Christopher Plummer on method vs. classical acting (Part 14 of 44)
Channel: Canada's Theatre Museum
Date: 2009-09-16

Christopher Plummer on the hilarious relationship between Method Acting ( Stanislavski ) and Classical Acting as they came to coexist in the 1930-50s.

Interviewed by R.H. Thomson on October 6, 2007 in Toronto. Filming location courtesy of Four Seasons Hotel. Generously supported by The William and Nona Heaslip Foundation.
Close Captioned
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Method Acting vs Classical Acting
I may be speaking from my own experience
as a little bit of Presbyterian ness

that somehow entered

I think North American actor

I see joined panache in French acting
some British acting

maybe no German acting but in North
American and Canadian acting there's a

bit a presbytery ness

I would not do that I

yes well of courses that's what broke
through in the thirties (Method Acting)

when the group here in New York, Hit the scene

Jason Robards my old friend
used to call them that whole group

you know Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and

Al Pacino. He called it "Italian Street
acting"

he says Well lets do a little bit of "Italian street acting" now

It was a real divide and I
remember

in the early days on Broadway
when you went to rehearsal

in the early fifties people like Catherine Cornell

Who I was in two plays with

I mean, you went to rehearsal in a shirt and tie.

and a coat. It was the polite thing to
do

everybody was mister. The stage manager
called you mister plumber


no matter how larger or smaller part you
played


there was courtesy about the theatre in those
days


you'd go for go for a drink down at the bar


you mix with the Italian Street actors
as we called them

all the Method actor boys, who came to rehearsals in t-shirts &

torn jeans. It was a wonderful mix in
those days because it's just happened

it just started to happen we all hated each other. We'd say lets beat them

They'd say lets beat those Limey Poofs
Wearing their shirt and ties

And they are speaking properly 
Who want to speak properly?

They love language too. Hey what are you doing, Come talk to me. What are you doing now?

They have a love of the language.
Of course, their language.

in a different way but it
is still a love of the language

Oh yeah. I suddenly thought

How great it would be to do both

and if you could mix the two together

Use what the Method Acting boys are using

and the technique of the British what a
wonderful

mix that would be 
Did you? Have you?

Yes.
20 like that on the partner I collapse

you could do that and then transferred
into good speech

there was a if it was a classic ripped

deserve attention speech it's a
different kind a particular miss them

when you talk about the British
tradition coming through there's a power

in their articulate see a

image there in the street language which
is

also powerful colorful there is a Connor
articulate miss

their was not marked there's not much
image because they created with

physicality that Bay their physical

way back to it creates the image that
the words

in shakespeare for instance or I'm do it
for you don't have to

actor March better just say that because
their server

you can't do both on one on top of the
other

and that's what so many modern
productions church for today

a lot of the kids think that you have to
act our age thing if you just look for

you just let the speech do it for you
don't have to move a muscle

just bather remove the speech make it as
real as you can I'm

in contemporary terms obey the room

and it creates the whole world for you

Including mention of the "Italian Street actors:" De Niro, Brando, and Pacino.