesterday letting me retake class with you.
I have had already done your intro and your comedy intensive.
And the thing that I there's so many things that
I love about learning from and we're going to unpack
a few of them if that's good, as that's good.
(02:31):
But the thing that I love that every time I've
trained with you, one of the first things you say
is listen we're not here to method act, we're not
here to do substitution. And you're like, nothing against it,
It's just not what we're going to do here. Can
you unpack that a little bit for me?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
When I was an actor, that's of course all I learned.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
You know, I went undergrad and it was, you know,
a derivative of method, or many derivatives of method, and
my graduate school was another derivative method, and you know
it what ended up happening is I nobody was ever
really happy with my work. I mean, I did well,
(03:15):
but at school, you know, they were always bitching at
me about something. You know, you're not listening, And I'm like, great,
tell me how to listen. You're not, you know in it? Great,
tell me how to be in it. You're not. You
actually have to find your censer where the fuck is it.
I will find that fucker, and I will be in it.
You need to be in the moment, you know. And
(03:35):
they kept telling me to do things, and I'm like, yes,
let's do that how And nobody was ever telling me how.
They would say, you have the wrong objective, Great, how
do I find the right one? You have the wrong actions? Great?
Tell me how to find the right ones, and it
just it made me insane, you know, And then you know,
to finish with like a master's degree from the ritziest
(03:57):
school on the planet, right, and I come out and I'm.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Like, I don't know what the fuck I'm fucking doing.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I don't know what I'm doing. And I remember this
audition that I went to and they really wanted to
give me this job, this part in a movie. I
could tell they were like desperate to give it to me.
They loved me, and they were I think they said
something like, can you just take it down? And I'm
like sure, And I took it down and they go, great,
can you just take it down some more? And I'm sure?
(04:23):
And I did. And that went on for quite some time,
and then finally I felt like I was doing absolutely nothing,
and I was doing absolutely nothing, and they said, can
you bring it up? And you know, obviously I didn't
get that part in that movie. But what really bugs
me in retrospect is that I didn't know why, and
(04:43):
so I've sort of spent I spent the next few
years inadvertently. I wasn't doing it on purpose, but trying
to figure out what the fuck was the problem. And
that's I don't know if I'm even answering your question,
but that's how I came to realize that there's got
to be another way, and I started inadvertently putting together
(05:06):
another way. So I got this teaching job at a
school in Manhattan, which was amazing, and I started teaching
what I'd been taught, because you know, that's what I
had an agree in. But I just sit there and
I'd watch it not work, and then it wouldn't work again,
and it wouldn't work again, and I was all alone.
You know, it's not like anybody was in the room
with me. So I just started going, well, why don't
(05:26):
you try this and try that? And little by little
I started to realize that there wasn't there were other ways.
There were many, many, many, many other things that we
needed to be doing in our acting in order to
be able to look at the material, know what the
writer wanted us to do and do that. And I
really feel like that's our job. In a preread, it
doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what the preread is for.
(05:49):
But we haven't yet heard from the director or the
casting director or the producer of the studio and the
network or anybody. We've heard from, no one at the
very beginning. It's between it's between the script, the little
information we get on the breakdown, and me, and so
right there, it's the cleanest it can be. I get
to respond to that script, and what I guess I
(06:12):
feel like I learned in my actor training was respond
as myself, bring.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yourself to the cares. How many times have we heard
that just be real, just be yourself?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And what I've come to realize is just be real,
and I prefer to go Real's that's how we need
to say it. You just have to be well. Is
that that's just acting one on one and we never graduate,
and that's not acting at all unless they're looking for,
for example, a Leslie Cohn type, in which case I
(06:43):
can just come in and be real. Yeah, but that's
only as long as I am in Leslie Khan's genre,
given circumstance and relationship. But if any of that changes,
then I can't really be Leslie Khan. How often do
you hear I hear these stories all the time. That
a role was written for Joshma, Joshmo had to go
in an audition for it. Because we live in a
lunatic asylum in our business, and he doesn't book the
(07:07):
role of Joshmo, even though he is actually the exact
Joshmo that they wrote it for. Right, So we can't.
What we have to learn to do is read, and
we learn how to read in school. We learn how
to read in an English literature class. We learn how
to find out what our character's tragic flaw is, but
we don't really learn how to act. And so I
(07:31):
have a huge problem with that. Now. I do understand
that nobody deliberately withheld how to act from me during
my actor training, but I also realized that they didn't know.
And it's kind of insane to me that we are
still utilizing a technology that was created in the eighteen
nineties in the mountains of Russia. When we're not doing
(07:52):
Chekhov plays over a nine month period of time, right,
we're getting our audition for some freaking lawn order five
pm at five pm, have to have it on tape
by tomorrow morning if we're lucky, at eight am. Right,
So we don't have the time to do all the
wonderful things that method tells us to do. I am
(08:13):
not here to say that any of that stuff is bad.
I'm saying, if you get nine months go with God,
you just go out into the mountains of Russian and
have a good time. But we don't.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
That's not our world that we're living in.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And I don't understand why we're not utilizing the things
that will in fact enable us to pick up the
script and know exactly what they want us to do.
I worked with them, so sorry. I worked with a
woman this morning, and and this is her thing. She's
not a young woman, she's an older woman, and she's
been at this, working in a derivative method her whole life.
(08:48):
She can do any method you want.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
She just doesn't know what the writer wrote, which is
Kate like one, I want you have to How do
you move forward without knowing that?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
But that's We're not tough to do that. We're taught
to bring what we want to do to the writer.
And I'm like, I understand that you think that she
is feeling these devastated feelings of loss as now what's
on the page, just but if I were in that's
the circumstances. She said, that's what I would feel. And
I said, nobody cares. Nobody cares what you would feel.
(09:19):
They have written this, this has been purchased, they've spent
a lot of money on it, and now they're going
to invest a lot of money making it. They want
you to play in this story, not in the one
you want to tell.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
And this is where it comes into my two favorite
And the thing about the technique that we get to
all that am I using the right terminology here, that
we get to learn with you is it's so heavily
focused on thinking the character's thoughts, not Lola's thoughts, not
Leslie's thoughts, the character's thoughts, and also listening.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And not our feelings, yes, what we don't realize. And
I can't tell you how often I think about this,
at least daily many times.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Thought feelings are a product of thought.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Correct, So why are we skipping thought and going right
to what we think we would feel in these given circumstances.
That's crazy to me.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Also, like feelings can be a bit unruly, So you
might be able to access that feeling for some grief
deep scene, but then if you're doing eighty takes that
or twenty takes of that, you might not be able
to access that.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And also, can you think of a time when you've
cried hysterically. Were you never You've never cried no.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yea the time, but it would be if you said,
replicate that now, it.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Would be well, but listen, if you were lying down
on the floor and thinking of your dead grandmother, I'm
sure you could get there.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
But the problem is that that grief that you're talking
about is not present in all three to five pages
of that scene. Correct, you know, I would say in
that scene, maybe three moments of the scene need that
exact grief. There are another ninety seven moments in the scene,
right totally? What are we doing in those? Yeah, So
we nail the shit out of the one feeling that
(11:00):
we've prepared, what about the other ninety seven percent of
the scene? We wonder why we're not booking. Sometimes actors,
well sometimes daily actors come to me, why am I
not booking? You're not doing this. You're playing your childhood
And I get it.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It was bad.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
It was a bad childhood. Here's the name of a therapist,
and we have to learn how to do this paper.
So yes, to me, it's much easier to figure out
if you go, well, what would I think if that
tree outside suddenly smashed into the building, what would I think? Now?
The question that we are asked is, well, how would
(11:38):
you feel? I have no idea how I would feel,
but what would I think? I would think? Shit?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
All shit?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Are you being bound? What is happening right now? As
a result of that, I am feeling nine thousand days.
I don't even want to begin to identify one of them,
because they're not my business. My job is to think
that thought, reduce the nine thousand feelings, and go on
with my life and keep responding to what's happening. Sometimes
(12:06):
my Midwestern ancent really comes.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Oh I love it, go leand clean, lean in, and
I think as well, it sounds I think actors and
we love to complicate stuff and be like, no, I
need to attach this settler, I need to attach a
piece of myself to that.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Or that's not I want a new one.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
And get there's a lot of feedback like just be different,
just stand out you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
We please talk about that. Yes, Oh my god. It
just is the thing that drives me insane. It's like,
for example, let's say that that.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
That you are going to get cast in the in
this thing.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Are you going to call me and say Leslie I'm
getting cast in this thing. Can you look at my
contract and all the perks that I'm getting and how
it works, and and look at all the language in
that contract for me, and I will go No, I
am an acting teacher, i am not a contract person,
and I'm not a casting director. I'm not an agent.
I'm not a manager. I'm not a lawyer. Why would
(13:04):
you ask me to do those things? Those are not
my skills. Yeah, casting directors are amazing at the big picture.
Somebody can come to them and bring them a script
and they see, oh my god, it would be amazing
if we got this one in this role, in Meryl
Streep and that role, and then let's get you know,
freaking one of the Chris Hemsworth type people in this.
You know, they see it, and they know the second
(13:27):
you read they know, yep, No, that's it. It's not
their job to teach you how to do it. It's
their job. They're being hired to find the perfect person
to do that role. It's their job to put it
all together and to make it cohesive and believable and
make it seem like you guys are and let me
believe that you guys are a family, or that you're
her boss, or whatever else is going on. We have
(13:50):
different job descriptions. You don't go on set and ask
the prop master to do your makeup, No, totally. And
so we are being unfair to the casting director by
asking them to help us with our acting. And you
would be being unfair to the acting teacher to ask
her to look at your contract when she doesn't know
shit off about contracts. Right, So what we want to
(14:12):
do is we want to we want to be so
great at our job.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
And again, our job is this paper. Now that's our
first job.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Then maybe, if we're lucky, we get to go to
a casting office. I understand that those days are over, yeah,
But in the old days, young ones, in the old days,
we did this thing called getting into our cars and
driving across town in terrible traffic, and then we would
(14:42):
park somewhere that would be terribly expensive, because God forbid
we should be allowed on the lot, And then we
would find the place where we were auditioning, and we
would sit and wait for five hours, surrounded by women
who looked exactly like us, and then finally we would
be allowed in the room and there would be three
scenes and they would say, did you receive the new size? Okay, anyway,
(15:08):
that shit isn't happening so much anymore, but let's just
say it was, because that would be great. Then we
would go in and Casting would say, yeah, I see
what you're doing. That's great, But I just had a
meeting with them, and they now want you to be this, this,
and this at which more we could do this cool
thing called taking an adjustment. Now I understand that that's
(15:29):
very old fashioned, because God forbid we should ever go
in the room again. But now every once in a
while we get to go on zoom and Casting might
actually talk to us and give us an adjustment. So
that's the next phase. Can we take an adjustment? Can
we do what casting is asking us to do? Or
are we going to have an aneurysm and nervous breakdown,
get defensive, you know, faint, I don't know, have a
(15:49):
panic attack. None of those things can happen. And then
maybe we're lucky, and then casting says, please come to
this work session. Please come to the session with a director,
and then we have to be able to take direction
from him. At that point, at no point in time
is it our story. It goes from the story that
it goes from the writer's story through us more like
(16:10):
the vehicle you said, vessel. Excellent. I say, we're the vehicle, right,
like my body is the vehicle. But the character the
writer wrote and the character's gonna is going to drive
my vehicle. The vehicles are going to look like me.
It's going to have wacky hair and right, you know,
thank you very much, and a massive cleavage and you
know that's what the characters, that's what the car is
(16:31):
going to look like. Yeah, right, And so then we
are affected. Then you know, we go to casting and
they go, what's your car was blue? So then I'm
going to wear a blue suit the next time I go.
And then I'm going to meet with the director and
he's going to go, you know, I wish she was taller,
and I'm gonna wear heels. Do follow me, and I'm
going to make these adjustments and it's going to become
this thing that we've all created together. Did I answer
(16:53):
your question one thousand? Yes? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You're brilliantly and I'm here for all of it. Can
we tell about listening because I love the way you
talk about it, But I also think, like sometimes something
that I know I trip up with is like we
get now head and we're like, oh, well, is my
yline okay?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Do I look okay?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And like you're completely gone like the but then the
moment that, like you listen to the other character, it
gets you out of your head and you become curious
and in that space of like thinking the thoughts about
what has just been said in front of you.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Well, I think.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Listening has become very will will and we don't know
how to do it. I know that I didn't know
how to do it until till i'd been teaching for
a while. And again, I got a master's degree from
a ritzy place, so nobody ever taught me how to listen.
I just always assumed listening was allowing the words to
go by my ear, and I was doing that, And
(17:54):
then people would tell me I wasn't doing that, and
I would say something like that, why do I have
the great misf of being able to respond to you?
Because I just nobody was explaining anything to me, and
I was so frustrated. Lola, I'm still frustrated, but I'm
only frustrated by the past. I'm not frustrated now. I'm
just anyway. So yes, I think acting is completely organic.
(18:20):
Organic is all listening. It's all listening in in this
situation of this script. It's also one hundred percent technical.
And this is where we get in trouble because people
are like, oh, Leslie Khan, she's so technical. You bet
your sweet motherfucking bippy, I'm technical. Acting is one hundred
percent technical and one hundred percent organic. So yes, it
(18:45):
is all listening. But also the guy wrote technical things
on the paper, and every one of those things you
miss casting notices and you don't get to miss any
of them and played this character.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Theoretically, what the casting wants is what the guy wrote.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Casting isn't sitting there going, oh, well, I see what
the guy wrote, but I'm going to go in this
whole other direction. That's not what they bought. They bought
this script. They want this script. Casting is trying to
cast this script. So we all have to be on
the same page about what this script is and just
coming at it organically with decent listening will definitely make
me believe that you are a person, but not necessarily
(19:23):
this person, and they're casting somebody who can play this person.
Now there we have that phrase. But I can play okay, yes,
you can play anything. I can play you know, a
fourteen year old, you know, pre adolescent boy in Budapest, Budapest.
I can do that if I want. Nobody gonna cast
(19:45):
me is that. But you I can damn well play
that little motherfucker, right, So we've got to get out
of our minds whether we should play it or not.
I think it would be pretty dumb to cast me
as that kid. Okay, it's not going to be good
for your movie because move these TVs, the TV shows,
these are all moving pictures. They're visual. So it would
be dumb to cast a loud, older jewess in the
(20:09):
role of a fourteen year old whatever. Follow me. So
what we have to do is take that off the table.
That's not our business. If they want to bring us
in to play that role, fine, fine, I'll do it.
It's great. I can play it, but again, I just
don't think they're going to cast me as that.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Now I got way off on whatever I was doing.
Get me back, please, No, No, you were perfect. You
were just saying about you can still step into that
space if you are listening and thinking the thought like essentially,
like you can even though you're not a fourteen year
old boy living in Budapest.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yes, so I have to do all three things, and
I haven't even gotten to the third one. I know.
I'm excited that I can think the fourteen year old
whatever thoughts. Yeah, and I'm gonna get cast, but I can.
That's my skill as an actor. I can do that.
I can also look at the paper and I can
see all the clues on the page that the writer
has written for me. There are Agillian things. It's almost
(21:02):
like what many of us like to do is we
just want to play. We just want to do jazz, improv. Okay,
that's a good way. We don't want to look at
any sheet music. Yeah, okay, and if there is sheet music,
we kind of want to use it as a jumping
off point and then ignore it as quickly as humanly possible.
And listen. You can say to me, but I heard
about somebody who went in and he didn't do what
(21:24):
was on the page at all, and they cast him.
It was an exactly. And what I say to people
when they say that is, yeah, how do you know
about that? I don't know. I read it somewhere. It
was some article. Exactly. It was news because it doesn't
usually exactly, it doesn't usually happen. Usually, if they say
they want, you know, a shitsu minipin, you know they're
(21:46):
going to cast this thing sitting on my lap here, right, So,
and yes, every once in a while they've seen so
many people for so long they just want to shoot
themselves in the head. No one is coming in and
doing what they've written, and so they're like, Okay, well
that guy's at least funny, and he's obviously talented and charismatic,
so let's just cast that motherfucker, right, But it's not
(22:06):
what they wrote. And maybe it turns out great and
everybody's really really happy. But I don't think that that's
a good game plan for us. I don't think that's
a good risk. It's very risky. I think we already
all decided to get in this business, and that was
crazy of us. I think we already made a big
mistake thinking that we had a chance in this business
(22:29):
that everybody in the world wants to be in, and
there just aren't that many opportunities. So what I'd like
us to do is up our chances by by being
unbelievably organic with our listening perfect unbelievably technical with the
technicals that are on the page.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
And then only then do we get to fuck it.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
And not only do we get to fuck it, but
it's required we do our work and then we kind
of have our characters first thought, and then we have
to see what happens. But most of us don't do that.
In the olden days, we would pack up our characterization
in the trunk of our car. We'd drive to fucking
Santa Monica. We'd go into the audition.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
We'd heave that, you know, huge thing out, We'd schlep
it across a lot. We'd sit down and the trailer,
wait the four hours for our audition, schlep that into
the casting director's office, and hope to God.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
That we could get it on My fairst favorite Udah
Hagan style claus was that you would bring everything but
the kitchen sink into there and it was just wild.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And listen, there is a really good place for that. Yeah,
it's a great acting one oh one thing. Yeah, that
private moment. I have private moment stories. I'm happy to
tell you if you want. But but but the bottom
line is we have to understand that those are the
three main things that we have to do that.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Acting is not just going.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I read this and I feel this, and I think
too many I had. I had an actress recently that
said this, this movie is based on this book that
I read, and I love the book, and I am
the girl. I am her. I mean, Leslie. If you
read the book, I am the girl, and I go,
I've read the book. You are not the girl. You
are nothing like the girl. Right. I see that you
(24:12):
relate to the girl. I see that the story makes
you feel deeply. But and we get that mixed up.
We get I feel deeply as a result of reading
or watching this thing mixed up with what my character
is actually thinking and doing. They're two completely different, mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
And I feel like one is long term sustainable and
one especially if you're because I'm someone that's trained in
loads of different acting schools over the last eight years,
and sometimes I'll be like, WHOA, this is going to
cost me my mental health if I use this style,
whether it be substitution, whether it be a moment before,
whether it be method. I'm like, this is going to
(24:52):
come at a cost of not only my mental health,
but probably half for ninety perens students in this room.
And then what I love about every step of the
way with the Comedy intensive was like, this is sustainable,
This is foolproof because I can implement what I'm learning
in this technique. I want to use that word and
(25:12):
I could implement that to any audition that comes in.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, and it doesn't. It's just it doesn't matter if
it's comedy, drama, or anything else. And listen, that was
my problem with method. I remember being in school and
at some point I'm solving hysterically because that's who I was,
And I'm like, does anyone notice that I'm hysterical? Twenty
four to seven? Does it occur to anybody? And I
didn't get this until many years later, But I don't
(25:37):
really understand why it occurred to no one that the
last thing this bitch needed was.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
A substitution or a sense memory.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I was a walking substanct. I am a walking substitution
and sense memory. I had a childhood and that we
don't need to talk about right now, but I am
constantly in a state of substitutions.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
People aren't. Some people had lovely childhoods and they need
training in that.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I did not. So this one size fits all training
is that can be so damaging to some of us
is really upsetting to me. And I will take issue
with you calling what we teach here a technique. It
is not a technique. I absolutely feel that Stanislavsky, Meisner,
(26:25):
Udha Hagen, Stella, Adler, all of those, all of those
guys are absolutely methods techniques. I praise them for that.
I want you to think of us. I want you
to think of those techniques as veins in your army. Okay,
you've got your Meisner vein and your Stanislavsky vein and
(26:48):
your your Adler vein. Here we're everything else in the baddy.
Oh I love that foundation. We're everything were No, it's
not just foundation, literally everything else. I feel like I've
finished drama school and I knew how to substitute, and
I knew a few techniques. Repetition. You would have been
great at repetition. Get me started. I feel like I
(27:11):
knew a few of those vans, but those vans were like,
I don't know one percent of what I needed in
order to go get an acting job.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Can I share a story about someone that trained with you?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (27:24):
So, yeah you will. She's called Julia Morris. Yes, that's
the reason why I started training with you. Just so
you know, I'm we're very good friends with her agent,
she was like, go and train with Leslie.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You know, I love her like more than life atself.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
She's gone to the logis on the weekend.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, but what I wanted to say was, obviously she's
a very talented comedian and comedic actress, but in.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
The most charismatic human being ever to walk the earth.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
So charismatic, could not book any serious dramatic work and
no one would take her seriously at all. Came here,
trained with you, and then went back. I think she
even booked from here, and it was a very dramatic,
very gritty like role. And now she's seen as this
(28:09):
incredible force of nature as a dramatic actress after training
with you, and right before I started training with you,
she was sending me voice notes being like, all right,
you can have so much fun with Leslie, and just
just so you know, like you're and I know you
get you're so well known, especially in the sitcom comedy
that comedy space, but like which blows my mind still,
(28:31):
but so many dramas and I know you've trained so
many actors that are household names and known for their
beautiful dramatic work. And that's what I love about that
this can be implemented to whether it be a sitcom,
a multicam sitcom screen.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
It's just text analysis.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
It's just learning the rules of text analysts.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
If we go back to the jazz musician, you know,
you're just in a you came out of the world.
You're an amazing musician and you can play all these
instruments and you just hear it. And I don't even
know what you'd do, But what I'd love you to
be able to do is also play Mozart. Yeah, and
Alan Ball and Aaron Sorkand and I'm sure Dick Wolf
would like it if you could do his writing. And
I know Chuck Lourie would be really happy if you
(29:12):
could do it. And dear God, please be able to
do Max Muchnik and David Cohen. Right. I want you
to be able to do Oscar Wilde. I want you
to be able to do Tennessee Williams. I want you
to be able to do Shakespeare. I want you to
be able to do anything effortlessly and happily and excitedly.
What I don't want is you to wake up in
the morning, have an email in your G or C
or whatever mail it is that you all get and
(29:34):
go into a state of panic. I can't play that role.
I can't do that accent. I don't know how to
do that. Oh my god, I'm I don't know how
to do comedy. You're an actor, you know how to
do fucking everything, and that's got to be how you
wake up in the morning, because how else are you
going to, like do this insane you know, open up
your closet, pull out the freaking blue background, the ring
(29:55):
light and then read it with your friend and tim
buck too over zoom at five in the morning. I mean,
what they're asking you guys to do right now is insane.
Your acting had best not be the problem, right Your
acting has to be well okay that I can do.
One of the things I like to say is when
I was an actor, I was always going to audition
(30:18):
for South Coast Rep because I'd been to drama school
and so and South Coast Rep. For those of you
in Australia, Hi, it's this wonderful regional theater. I don't know.
A couple hours away, two two and a half hours
away from La and all of us theater types in
those days would drive to Orange County to audition. And
(30:40):
you know, I had a little nineteen eighty one Honda Accord.
That was my first call. Harriet the Honda. Really, yeah,
I'd hand me down. Did Harriet have one hundred and
forty seven thousand miles on her when you bought her? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
I didn't know that that was a lot of miles.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I did not really know. And my Harriet would not
make it up the four h five, which is the
highway you need to take to get to the Orange
County and the audition. And I would that's a problem.
You can have your acting career that your car won't
make it. Uh huh. But I kind of feel like
if your acting is excellent, and that's the problem, Lola.
That's what I want to talk about today, is that
(31:17):
I don't think that there is a bar for excellence
in acting, and I mean, for me, there is. I
just look at you and I'm like, Okay, I look
at where you want to go. I look at where
you are now, and I go, okay, we need to
do these things to get you there.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
You're a problem solver. I've watched I've watched you, especially yesterday.
I love the way you can look at a human
being and see if they're what they put up, and
you can see your brain just kind of like be like,
I can see that you need that and you need
like even the way we had a beautiful actor he
has said, but his regime was just a bit out
of whack and a bit wonky, and you were like, hey,
(31:51):
we just need to fix this up. It's an easy fix,
and I feel like your brain naturally problem solves.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well, that kid that you're talking about yesterday, did you
get a look at him?
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah? For stomach gorgeous, Yeah, yeah, And again if you
remember that this is a business of moving pictures, because
he's gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
You could tell that he's connected by how much he
didn't want to tell us how connected he was.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yes, right, adorable, gorgeous speaking voice.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You know that kid, whether he's connected or not, is
going to walk down the beach and somebody's going to go, you,
are you an actor? Come here, I'm going to make
you a shah. And so what I want is when
that happens to that kid, because it's going to happen
to him because of what he looks like. I need
to make sure that his resume doesn't look like a
two year old wrote it, and pet makes somebody panic.
(32:39):
I need to make sure that when he picks up
the scene that they want him to read, that he
reads it and they're like, yep, exactly, that's exactly what
we thought he would do. He understands it. Give him
a freaking job. And I feel like too many people
don't understand how far away they are from that end,
And it makes me panic because I know now how
(33:02):
far away I was when I was him, and nobody
was talking to me in that way. Listen, in those days,
there was no marketing of an actor. We didn't talk
about that, but nevertheless, nobody really was looking at me
and going, curre your problems and this is what's going
to keep them from casting you. We have to fix
(33:23):
these exact things that are going to keep them from
casting you. We need to make you castable. Now. I
understand that there are all these people who might go, oh, leslie,
you just want me to be like everybody else. No,
and let's go back to that. No, that's not what
I want at all. I just there was a wonderful
casting director a million years ago who wrote somewhere, you
(33:46):
just need to fit a category that I see in
the breakdowns, because if you don't, you're literally not on
the breakdowns, which means there aren't any opportunities for you.
And I understand that for that kid that we met yesterday, he's.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
On every freaking breakdown in man crime.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
And I understand that it's not fair, and I'm right
there with you, but that's life. It's going to be
easier for him. And he's hard working, and he's getting
himself all these degrees and he's studying everywhere, and.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
He's like young as anything as well, like he's got
all luck counties side. But I love that what you
said to me was you were like, let's increase your
luck and you're able to look at somem with a
fresh set eyes and just be like, have you thought
about trying this, this, and this because that might affect
your luck?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Well. Yeah, and especially in a business of moving pictures.
And some people will say, well, she's obsessed with what
people look like. Yeah, because it's a business of moving
I'm not coaching voiceover here, do you know what I mean.
I'm not coaching animation. I'm looking at you and I'm
going okay, So how do I get this face with
these blue eyes? How do I get it to pop?
(34:49):
How do I get it to be a category? The
Patrick Baka, the casting director, sees in the breakdowns, how
do I get her in the game? And then once
she's in the.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
In the game, how do I get her to be
the one they pick?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Right? And everybody thinks it's well, you have to do
something different because if we go back to that other topic,
that's what we hear from casting directors, because casting directors
think that that's what it is. So when casting directors
say to us, well, I sat there and I watched
all three hundred tips and everybody did the same thing,
They're right, everybody did the same thing. They missed all
(35:23):
of the specificity in the paper. Excuse me, they just
read what it looked like the actors and they all
did come in and do the same thing. But the
cure is not to put on a Groucho Marx mask
and have a limp. The cure is not a French accent,
or the cure is not to put a scar on
your face, and the cure is not to wear an
(35:44):
evening mam. The cure is to go more deeply into
the paper, yes, and to find out what is text
based that you are missing. One of my newest analogies
is if you think about a ruler, right, and so
you've got your zero centimeters one, two, three, four, that's
what you see on the ruler. You see those big numbers.
(36:05):
If you look more closely, though, you'll see that there's
a half a centimeter mark and one and a half
and two and a half. If you look more closely,
there's even one quarter of a centimeter three quarters. If
you look more closely, there are lines in between there,
and if you look more closely there are no more lines.
But there's so much more specificity to be gotten. And
(36:25):
if you think of it, if all you're doing is
the zero, the one, the two, and the three, you're
you're taking that paint by numbers picture and you're not
even connecting zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
eight into the picture. You're going zero three, six seventeen
nineteen twenty eight. Right, We're not getting the full picture right.
(36:47):
And you might say to me, but Leslie, that's why
this isn't fair. I need more time. If I had
nine months in the mountains of Russia, rehearsing eight hours
a day with an OH tour director, I could get there.
And what I'm saying to you is you don't need
the nine months. You can do it right now. But
you have to look at the paper completely differently than
the way at least I and I'm guessing you have
(37:08):
been trained to look at the paper. And again, I'm
not saying that the way we were trained to look
at the paper is wrong. I'm simply saying if we
do it that way, we won't get there in time
to get our tape in time. I can't talk. I
know what you mean. In time. We have to get
our tape in by a deadline.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
The cool and the cool thing about training with you
is once you learn these patterns and learn to learn
this text analysis, you can't unlearn it. So you'll read
something and you would straight away be like there's a
rule of three, Okay, there's a reversal, Oh, there's a monologue.
We're build of yees, you know, and you start your
(37:47):
brain like straight and it's almost like having a superpower,
or you're like looking at something with laser like you
feel like you're seeing something because you haven't seen it
this whole time. It feels like a magic treat because
you're like, oh, my goodness, it's like it's given to
us too.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yes, and you said that you can't nobody can take
it away from you. The problem is that everything sort
of falls apart if you don't keep at it. Of course,
for example, my trainer just moved away, and I like
to burn out. I've not gotten a new trainer, and
(38:23):
you know, I probably won't be doing it until my
husband really gets a good look at me and says,
get a trainer, because I'm really not interested. But the
fact is that I see the difference in my body
in just a month because I'm not doing it. Not
only am I not doing it every day, I'm never
doing it. And so that's what happens to us. We
take a class where like, oh, I've learned it. No,
(38:43):
my love, you have not learned it at all. You
have some things written down in a notebook, that's what
you have. You kind of need to work it every day,
and because more and more and more happens, it's not
just okay, well, if I learn this finite set of.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Things, I've got it.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
No, Because it's like you know, I like to think
of it as the practice of law or the practice
of surgery. Let's talk about surgery. Didn't you study law?
I did not. Didn't when you going to go into
law at Cornwall or something Cornell. Cornell was my undergraduate
and I was their pre law because my father.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Was a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
But look at you. I would never have been a lawyer.
I would have been a disastrous lawyer.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
My best friend is a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
But anyway, where was I This was going to be Oh, okay,
we were talking about surgery. So who do you want
to do your surgery, the guy that just got out
of surgery school or the guy that's been doing surgery
for twenty years? Yeah, the latter, why experience by experience
and know how what do you mean? He's lived it.
He has done so many operations. He has been through
(39:47):
every possible horrifying thing that could happen. You know, I
don't know anything about medicine. So you know your blood
could turn green suddenly you stop breathing. I don't know
what all the horrible things are that have happened. I'm
going to tell you one thing. The guy that just
got out of med school doesn't no shit off. But
the guy that's been doing this operation for twenty years,
knows everything. That's why we want him. That's what I
(40:10):
want you to be as an actor. I want you
to be the world's foremost leading authority on how to act.
What do we do as actors, not that you know
what we do. We go on set and we're like,
I'm so directable, Just tell me what you want me
to do, hair director. I take direction really well, and
I don't want you to be that actor at all.
I want you to go on set as the world's
(40:31):
foremost leading authority on your character in the script. And
then I want you to get with all the other
world's foremost authorities on their characters in the script.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
And the director who has a whole different job which
has nothing to do with telling you what your motivation is.
His job is making the picture look really good.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah right, And it's the lighting guy who needs to
get the light on you, and the wardrobe lady who
does everybody. You know, when you're really really lucky and
you get on a show or a movie or a
set where everybody is superb and the script is superb,
that's when we have a chance. Everybody's bringing their egg game.
I don't ever want you going to set going mold me.
(41:14):
I feel like that's what I was trained to do.
And my god that first of all, I know there's
no time, and that's not fun.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
No, I'm not a piece of clay.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I'm an artist and and and I'm a crafts person
and I want to and I'm really good at what
I do. And then when I get on set, then
I get to see what you're doing, and I get
to interact with that, and then I get to see
what that you know, I don't know sound guy is doing.
And then I get to see oh, and the director goes, oh, well,
if you go like that, and he goes like that,
it's going to be so much better, and I'm like, yes,
(41:49):
but I'm not reliant on him, and it's also not
his job to be my mother.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, A thousand. I think you can see it in
the quality of work. Like I've heard you talk about
Yellowstone Taylor Sheridan before, and you can feel like it
feels like Taylor Sheridan has touched almost like everything the writing,
set design, prop located like down to I imagine researchers
that he would have on that show.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Well, I have to say, you know, I worked with
him for a long time, and I feel like if
he took anything from me, that's what he took. He
took learning how to be unbelievably specific, and then he
had this I guessed gift that none of us knew about.
I don't even think he knew about it. With regard
to rating, he is the storyteller extraordinary. So I mean
(42:39):
I live. I live from you know, the end of
his last thing to the next. Ah, you and me.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
But like me as a consumer, I'm just like, this
is down to I'm lucky enough. I've interviewed one of
his composers and apparently once the I think they call
him the sweeps, like essentially like huge chunks of music
for the essence of whether it be eighteen eighty three,
nineteen twenty three, Yellowstone, No.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I am still do you still have that image of
your mind of what is he on the boat or
and she's on the there there's so bad You're like,
how is she going to get there? And then I
have chills. And then I've gotten to see, you know,
some of the audition, some of the gross So I'm like,
when I knowing that and seeing some of these things
come in I'm like, oh, oh my god, I cannot
(43:30):
believe he's already taken the story.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
It's like so far beyond what I had in my imagination.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Isn't it incredible?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
But do you know they give those sweeps to the actors,
so in eighteen eighty three, you know, yeah, so you
know how it's Sam Elliott. Have you seen eighteen eighty
three with a burning house? It's like a six minute
score and no dialogue. It's just very and they give
the actors the score before the scene, and.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Like, what a gift.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Oh my god, could you imagine, like just even that
beautiful piece, and even the way you were talking yesterday
to an actor and you were like, maybe you're more
right brain than left brain. Imagine if you were an
actor that was lent more into that right brain and directed.
It was like, here's the score, like go away and
enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Like what like?
Speaker 1 (44:16):
And I'm going on a tangent here, but I just think,
what an incredible, beautiful piece of art we get to watch, unbelievable.
And I remember him from Sons of Anarchy days as
he was the beautiful like hmm, not constable. He was
like a detective, kind of like police officer.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
I don't remember this back in the day.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Too much shit in this, but that's what made him right.
He was like, they wouldn't give him a pay rise.
They wouldn't. Yeah, and he was he had had his
first kid. I think he was forty. He was sitting
in a little apartment up here and wrote Sakario and
that was the beginning of wrote it over a weekend.
How amazing, unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, but again, this is
(44:56):
where like to break down the art and as an actor,
I imagine getting a script like that, you would have
so much like fun.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
But let's go back. Yes, but I want you to
know how to look at a script like that, and
I want you to tell Taylor's story, not I feel
like what I was. Literally what I feel like I
have a master's degree in is looking at a script
and or what I had a master's degree and was
looking at a script and making it the story I
wanted it to be and making Lady m who I
(45:28):
wanted her to be. And you know what, I'm just
going to go out on them and say, I think
Shakespeare knew more than I know. Yeah, and so I
think maybe I should have looked more carefully at what
he wanted me to do. Yeah, right, And that's what
I want actors to do. I feel like we are
so limited in the way we look at it, and
I want everybody to open up and see the possibilities
(45:49):
and that we don't have to feel so limited, and
that if we only became consummate professionals, people who look
at the paper, know what the paper needs to do,
and do that, then suddenly we're going to have a
lot more opportunity. Yes, I get very I was talking
to a client the other day and and and he
(46:12):
said about he was talking about working and why he
was in class. And he goes, sometimes I don't know
why I'm in class. And I said, you're in class
because you don't know how to fish. And he goes,
what does that mean? And I said, when you're booking jobs,
you're coaching with me, and I'm telling you what the
(46:35):
writer wants you to do. You've been an actor for
a while, so you're really good. When I tell you
the writer is saying this, this, this, and this, You're like,
oh okay. And when we work on it together, I
basically hand you fish. Okay, You're in class, so then
you learn to fish so that you are not reliant
on my availability to show you what the writer is
(46:58):
asking you to do right now. You don't look at
the paper and see what he wants. Well, is that possible?
And I'm like, I am the living proof. Every member
of my faculty and a gazillion people out there that
you watch in movies and on TV are a proof
that it can be done. And that's what I want
for you. I did not have that when I was
an actor. I didn't have the knowledge that when a
(47:20):
script came in that I was going to know exactly
how it should be done. Now, just because I know
how it should be done doesn't mean that that network
executive agrees with me. That network executive, I'm going to
go out a limb didn't go to a drama school.
He went to law school. And he doesn't know anymore
(47:41):
about how to read that paper than Calisi, my dog.
And I don't mean the mother of Dragons. I mean
my dog Cleisi. And it's not to put him down.
He knows a lot about business. He knows about marketing,
he knows about publicity. He knows how to make things
a hit. That's great, but he doesn't know how to
read this paper. So he read this paper. You went, well,
I think the character is X. And of course I
(48:03):
read the paper and I know what Alan Ball wants
it to be. And I'm like, well, Alan Ball wants
it to be why, So we're going to do why here?
Speaker 1 (48:09):
No so interesting and a great brain, my friend, I've
only just been doing this.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
This is all I've I'm the luckiest person. You know,
this is you know, for many many years. This is
all I do. So I don't know so much that
it's my brain as it is. Exposure, constant exposure to
all of the scripts. And so you look at these
scripts and you learn, you know, if you're doing it
every day, you're going to learn. That's what I want
the actors to do. I want you to do it
(48:39):
every day so that you learn to see what I see,
because sometimes that network executive is going to be amazing
and they're going to have that gift and they're going
to see what Alan Ball meant. Do you? I mean
sometimes when you see a script by an Aaron Sorkin,
er by somebody who's brilliant, and you read that script
and we all sit here in my class, women were like,
(49:00):
oh my god, we want to work on this all
the time. This is the greatest thing in the world.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
We're loving this, this is so exciting.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
And then the show doesn't go well. Sometimes I'm going
to go if it's a great script, it's not the
script's fault. It's that other people whose areas of expertise
are perhaps not in I don't know, storytelling, are heavily involved,
(49:26):
and so they and they have the power, and so
they said, no, no, no, you have to cast this person. Okay, well,
this person is an amazing actor, but it's not right
for this part, because if you cast that person with
that essence and this person with this essence, the story
doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Yes, right, But the lawyer doesn't.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Know that, the guy with the NBA, he doesn't know about.
All he knows is that this person is worth this
much overseas, and this person is worth this much overseas
that's going to pay their whole budget. Everybody loves those people,
so it's going to be great. But it's not great
because it's not the story that they wrote. And what
you fell in love with was the beautiful story and
you just ruined the story. And so I guess I
(50:11):
get so scared because I love TV and I love movies,
and I'm just that little girl that escaped into TV
and movies. And it's what kept me alive, you know,
when I because I grew up in kind of a
crazy house, a very crazy house, and I lived for Bewitched,
I lived for the original Star Trek. That's what got
(50:31):
me through that magic. And I'm very afraid that the
way we're running the business right now is really adversely
affecting magic. And so, you know now a lot of
what I say to my actors is we've got to
make sure the great TV and great movies don't go
(50:52):
the way of opera and ballet. Nobody really goes to
see opera and ballet anymore. Okay, So before I'm fucking dead,
I want to make sure that there are a jillion
people out there who know how what an actor's job
is and can fucking do it, and can get in
there and make things great, do their part to make
(51:12):
a great script great with other people who are doing it,
so that so that other little girls can have the
relief that I had. See.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
I feel like you are doing that because you're built
You've built such a beautiful faculty here like every seature
I've trained with here, I'm like, oh, I get a
different nugget, and it's you can see that the that
they've not only come through your teaching but live it.
It's like part of the way you describe like part
of it. It's their being and essence. And so to me,
(51:44):
that tells me that you are doing that what you
know you are. One of my favorite things about the
comedy intensive was bats and gaps.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Huh can you share a little bit with the listeners? Okay, Well,
so the thing is that we're actors run around and
we have a lot of bad actor thoughts. So you guys,
can you think of one of your bad actor thoughts. Oh,
I'm never going to get this part. They hate all
I think to all exactly, I'm I'm the wrong everything.
(52:13):
They don't like me. I don't know the right agent.
I can't even get the auditions. And that's what we're
inadvertently thinking. So one of the things I want to
do is I want to make us aware of what
we're thinking inadvertently, and then I want us to choose
thoughts that are the opposite of those thoughts, and then
I want us to throw all of that shit out
and just think our characters thoughts. And so, you know,
(52:36):
last night in class, this girl that I just love,
so talented and exquisite, but she's going through it and
she does not like to share it. And one of
the things I always say to actors is you need
to cry a minimum of once a day if you're unemployed.
If you're employed, I'm still going to give you once
a day, but you don't really need to cry as often.
(52:57):
Plus you don't want to ruin your makeup.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
But if you're unemployed, I need you to cry.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
Because most people on the planet are not running around
worried about where their next meal is coming from. We are.
That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
Plus our parents are mad at us because we're actors.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Plus we can't be in a decent relationship because we're
lunatics and we have to work around the clock. Plus
our lives. You know, we're living nineteen people in an
apartment where it's just we're very stressed out, and a
lot of us actors we know are other actors and
everybody's feeling that way. It's not special. So we're like, well,
(53:33):
I should buck up. I should be able to handle this.
I should be okay with this, and I'm sort of like, no,
the truth is that your life is pretty sucky right now,
and you can't even get an audition for the show
you want to get an audition for, so you don't
even have hope right now.
Speaker 3 (53:48):
Right So we need to be aware that.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
We're going through that. It needs to stop being the
norm and we need to go Okay, I am it
is legit that I'm going through this to have a
good cry, because otherwise we're overflowing with that. We need
just cry. Yeah, let a little of it come down.
I wish you guys could see. I've got like my
hands at the very top of my head. I just
(54:12):
need an inch. I needed to cry and just make
an inch of space for you to be your character. Yeah,
when you're so upset about your own shit, there's no
space for you to play your carrots in a way,
but you don't need a lot of space. You just
need some and sometimes we're overflowing.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
That's great advice, and it also gives cry the active
permission to like process and feel it when it's shit,
because also it is a word of rejection, and like,
even if you put up like five editions in a
week and you feel great. Even if you were great,
but they wanted a blonde and not a brunette, you're
not going to hear a word like it's donuts. And
I think, like, it's not even about being super resilient.
(54:55):
It's just about knowing it that some days are shit.
It's okay that some days issue it as well.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Well, it just is. But again, when you say that,
I immediately go to yes. But if every one of
those five auditions was superb, and yes, they wanted a
blonde in every one of them, and you were a
brunette and every one of them, the fact is that
five casting directors just saw you do something superb, and
(55:23):
five people in a week seeing you do something superb
is great. Now you might not feel the result of
that right now at all. You won't because you're not
going to get any of those jobs. But what's going
to happen is they're going to bring you back in
because you fucking made their life so much better. When
they saw your audition, they were like, oh, that's what
we need those blonde bitches to do. Okay, and they
(55:44):
can give that blonde bitch the note that you did
inadvertently and their job is done. And they love you
and they want to bring you back in. They want
to see what you're going to do. So that's what
I want. I just want you to stop going out
there giving them a nice seam performance of a seventy two. Yeah,
you have got to stop giving them a B plus.
(56:06):
You have got to stop with the A minuses only
one hundred percent. It's possible, and I think we don't
think it's possible. I didn't. I thought when I was
an actor that well, it's all about my muse and
if God is with me today and if God wants
me to get this roll, and if I'm right, well,
but it's not about this part. It's about being being
(56:28):
a consummate actor every day. And then I guess talent
will out, talent talent, I'm sorry, talent, cleft, squote, I
can't talk talent, craft and skill will out. But if
we're just running around hoping for the best at a
C minus or something, yeah, And the thing is that
it's hard for us to hear that word a C minus.
(56:50):
You know, I'll say, I'll be in class with somebody
and after class, they'll come up afterwards and they'll go,
you didn't give me any notes. Okay, Well, first I'll
go back to my paper and I'll go, I gave
you fifteen notes. You want me to give them to
you again? And they go, yeah, but you're not really,
I'm telling you exactly what your notes are. I still
remember all my notes I got from you.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
It was that because it was because you told me
what I needed to hear, and so it was perfect.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
It was most people we don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Yeah, we just want you just have to get out
of your own way, though, so you can, well you
can you please tell.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Me how to get us out of our own Yeah.
I really, I'm doing everything in my power, but I
just know too many people who are hanging on to
I'm great. I'm great the way I am. I only
want positive feedback. And you know they won't say that
to me. They'll go, no, I want to hear all
the constructive criticisms, criticism. But then they'll come up after
(57:47):
class and go, you know, I don't feel good because
you didn't compliment me what And I'm like, Acting class
is not about your feeling good. Acting class is about
this is what I've been saying. Did I say this yesterday?
I might have I'm obsessed with the Simone Biles concept. Yes,
I do not think that Simone Biles was practicing her
six hours a day every day and her coach was saying, Oh, Simone,
(58:11):
you're just wonderful. Everything you do is perfect. I think
her coach was saying, you never, you've got to get
that left foot pointed. It's not pointed, and what are
you doing with that right finger? And you've got a
then more on the left side right to do that turn.
I think that coach was bitching at her about everything.
I think that coach had fifteen fucking notes or twenty
or thirty or forty and I and you know what
(58:34):
I think. I think Samoo with Simone was would say
thank you, yes, and I because the coach she wants
to win titally, she doesn't point that foot, and that
other bitch does point their foot. She loses, she loses
and does not win gold.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
But this is what I also mean about how you
can naturally problem solved. Because I couldn't see the note
that you gave me. I was doing all that fullheit
acting and you were like stop with the forehead, and
I was like, oh, I had no idea, Like I
had no idea. I was so subconscious to me, So
what a gift?
Speaker 2 (59:06):
So you, guys, I need you to be like Lola,
and I need you to see notes as gifts. I
think we understandably because at least our school system in America.
I don't know what it's like where you're from, but
you know, I think that we feel like we're constantly
being castigated in this country. And I need you to
understand that that's not what we're trying to do. We're
trying to help. When I say, Lola, do you need
(59:28):
to use your forehead like that? And Lola goes, thank you.
I didn't even know that was happening, right, that's great.
I want you every time you hear a note, you guys,
to say thank you. That's great, even if you don't
feel that way, because eventually you'll realize that that's all
anybody is trying to do is get you the gold
medal that you want so much.
Speaker 3 (59:48):
So good, nobody's trying to make you feel like shit.
Speaker 2 (59:51):
No.
Speaker 1 (59:51):
I could talk to you all all flipping day long.
My friend is there. My final question is like, is
there a moment where you've worked really hard with an
actor they've gone ahead being able to implement brilliant text analysis.
They've booked it, and then you get to see that
on the big screen or on TV and you're just like,
I'm sure it happens to you all the time, but
are they're those kind of peep do you get those
(01:00:12):
little goose bumpy moments.
Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
That's that's what I live for.
Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
That's it's so it's cool, so cool to feel like
I've been a part of it and that I helped.
And it's really I really feel that way because I
had the greatest acting teacher in high school and oh yeah,
I love her, and you know, I it's very cool
for me to get to see that happen. It's kind
(01:00:39):
of everything because, as I say, I'm not going to
win that award, I'm not going to be on that
TV show and listen. I don't want to. I don't
I don't want to expose myself to that. I'm very sensitive.
But seeing you get there, I mean, I don't know
how to describe the feeling. It's right here and it's
a little breathless and it's the best.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Ah, well, keep please keep doing I know you will
keep doing this forever. But you are actually wonderful. I
cannot wait to learn with you more myself, and thank
you for today.
Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
You're just the best.
Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
Oh, thank you so much for coming. This has been
so fun, so fun, fe Calyisi. Was it fun for you?
Of course, Calisi, you had the best time, Tensu Calisi did.
Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
That's a wrap on another episode of Fearlessly Failing. As always,
thank you to our guests, and let's continue the conversation
on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
I'm at Yumo Lollerberry.
Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
This potty my word for podcast is available on all
streaming platforms. I'd love it if you could subscribe, rape
and comment and of course spread the love.
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