Acting Class 2

The picture to the left is from the movie What's Eating Gilbert Grape, in which a young man, Gilbert, is left to care for his brother Arnie and his mother, a task which somewhat holds him back from moving on with his life (for a more accurate description go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What's_Eating_Gilbert_Grape).


Why is this relevant?  Gilbert's brother in the movie, Arnie, suffered from a mental disorder.  As you can imagine, this was a difficult thing to portray for young actor, Leonardo DiCaprio.  This is the basis of what we learned in acting class today. 

Last week, my teacher told us to look up one of these choices and study people with it: deaf, Cerebral Palsy, bad stutter, Parkinson's disease, drunk, or Tourettes Syndrome.  All of those afflictions on that list are very very very difficult things to portray as an actor.  You really have to study the physical/mental/vocal aspects of each disorder to get it right, which required A LOT of research on our parts. 

We all came in today with our research in  mind and acted out scenes as if we had the disorder.  It was REALLY hard.  I picked a bad stutter, and, even with all the research I did, it was hard to stay in character while trying to bring out this disorder.  You also have to keep in mind while doing this is that you're portraying a person who actually has a disorder, and you should do it with respect, not cruel intentions (haha that movie was pretty good).  But, I totally encourage you all to try it.  It's a way of acting that I would have never thought of, and I feel like it really broadened my ability.  

That's all we did in class today, it was pretty hard work.  If you try the activity, let me know how it went for you and what you think of it. 

Had to throw that in =>

Thanks for reading again guys and tune in next time for another exciting (well, at least semi-entertaining) blog!