During his long and distinguished career, Milton Katselas taught and directed many of the top acting talents, including: Blythe Danner in her Tony-winning performance in Butterflies Are Free, Eileen Heckart in her Academy Award-winning film performance of the same play, and Bette Davis in Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter, for which Davis won an Emmy. Some of his students have included: Anne Archer, Tom Selleck, Robert Urich, Alec Baldwin, Jeffrey Tambor, Jenna Elfman, Patrick Swayze, Ted Danson, James Cromwell, Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney, among many others.
Katselas himself was nominated for a Tony, and his three Los Angeles stage productions have all won L.A. Drama Critics Circle Awards for best direction. Katselas founded the Beverly Hills Playhouse, the site of his teaching since 1978. In 1996, he wrote the best-selling book Dreams into Action, published by Dove Books. He’s also active as a playwright, painter, sculptor, and architect.
I studied acting with Milton Katselas in the 1980s at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, so it was good to catch up with this gifted, charismatic teacher and director in an interview at his Hollywood home, which he also helped to design.
I wanted to be a basketball player. I was running my father’s poolroom—I loved playing pool. Then when I went to college at Carnegie-Mellon, I tried acting. Right away, by the end of freshman year, I knew I wanted to be a director. The acting was wonderful and I enjoyed it—I continued acting all the way through college—but directing took me into the spheres of costuming, architecture, design and visual concepts. In my second year, I took the directing course and I was hooked.
That same year I went to New York for the first time on a visit and I met Elia Kazan. I was walking in the street with a friend who pointed him out to me. I ran after him, caught him, and spoke to him in Greek. He told me that when I finished college, I should come to see him. I did, and he gave me a job as an assistant. So if you see someone you respect walking in the street, chase ‘em down and talk to them. Don’t be afraid. Kazan and I are friends to this day.
On that visit to New York, I sat in on Lee Strasberg’s classes at the Actor’s Studio - I just sort of wheedled my way in. Then when I went back to Carnegie, we formed a group. We would meet, I would teach and eventually we did plays. I’ve taught all through the movies and plays I’ve done. I teach because I enjoy teaching. It’s always been a part of my life.
I associated with an architect in doing my house, and now we have a small firm and we’ve done an extensive renovation or two.
Don’t say that so loud—the guys from the poolroom might hear.
Well, the main thing I try to do is have fun. But I guess one of the big themes, if you want to call it that, is rehabilitation. As a painter, besides doing work on canvas, I’ll take old doors and old wood and all kinds of things, and rehabilitate them, bring them to a new life. I do the same thing, hopefully, with actors. Often I take actors who have lost their zest or their push or their passion and try to rehabilitate them. And I will take young actors who haven’t gotten that passion yet and try to instill it in them.
Well, when I was nine years old, my father said to me in Greek, “Know thyself.” So that’s been a kind of search for me all my life: Discovering myself through work. But I think the other thing is passion. And risk. Joe Stern (founder and director of The Matrix Theatre Company) said to me once, “You’re not happy unless you’re on a high wire somewhere!” So: risk, the danger of it, taking a chance, passion, rehabilitation, self-discovery. Those are the kinds of things that I’m always looking for in my work and in others.
Absolutely. Just take self-discovery. I try to teach, that attitude monitors talent, so your attitude about yourself as an actor and the way you feel about yourself in relation to the business is very important. It monitors whatever talent you have. That’s why sometimes you have actors who are less talented than others but have a greater attitude, so more of their talent comes to their work. Whereas another actor who has greater talent might have an attitude that isn’t so great and therefore he minimizes his own talent. He shipwrecks himself, puts himself on the rocks. It’s very important that actors believe in themselves. Confidence releases the juices, releases the life and releases the passion.
I tell actors, “I’m not out to destroy you. I may be out to destroy some part of the bullshit that you have, or some part of your negativity, but I want to build confidence in you. That negativity isn’t going to bring you work and money and creativity.”
Charm, personality, good looks? I’d marry them. Look, I don’t believe there’s anyone without talent. And above and beyond that, it’s not my job as a teacher to judge. As a director, that’s something else. In that case I’m casting them, so I have to judge their talent, their personality and physical presence to fulfill a role. But in teaching, time and time again people surprise you with their abilities. I love it when the underdog wins.
Part of my job is to remove the prejudice they might have about themselves. There’s as much prejudice against beautiful people as there is against the so-called unattractive. People think that if actors are beautiful they can’t act. And the actor himself may think, “It’s all about tits and ass and not about my talent.” Or you have the person who thinks they’re not attractive and so can’t get the romantic leading parts. You have to teach them and show them that attractiveness has to do with attitude as much as anything else. We have some wonderful actors who are not conventionally beautiful, but who convey sex, attractiveness and romance with their attitude and talent. You have to get the person to really see themselves, deal with themselves, and stop making up all these phony stories about their limitations.
I mean, Humphrey Bogart was not a conventionally handsome guy, but because of his attitude and manliness and talent, the unique way he handled himself and his voice, he was gorgeous. And one has to be careful what to change with an actor, because it may be the clue to their power. So maybe Bogie comes into an acting class and the first thing the teacher might tell him is, “Work on your voice.” One has to be very careful when you start advising people.
In Stanislavsky, there was nothing mentioned about auditioning. But it’s something I’ve always dealt with, however, because I want actors to work. There’s no substitute for work. You can study and study, but you must work!
I think the audition process should be worked on with the actors in a class, not just in a cold reading class but as part of their acting journey, as part of their acting work. It’s very, very important. One guy in my class was not doing well at auditions at all. I got him up in the class one time and I said, “Dance. And as you dance, I want you to say some of these lines.” And he did. And he suddenly got free. So I said, “The next audition you go to, even though it’s not a dancing one, I want you to dance.” So he went and he did it and he got a callback.
Yes. It’s something different for everyone, but there’s a key for each actor that releases him and helps him with his auditions. Some like to rehearse a lot. Some like to improvise a little. Some like to be caught off guard—almost not prepared. You have to find what works for you. I’ve told actors that when you audition and you don’t feel good about it, go back that very moment. Don’t get in your car and go home sadly. Go back. Say you’d like another three-minute shot. But you had better make sure that the second time is definitely better, because otherwise it’s for the birds. You’ve got to come back with something fresh and new.
One other tip: They (the producers) want you to give them the confidence that you can do this part, so get off the notion of doing a “reading” for the part—you’re doing an “acting.” And use the script. When they hire you and pay you, then you can put it down. Let them feel, “If he’s this good with the script, then he’ll be great without it.” But remember, it’s not a “reading,” it’s an “acting.”
So the attitude is very important in the audition. And the feeling that you have something to offer. You’re unique, you see. There’s nobody like you. No one. In my book, I have a chapter about “unlikely winners.” There are no likely winners. I mean, to think that Ronald Reagan would go from being an actor to being president! Or Mugsy Bogues, the five-foot-three-inch professional basketball player— a likely winner?
In New York, my gang and I thought Robert Redford was low on the totem pole because he was so handsome, we didn’t believe he could act. He’s handsome as hell, butalso a fabulous actor and director. What schmucks my gang and I were! Is Linda Hunt someone you’d ever pick for a winner? She’s a small person, but when she acts, she’s a giant. When you examine it, people have to work on themselves. And there’s uniqueness. If you turn your back on that uniqueness you have lost the game.
Robert De Niro spoke in my class once, and somebody asked him, “What’s your career concept?” He said, “Self-expression.” That’s very personal to him. He’s done everything from gaining weight to shaving his head to express more of himself as an actor and as a person, and I think that’s part of his thing. Actors have to learn to understand that the work of the actor has to be personal. Why did this script come to you at this time? What’s the personal connection? An obvious example is, while in the middle of a divorce, I received a script for a four-part miniseries called The Rules of Marriage. Needless to say, I felt compelled to do it.
Classes not only get you ready for the moment acting-wise, but as Gurdjieff, an Eastern philosopher says, “The job of the teacher is to wake up the student. Make him aware he’s asleep, then wake him up.” Many people want to be actors, but they’re asleep—sitting in cafes and badmouthing the industry or their agent or themselves. So don’t just stay in slumberland, get into a class and do! It’s very hard without a teacher. You can do it, but it’s very hard.
That’s beautiful. What he says is hot. The world is going to be saved - if it’s saved, by artists. Not by scientists, not by politicians, not by doctors. Those people extend our life, they affect it, no doubt, and we owe them a debt. But what we’re interested in is the quality of our life. Theatre and movies bring us understanding; that is the bottom line. To love and understand one another no matter what differences there seem to be.
In Ancient Greece, farmers walked miles and miles to come to the theatre, to look and see and experience and have this catharsis, as they called it, which brought them understanding. So study life, it’s the key to being the best actor you can be. Actors don’t go out and study life enough. Don’t be caught up in money. Get into the real craft and understanding of the acting. Observe all the time. Life is right there looking at us, square in the face, ready to teach us what we’re trying to convey. When you sit in a car and a person walks by, you can see their whole life. You see their economic position. You see their sexuality. You see their political views. You see everything by observing their behavior, manner and clothing. Study all this. As artists we have to convey an understanding of behavior and life. Theatre and film are very powerful, but they need life to inform them.
Be an artist in your life. Make your life work. Make your life sing. Don’t be downtrodden. This is your time to learn. This is your time to celebrate. Have fun. Enjoy!
Milton Katselas passed away in 2008.