Overview

Back to the Body: Infusing Physical Life into Characters in Theatre and Film guides you to experience and use your body and its energy as a basic point of departure for performance and expression. You will learn to apply your entire self in acting, with your voice, body, mind, and emotion. This integrated training is designed to combine all these elements of yourself with your material, the environment, and other actors through explorations and hands-on work, which you may do on your own and with others. You will discover how to best fill the space, serve the story, and create a unique, honest, and riveting character. When you implement the practices in Back to the Body, your work will gain an enhanced level of performance and depth. This book explores how actors can use their bodies, in concert with their voices and their emotions, in a range of roles and characters in both theatre and film. This way of working is not an abstraction, because our bodies always exist in relation to both our emotions and our environment. Every story is told primarily through the use and expression of the actor's body. Close attention to physicality is essential to extraordinary performance, telling the story, and dealing with a character's conflicts in the most human way. The more the actor's body relates to the story, the more the audience is able to connect to the play or the film, because overcoming conflicts is a universal and inevitable human necessity.

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Reviews

"""Now THIS is an amazingly comprehensive roadmap to creating a character. Scott Weintraub is a great actor, teacher, and author. Read this book and become a better actor!!!"" Jack Black Actor and Musician ""The most subtle movements can characterize human behavior in a way even words can't convey. Jean-Louis Rodrigue was instrumental in helping me bring to life three distinctly different 'Waymonds' in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Back to the Body will serve as an excellent resource for all actors."" Ke Huy Quan Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actor ""Not only do I have a better understanding of the character, but I also have a better understanding of myself as a whole person, and I can begin to live and breathe the character. Back to the Body will prove to be an indispensable resource for all readers."" Margot Robbie Academy Award-Nominated Actress Back to the Body contains excellent advice on character research and invaluable suggestions for going deep and specific through physicality. I've never seen the process laid out so clearly, so helpfully, and so entertainingly as Scott and Jean-Louis have done in this indispensable book. Potent secrets finally revealed!"" Jay Roach Writer, Producer, and Director "" Back to the Body captures the energy, precision, and imagination of the actor's training, bringing to life explorations of the actor's use of body, space, environment, costumes, props, and, most importantly, imagination. Every actor, artist, and person with an interest in creativity should own a copy of this exciting new book."" Jessica Wolf Professor in the Practice of Acting David Geffen School of Drama at Yale"

Author Information

Jean-Louis Rodrigue is an internationally recognized acting coach, movement director, and specialist in the application of the AlexanderTechnique to film, theatre, and television. In film, he coached actors and collaborated with directors in Passion Fish, Vice, J. Edgar, Life of Pi, W., I, Tonya, and many more. In theatre, he collaborated with director Larry Moss and playwright Pamela Gien in her Obie- and DramaDesk-award-winning one-person play, The Syringa Tree, both in New York and internationally. Jean-Louis has worked on- and off-Broadway, and at major performing arts institutions such as BerlinInternational Film Festival, Cirque du Soleil, Los AngelesPhilharmonic Institute, Getty Villa, Geffen Playhouse, Royal NationalTheatre, Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Verbier Festival, and RoyalShakespeare Company. For the past 34 years, Jean-Louis has taught at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, and the UCLAHerb Alpert School of Music. Scott Weintraub is an actor, director, and educator. Growing up first in New York and then in Santa Barbara, California, Scott knew at an early age that theatre was his passion. He studied with Bradford Dillman, then at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, with Michael Winters, Donovan Marley, and William Frankfather. Returning to New York, Scott played Berger in the National tour of Hair. He then became artist-in-residence at Theatre by the Sea in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Scott's TV credits include Deadwood and Curb Your Enthusiasm. For the past 37 years, Scott has taught and directed theatre at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences inSanta Monica.

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