Stella Adler
Stella Adler
Stella Adler was an American actress and acclaimed acting teacher. She founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and Los Angeles with longtime protégée, actress Joanne Linville, who continues to teach Adler's technique. Her grandson Tom Oppenheim now runs the school in New York City, which has produced alumni such as Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Elaine Stritch, Kate Mulgrew, Kipp Hamilton, and Jenny Lumet...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionStage Actress
Date of Birth10 February 1901
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings.
The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.
You have to do something. If you do something, you become somebody. Even a daffodil does something, has a profession. It gives off scent, professionally.
You have to get beyond your own precious inner experiences. The actor cannot afford to look only to his own life for all his material nor pull strictly from his own experience to find his acting choices and feelings. The ideas of the great playwrights are almost always larger than the experiences of even the best actors.
The most important thing you can teach actors is to understand plays.
It's not important to know who you are. It's important to know what you do, and then to do it like hercules!
The best author is a dead author, because he's out of your way and you own the play. Take what he has given you and use it for what you need.
You cannot afford to confine your studies to the classroom. The universe and all of history is your classroom.
I would live in a communist country providing I was the Queen.
Today the influences of your society pressure you to be successful before your time. They are pulling you down. They have pulled you down, you big, sweet, magnificent, young, potential artists. They have pulled you down so far that you are on the verge of destruction. Only you don't know it because you want to be a success
When an acting teacher tells a student 'that wasn't honest work' or 'that didn't seem real,' what does this mean? In life, we are rarely 'truthful' or 'honest' or 'real'. And characters in plays are almost never 'truthful' or 'honest' or 'real'. What exactly do teachers even mean by these words? A more useful question is: What is the story the actor was telling in their work? An actor is always telling a story. We all are telling stories, all the time. Story: that is what it is all about.
Your job as actors is to understand the size of what you say, to understand what's beneath the word.