Dr Arnold Bloomberg: Acting is like a triangle without corners
Method acting is a technique used by many leading Hollywood actors. Everybody from De Niro to Hoffman uses it. One of the leading teachers of method acting working today is Arnold Bloomberg of the Bloomberg Academy of Drama in New York. Dr Andrew Cousins, went to learn more.
AC: What is your fundamental approach to acting?
AB: For me acting isn't just about pretending to be somebody else. It's about becoming a physical and mental actualisation of a character. Acting is in many ways like a triangle with no corners.
AC: Does method acting make for better acting?
AB: Let me put it like this. My job is to take an actor on a journey. That journey is from the place known as ‘bad acting' to the place known as ‘good acting'. The place known as ‘bad acting' is where people like Lou Diamond Phillips hang out and it's a very scary place.
"You see he didn't start out as a robot. He was a policeman who was gunned down so naturally they transplant his head onto a robot body to keep him alive and turn him into Cybocop. But the thing they forgot was his balls, isn't it? He thought with his balls. They controlled his instincts. "Do I shoot the criminals? What are my balls telling me?" That was how he operated. Without them he's just a big toaster with a gun, isn't he?"
"The Love Bug features a car that comes to life. Is it powered by the love of Jesus Christ? We aren't offered any evidence that this is the case so we must, unfortunately, assume that it is in fact animated purely by the power of the Lord of Darkness. I still feel an urge to pray whenever I see a Volkswagen Beetle."
It has often been said that men age and women mature. However women, like wine, tend to mature in one of two ways. They either ripen into something full-flavoured, with lots of body and a myriad of intriguing flavours or they turn onto an unpleasant, acidic vinegar.