In order to be all you can be....
MILTON: Could you just lower your chin a little bit?
ACTOR: Huh?
MILTON; Your chin. It’s a little high. Your head is cocked back. You realize that?
ACTOR: No.
MILTON: You’re looking at me as if you want to punch me in the face. You want to punch me in the face?
ACTOR: No.
MILTON: You’re doing a good job of looking like you do.
The actor flashes a smile.
MILTON: Hey! A smile! Wow. That’s better, much better. Let me ask you: the hostility, the chin, the head cocked back, the eyes narrowed, looking as if you’re going to start a fight. What does it do for you? Other than keep people off your case. Or maybe that’s the point. You don’t like people on your case, right?
ACTOR: Not really. Never have.
MILTON: Yeah. Well, in acting, you need to let people get on your case. That’s part of vulnerability. Everyone remembers Brando and the danger he brought to a lot of his work, the violence. But they forget the charm of the guy, how funny he was. How moved he could be by others getting on his case! In On The Waterfront, how he had a tear in his eye when Eva Marie Saint touched him in the bar scene. You ever get moved by the world around you? Like, by a rock or something, some beautiful rock?
ACTOR: Now you’re making fun of me?
MILTON: See, this is part of it. The touchiness. Say the wrong thing, or even say the right thing, but in a slightly wrong way, and your kind of guy lights up. You can’t be like this, my friend. You’re a good-looking guy, you’re talented, but this attitude—it creates a false arrogance—I call it, now don’t kill me, please, the arrogance of a loser.
ACTOR: This is such bullshit.
MILTON: It’s bullshit?
ACTOR: I don’t get it. I don’t get the arrogant part. I don’t get the loser part. You think it’s arrogant to know what you can do, to know you’re probably better than most others? In my book, that’s confidence. Isn’t that what you’ve been talking to us about?
MILTON (taking a beat): Sorry, I’m still recovering from the “bullshit” comment. But you got that right, yes—I want actors to feel confident. Maybe even for them to have a certain arrogance, which at its root means to “claim the space for one’s own.” But I’m sorry, my bullshit friend, this is not what you’re about.
ACTOR: So tell me again, what is it that I’ve got?
MILTON: Sure. The arrogance of a loser.
ACTOR: Well that’s your opinion.
MILTON: Well I thought that’s what you’ve come here to this class to get. My opinion. Nobody asked you to come. You’re requesting my services. So maybe, if you were able to, you should listen to me. It’s simple. You ready? With you, the arrogance is that you take a sort of cocky attitude about your talent and pump it up and behave as if you’re the be-all and end-all of acting when you’re not. Not yet. And you know you’re not. You’re faking yourself out. I personally think you could be this great actor you think you are, if you could deal more honestly with where you are now, and build from there. You’re not as good as you should be. You think this moody, broody, unaffected acting is the way in to the party, and it just isn’t. Maybe you heard me, or maybe you didn’t, when I spoke about Brando and his vulnerability. To be vulnerable, you have to let the chip down, get around the hostility. The loser part is that you’re not being smart enough at this very moment to know you need to change. You’re hostile, you’re difficult to talk to. You look as if you want to start a fight. Arrogance. Loser. Is that clear enough for you?
ACTOR: I’m not trying to fight anybody.
MILTON: Then stop fighting. Just listen. Acting is a lot about listening. And then you respond. As a person. That’s giving. Heard of it? G-I-V-E. When you look it up in a dictionary, it takes up an entire column. G-I-V-E is a lot of what makes L-I-F-E. You want to be an actor? Of course there are techniques to learn—I have a whole checklist of them. But you must give—your energy, your time, the ever-so-difficult commitment, your emotions, your heart. And when you give, it means you can then be open, and be affected by others.
Actor is getting emotional.
ACTOR: I don’t know how to...I don’t know what the hell you want.
MILTON: I want you to be vulnerable. I want you to let your guard down and open up.
ACTOR: Well what if I don’t want to fucking open up? I don’t trust you.
MILTON: Okay. I understand that.
ACTOR: I don’t know if I can make it. In acting. I just don’t know. (Fighting off the emotion.) Fuck this.
MILTON: You can make it. If you want to.
ACTOR: I want to. But maybe at the root of it I’m just not a good guy.
MILTON: You are a good guy. That’s why I’m still talking. You’re talented. With a lot of potential. Underneath all this bullshit is a very good guy. A romantic, even.
Actor is silent, fighting off the emotion, but tears are coming down his face.
MILTON: There you go. (To the class:) You see this? Beautiful. If he could do this in his acting, in his scenes—just a touch of this is all I’m after. Look how open the face is now. I’m trying to tell you all, not just him, all of you: doubts, fears and insecurity can lead to a pretended self-confidence, a kind of arrogance. The arrogance of a loser, pretending to be a winner. A kind of hostility, a chip on the shoulder. The chin cocked, ready for a fight. (To the actor:) Sound familiar?
ACTOR: Yeah.
MILTON: You okay, man?
ACTOR (Wiping tears from his face): My first day in class, someone cried in the critique, and I thought, “What total crap this is!”
Class cracks up laughing.
MILTON: You have to see this for yourself and you, only you, can then decide to end it. People who are truly confident and have self-esteem are usually pretty nice people, they can be talked to, they’re charming. Can you be charming?
Actor gets up and does a soft shoe shuffle. More laughter.
MILTON: See, that’s great. That’s great. That’s real change. A dance move like that can be a real shortcut around Charlie Freud. Remember, this is about acting. Vulnerability. Being emotional. That’s what they pay big money for. So just lighten up, do that little soft shoe shuffle step. At every opportunity. Please, I beg of you, my serious, potentially gorgeous, charming friend.