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Marlon Brando was the most consequential actor of the 20th century and, when he could resist his desire to dominate a production to its detriment, arguably the best. When he brought his method-acting brilliance to the big screen, he changed the way people taught and thought about acting. Obviously, not all directors and teachers bought into the Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler-championed process, but just about every aspiring performer in the 1950s and 1960s wanted to connect with theatergoers and moviegoers as ecstatically as Brando. Thanks to a string of legendary films that included "A Streetcar Named Desire," "The Wild One," and "On the Waterfront," he was a silver screen rock star.

And yet Brando was so frustratingly mercurial and unpredictable in his choice of film projects that, as the 1960s wore on, he was more exhausting than he was exciting. This changed in 1972 when he turned in two...

“Slauson Rec,” a documentary starring Shia Labeouf and his mental trauma, is not a good movie. But it’s a timely artifact of one of the things movies are now up against — a pathological and vampiristic celebrity culture that sucks all the air out of the room. In 2018, Labeouf posted a video on Twitter announcing the formation of a free weekly theater workshop that would meet every Saturday at the Slauson Recreation Center in South Central Los Angeles. Hundreds of people showed up for it, lured by the magnet of Labeouf’s name. One of them was Leo Lewis O’Neil, a young man who wasn’t interested in being an actor but who volunteered to record the workshop on camera. Over the next three years, he shot hundreds of hours of footage of Labeouf and his followers doing their experimental theater thing, writing and rehearsing several “plays” they presented in a nightclub and,...

There’s no single path to becoming a great actor. Whether one trains through Meisner, Stanislavski, Stella Adler, or Uta Hagen, every performer eventually discovers what works for them. Still, some principles seem to resonate across disciplines.

Over the years, IndieWire has spoken with rising stars and established talents about the mindset required not only to break into acting, but to sustain a meaningful career. Here, David Alvarez (“West Side Story”), Wunmi Mosaku (“Sinners”), Ts Madison (“Bros”), and others share what they’ve learned about committing to the craft and finding purpose in performance.

David Alvarez: Passion Is Essential, Obsession Is Not ‘West Side Story,’ David Alvarez©20th Century Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection

One of the youngest performers to win the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, Alvarez had a pretty good launching pad for a career in acting, yet instead committed himself to multiple paths. He trained in classical piano,...

Jack Wagner joined General Hospital as Frisco Jones. When he left, he thought his soap opera past was behind him. He had no interest in joining Melrose Place. At first, he nearly skipped the audition.

Soap Opera Strike

Wagner reflected on his acting career during his interview on the Still The Place podcast. He spoke to hosts Courtney Thorne-Smith, Daphne Zuniga, and Laura Leighton about his audition for Melrose Place. Wagner almost didn’t star on the sexy primetime drama. He didn’t want to do another soap like Gh.

It wasn’t the genre that he was against. Wagner feared that he would get typecast. When his agent suggested the role as Dr. Peter Burns, he tossed the thought aside. Wagner was asked to audition for the show. His initial reaction was, “No chance. I’m not doing it. It feels like a soap.”

Then, there was one thing that changed his mind.

A new woman has entered the fold at Forrester Creations on The Bold and the Beautiful, and she’s destined to shake things up for Carter, Hope, and company. Murielle Hilaire is portraying Daphne Rose, a prominent perfumier who’s made a bid for her line at the famous fashion house. It looks like the first step in Carter’s dream to expand the company into a global luxury line.

What You Should Know

A Franco-American actress and model, Hilaire is a newcomer to the daytime world. She began studying with Jack Waltzer, an American acting coach who trained with Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and Sanford Meisner, at the age of 19. She has an extensive background in television and film. Hilaire was a regular on the French TV series Baie des Flamboyants and Coeur Ocean. She also appeared in the Agatha Christie miniseries Ils Étaient Dix and BBC’s hit series,...

Beginning in the late 1960s and spreading into the 1970s, American cinema was revolutionized by the New Hollywood movement. At the forefront of this movement was a crew of directors from different entertainment disciplines who spoke to the exploding youth counterculture with classics like "Bonnie and Clyde," "The Graduate," and "M*A*S*H." The world felt like it was going mad, but the movies were somehow helping us make sense of this descent. Before moviegoers could adjust to this newfangled mode of motion picture art, the film brats arrived. Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg rattled the industry's cage in wildly different ways. It was a glorious time. Then studios, with the perhaps unwitting assistance of Lucas and Spielberg, locked in on a formula: They could make hundreds of millions of dollars off a single movie if they hit the right commercial buttons.

Best known for playing the slasher Russ Thorn in 1982 classic The Slumber Party Massacre, actor Michael Villella has passed away at the age of 84, we’re sad to report this week.

A message posted to the actor’s official Facebook page reads, “It is with a Heavy that Michael Pasquale Villella has left this world, may he rest in peace. May God welcome Michael with open arms and bring him into heaven.” TMZ adds, “he passed away on Saturday afternoon due to multiple organ failure after spending over a month in the hospital.”

In addition to memorably playing the power drill-wielding killer in director Amy Holden Jones’ The Slumber Party Massacre, Michael Villella’s credits also include the movies Love Letters (1983), Gotham (1988), Wild Orchid (1989), and Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue (1991), and the television shows “Amazing Stories” (1987) and “Getting Away With Murder” (2007).

More recently, he appeared in short films...

In a tell-all memoir, Star Trek: Voyager‘s Captain Janeway actress Kate Mulgrew described some really tumultuous times of her life. The memoir revealed her unplanned pregnancy and giving up her child for adoption, alongside mentioning being r*ped at knifepoint. However, Mulgrew described one incident as more harrowing than the gruesome crime she endured.

Kate Mulgrew in a still from Orange is the New Black | Credits: Netflix

Mulgrew went into detail about her Irish Catholic family in her memoir Born with Teeth. The Ryan’s Hope actress revealed how tragedy kept striking her family. After her difficult family life, Mulgrew moved to New York and joined the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting.

Star Trek: Voyager‘s Kate Mulgrew Felt One Tragic Incident Was More Traumatizing Than Her R*pe Kate Mulgrew in a still from Star Trek: Voyager | Credits: Paramount Network

Kate Mulgrew worked her way towards her dream as...

Michael Villella has died. Best known for playing Russ Thorn, the drill-wielding maniac in The Slumber Party Massacre, Villella died Saturday, November 23, of organ failure, per TMZ. His daughter Chloe confirmed his death on Facebook. Villella was 84.'

Starring as Russ Thorn in 1982's Slumber Party Massacre, Villella became an...

The best Mark Margolis movies and TV shows include a strong mix of truly classic films and groundbreaking television shows that legitimize his place in Hollywood history. Margolis was trained by the best, learning under Stella Adler at the Actors Studio and then trained by Lee Strasberg, the teacher who mastered method acting. This led to Margolis getting his start in stage plays before finally moving on to movies in 1976. He then caught the eye of Brian De Palma, and the rest is history.

Margolis enjoyed an early breakout role in the De Palma classic masterpiece Scarface. That earned him enough attention to pick up supporting roles in several movies. His career took an interesting direction in 1998 when Darren Aronofsky cast him in his debut film, Pi. That led to Aronofsky casting Margolis in almost every movie he made after that until Noah in 2014. Margolis remains most known to younger...

Born in Philadelphia, James Darren created magic on the screen with his acting prowess and well-acclaimed projects. But out of the lot, the most famous would be his portrayal of eccentric lounge singer Vic Fontaine in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. While the actor entered the show in its last two seasons, he created a name for himself that people would remember for generations to come.

James Dareen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine || Credits: Syndication

The iconic actor recently passed away, and upon this, several of his past interviews are resurfacing, showcasing that more than an actor, he was a kind and emotional human being. He showcased the same compassionate gesture to his Deep Space Nine co-star Nana Visitor that left her in tears.

Nana’s Visitor Was Moved to Tears by James Darren’s Touching Act

The universe of Star Trek is renowned for introducing a host of...

Actor and singer James Darren, who rose to fame as a teen idol in the 1959 comedy film Gidget and went on to have roles in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and T.J. Hooker, has died. He was 88. According to Variety, Darren passed away on Monday, September 1, at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California. His son, Jim Moret, told the outlet that his father had been able to express his love for his family while being treated in the cardiac unit. “He was a good man. He was very talented,” Moret said. “He was forever young.” Born on June 8, 1936, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Darren studied acting with Stella Adler in New York and was signed to Columbia Pictures after being discovered by talent agent and casting director Joyce Selznick. He made his on-screen debut in the 1956 film Rumble on the Docks. He went on to appear in the films Operation Madball (1957) and...

James Darren, the former teen idol and pop singer who played the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies before starring on television on The Time Tunnel and T.J. Hooker, died Monday. He was 88.

Darren died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Jim Moret, a correspondent for Inside Edition, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had entered the hospital for an aortic valve replacement but was deemed too weak to have the surgery; he went home but had to return.

“I always thought he would pull through,” Moret said, “because he was so cool. He was always cool.”

Early in his career, the dark-haired Darren received excellent notices for starring in Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) — portraying the son of a hoodlum defended by Humphrey Bogart’s character in 1949’s Knock on Any Door — and for playing the Greek soldier Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarone...

James Darren, who went from teen idol status acting in youth-oriented movies like “Gidget” to becoming an actor in TV shows such as “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “T.J. Hooker” and a singer and director, died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 88.

His son Jim Moret said that he had been able to express his love for his family while being treated in the cardiac unit. “He was a good man. He was very talented,” Moret said. “He was forever young.”

Moret said he was grateful that his father had been able to embrace his signature role as the surfer Moondoggie in the “Gidget” movie and that he continued to interact with his fans.

Born in Philadelphia, he studied acting with Stella Adler in New York and was signed to Columbia Pictures, where his first role was in “Rumble on the Docks.” He went on to...

Joan Benedict Steiger, who was part of the original stock company for Candid Camera and later became the wife of actor Rod Steiger, died June 24 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a stroke. She was 96.

Her death was announced by a family spokesperson.

As Joan Benedict, she got her start on TV during the medium’s early days, appearing in the 1950s on Candid Camera and The Steve Allen Show. She would go on to score dozens of TV credits with guest appearances in the 1970s on such series as The Smith Family, Apple’s Way, The Incredible Hulk and Fantasy Island, among others.

Later TV and film credits include The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, Hotel, The Trials of Rosie O’Neill and Dollhouse. She recurred on soap General Hospital as the character Edith Fairchild, and also appeared in Days of Our Lives and Capitol.

Born July 21, 1927, in Brooklyn,...

Joan Benedict, who starred on the original Steve Allen Show and Candid Camera and portrayed the tyrannical hotel queen Leona Helmsley in a one-woman stage show, has died. She was 96.

Benedict died June 24 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a stroke, a family spokesperson announced.

Benedict was married to actor John Myhers, who played personnel man Bert Bratt in the 1967 film adaptation of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, from 1962 until his 1992 death and to Oscar-winning actor Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront, In the Heat of the Night) from 2000 until his death in 2002.

She then had a relationship with actor Jeremy Slate (Hell’s Angels ’69, One Life to Live) until he died in 2006 from esophageal cancer at 80.

“Both of my husbands, and my lifetime partner, Jeremy, were wonderful men who respected me as an actress,” she said in 2016. “They all died from different forms of cancer,...

Friends. South Park. Frasier. Family Guy. Some of TV’s longest-running sitcoms premiered in the 1990s, and remain relevant and beloved if not still producing new episodes today. But a decade is a long time, executives try a lot of ideas to fill their schedules, and since broadcast TV programming is kind of a zero-sum game, far more sitcoms premiered than ever found an audience. The question is: which ones deserved better?

A word on methodology here: I took the term “forgotten” very literally. That means I didn’t consider any ‘90s sitcom that’s streaming on a legitimate pay or subscription platform; any ‘90s sitcom that lasted more than one season; and any of which only the pilot is available to watch — illegitimately, since pilots have to jam in so much exposition that judging a show’s quality by that episode alone doesn’t offer an accurate picture of where it aspires to go.

Tribeca Film Festival’s ode to its 2x Oscar winning co-founder Robert De Niro –De Niro Con– continued Friday night with a screening of Silver Linings Playbook with that pic’s filmmaker David O. Russell and Ben Stiller sharing their candid experiences working with the Stella Adler trained actor. Or as Stiller, who worked with De Niro in the Meet the Parents franchise coined ‘De Niro-isms.’

When it came to harnessing the hot boiled emotion in a pinnacle dramatic scene where Jennifer Lawrence’s Tiffany Maxwell has it out with De Niro’s Pat Sr (the angry father of Bradley Cooper’s Pat) after he accuses her of casting bad luck upon his prized football team, the Philadelphia Eagles, Russell says that the Goodfellas actor arrived onset already a raging bull.

“I’ll never forget the day of the big explosion when it was Jennifer vs. Bob with Bradley in the middle.

Jay Kane, the owner and CEO of talent agency TalentWorks NY died April 24 in Island Park, New York, following a brief illness. He was 65.

His death was announced by family and friends today after plans for a memorial service were finalized.

Born Bradley Jay Kane on June 6, 1958, in Dayton, Ohio, Kane graduated from New York University, where he had majored in theater arts and studied acting with Stella Adler. Upon graduation, he turned his focus to behind-the-scenes efforts in the theater, working as a stage manager, director and writing.

His work as a receptionist and assistant at the Tantleff Office in the late 1980s led to his career as a talent agent. Working with Tantleff, he developed a longstanding relationship with agent Alan Willig. From there, he joined Hwa Talent Agency, which merged with the Los Angeles firm TalentWorks.

He worked at TalentWorks for more than two decades, heading up...

by Chad Kennerk

K.J. Relth-Miller, Director of Film Programs.

All images courtesy the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

The Academy’s annual ceremony is just one aspect of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ overall examination and recognition of film. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is the largest museum in the United States devoted to the art, science, and artists behind the magic of the movies. Through exhibitions, curated film series and extensive programming, the Academy Museum celebrates and captures the stories behind the art of moviemaking. The museum’s David Geffen and Ted Mann theatres present a year-round robust calendar of screenings, film series, member programs, panel discussions, and more. Through retrospectives and thematic film series, the artistic and cultural contributions of those in front of and behind the camera are illuminated and explored.

One of the great actors of the 20th century, Marlon Brando studied...

To celebrate "The Godfather" turning 50 in 2022, The Hollywood Reporter sat down with actors James Caan, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, and John Martino, who reflected on the creation and enduring legacy of director Francis Ford Coppola's cinematic masterpiece. Shire expressed her admiration for Marlon Brando's "breathtaking" transformation into the formidable Don Corleone.

"When he came to the set the first time, he was this handsome male," she recalled, but he utilized various makeup and acting techniques to transform himself into a weathered and wise mafioso, making him almost unrecognizable. The use of dental prosthetics gave Brando protruding jowls that made him resemble a bulldog, somehow lending Don Corleone a more dignified power.

Shire said that Brando also employed another unique performance method called "active listening" during filming. "It's not always when you say your lines that you pay attention; it is the listening to all the others around you.

On what would be his 100th birthday, Marlon Brando remains synonymous not with acting, but great acting — even if this ranked list of all his performances represents what may be the most wildly uneven filmography for any talent of his caliber. But that’s the power of Brando: A handful of his performances are so great and influential they shook up the art of acting forever. Even among his lesser performances, there’s compelling work deserving of rediscovery.

In order to best exemplify what made him such a singular onscreen presence, we ranked all 39 of his films (and one TV appearance), reflecting a spectrum as wide as the man’s broad shoulders. Based on the quality of Brando’s performances rather than the overall films themselves, there are some placements that may surprise you; for example, as great as Brando is in “The Godfather,” it’s still just the fourth-best...

Entering the first scene with a fake gun in hand, protagonist Luca (Yiannis Niarros) tells the audience, "This is just an acting exercise." This explanation seems to apply to the entirety of Antonis Tsonis's feature debut, which consists of uneven scenes with a burdensome amount of exaggerated acting. What starts as an ambitious exploration of obsession and guilt gradually becomes a spectacle that feels too extravagant for its own good.

Luca is an ambitious method actor from Athens. He lives with Alekos (Kostas Nikouli), his brother, who is irritated by his obsessive approach to theatre. Wanting to follow in the footsteps of his heroes, Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, the protagonist often ignores his immediate surroundings to practice accents and character ideas. In the background, tapes of acting teacher Stella Adler egg him on with orders and parables. He comprehends and embraces the sacrifices method actors must make, even willing to.

Maestro on Netflix tells the true story of Leonard Bernstein and explores his relationships, including his affair with David Oppenheim. David Oppenheim was an American clarinetist and classical music and television producer who was a close friend and sometimes lover of Bernstein. Oppenheim had multiple marriages, had children with different wives, worked in the music industry, and became the director of Columbia Records' Masterworks division. He later became the second dean of the New York University Tisch School of the Arts before his death in 2007.

Maestro tells the true story of American composer Leonard Bernstein and primarily focuses on his relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre. But the movie also explores some of the conductor's other bonds, like the one with David Oppenheim. Although his time in the 2023 Netflix biographical drama film is short, Matt Bomer stars as Oppenheim, and his character, like many others in the movie, is based on a real person.

This story about Young Mazino first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Drama and Limited Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. All actor interviews in that issue were conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike began.

Young Mazino — who portrays the crypto-hip, empathetic Paul on Netflix/A24’s “Beef” — celebrated his first Emmy nomination like any normal person would. He quietly rejoiced, then went to see “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning: Part One.”

But the day was obviously a good one even before he got to spend time in a dark theater watching Tom Cruise, particularly since “Beef” became the first fully Aapi-created limited or anthology series to be nominated for the top prize in that category. Nearly all of its principal cast was given a nod, including Steven Yeun (who plays Mazino’s caretaking older brother), Ali Wong and Joseph Lee, all of whom Mazino has several notable scenes with.

Longtime character actor Mark Margolis died on Thursday at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital following a short illness, according to multiple reports. He was 83.

Perhaps best known for his role as paralyzed mob enforcer Hector “Tio” Salamanca on “Breaking Bad” — and later, “Better Call Saul” — Margolis got his start studying under Stella Adler at the Actors Studio. He began acting in the mid-1970s, before his breakthrough role as Alberto the Shadow in 1983’s iconic crime epic “Scarface”.

Other memorable performances included his roles as intimidating landlord Mr. Shickadance in “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and HIV-infected mob boss Antonio Nappa on “Oz”. Margolis was a particular favourite of director Darren Aronofsky, appearing in six of his films: “Pi”, “Requiem for a Dream”, “The Fountain”, “The Wrestler”, “Black Swan” and “Noah”.

His final acting performance was a “Breaking Bad” reunion of sorts, as he appeared in two episodes of...

One of cinema's most illustrious character actors has left us. Mark Margolis, best known for his performance as Hector Salamanca in both "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul," sadly passed away in New York City earlier today at the age of 83. According to The Hollywood Reporter, his death came after a "short illness" and was officially announced by the performer's son, Morgan Margolis.

Margolis may be most recognizable to younger audiences for his acclaimed television role as the head of the Salamanca crime family, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2012, but his tireless work in the industry stretches back to the 1970s. Appearing in films such as 1979's "Going in Style" and Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill" in 1980, Margolis would go on to find great success with supporting roles in "Scarface" as bodyguard and hitman Alberto the Shadow, "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" in 1994 alongside Jim Carrey,...

Mark Margolis, the longtime character actor whose career pinnacled with unforgettable arcs on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, has died at the age of 83.

Margolis’ son announced the actor’s death Friday, noting that Margolis died at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital on August 3 following a short illness.

“He was one of a kind. We won’t see his likes again. He was a treasured client and a lifelong friend. I was lucky to know him,” his manager Robert Kolker said in a statement.

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Mark Margolis, a veteran actor with hundreds of credits dating back to the 1970s but perhaps best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayal of cartel don Hector “Tio” Salamanca on TV’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, died Thursday at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City following a short illness. He was 83.

His death was announced by son Morgan Margolis, the CEO of Knitting Factory Entertainment. Morgan Margolis said he and Mark’s wife Jacqueline were at his bedside at the time of death.

“He was one of a kind,” said manager Robert Kolker of Red Letter Entertainment. “We won’t see his likes again. He was a treasured client and a lifelong friend. I was lucky to know him.”

Born on November 26, 1939 in Philadelphia, Margolis briefly attended Temple University before moving to New York City to study acting, first under Stella Adler at the Actors Studio and subsequently...

Mark Margolis, best known for playing drug runner Hector Salamanca on Breaking Bad, and its prequel Better Call Saul, has died at the age of 83. He passed away on August 3 after a short illness at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, with his wife Jacqueline and son Morgan at his bedside. Robert Kolker of Red Letter Entertainment, his manager since 2007, said in a statement, “He was one of a kind. We won’t see his likes again. He was a treasured client and a lifelong friend. I was lucky to know him.” Mark Margolis was born in 1939 and studied drama with Stella Adler at the Actors Studio. His first role was an uncredited one in a non-performing minor role in the pornographic feature in 1976, The Opening of Misty Beethoven, followed by the TV movie The Other Side of Victory the same year. His first prominent film role was in...

We’re sad to report that beloved actor Mark Margolis died at 83 on Thursday. He is known for his show-stopping roles in movies like Scarface and Darren Aronofsky’s Pi, Requiem For A Dream, and The Fountain. On the television side of the industry, Margolis’ credits are incredibly impressive, covering an expansive spectrum of memorable roles and one-off characters. A valuable film, television, and stage player, he’s best known for his break-out role of Alberto “The Shadow” in Scarface and recently as the character Hector “Tio” Salamanca in the TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

Margolis passed away August 3, 2023, at Mt. Sinai Hospital in his beloved and longtime home of New York City, with his wife Jacqueline and Morgan at his bedside, following a short illness.

“He was one of a kind. We won’t see his likes again. He was a treasured client and a lifelong friend.

Mark Margolis, the journeyman actor who turned in a commanding performance as the vindictive drug runner Hector Salamanca, a man of few words and a bell, on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, has died. He was 83.

Margolis died Thursday at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City following a short illness, his son, actor and Knitting Factory Entertainment CEO Morgan Margolis, announced.

A protégé of Stella Adler who did double duty as the legendary acting teacher’s personal assistant, Margolis also stood out as the Bolivian henchman Alberto the Shadow in Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983); as the gravelly voiced landlord Mr. Shickadance looking for the rent in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994); and, from 1998-2003, as the HIV-infected mob boss Antonio Nappa on HBO’s Oz.

The Philadelphia native played an aging math teacher for Darren Aronofsky in Pi (1998), then showed up in the filmmaker’s next five movies:...

Carlin Glynn, who won a Tony Award for her performance as the madam Mona Stangley in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and had strong supporting turns in the films Sixteen Candles and The Trip to Bountiful, has died. She was 83.

Glynn died July 13, her daughter, actress Mary Stuart Masterson (Fried Green Tomatoes, Benny & Joon), announced in an Instagram post. She died in upstate New York, and the cause was lung cancer.

“My mother, Carlin Glynn Masterson, passed away. I was with her. I will always be grateful for those last moments, no matter how hard,” she wrote. “Death is like birth in the oddest way. From my first breath to her last. This thread is as fragile as it is strong.

“She was the most graceful clumsy person you would ever meet. Strong, smart, silly, intuitive, kind, generous, passionate and a deep listener. She was devoted to my father...

Carlin Glynn, the Tony-winning star of Broadway hit The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, died July 13 from complications of dementia and cancer. She was 83 and her death was confirmed by her daughter, actress Mary Stuart Masterson.

Masterson posted on Instagram about her mother.

“She was the most graceful clumsy person you would ever meet. Strong, smart, silly, intuitive, kind, generous, passionate, and a deep listener. She was devoted to my father and to the enormous circle of students and collaborators who were considered her chosen family.”

Born on February 19, 1940 in Cleveland, Glynn was raised in Houston. She moved to New York to study at The Actors Studio under Stella Adler and Wynn Handman before moving back to Houston, where she met local actor Peter Masterson while working with him.

They married and relocated to New York City so that Masterson could continue his acting career. Glynn left the business to raise the couple’s children.

Inevitable Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping disabled screenwriters reach their full commercial and creative potential, has selected its Spring 2023 Elevate Collective Award winners.

Lydia Caradine, Halo Starling, Alys Murray, Zayre Ferrer, and Filipe Coutinho will each receive a $5,000 grant to invest in career coaching, professional development, script consultation, work-from-home setups, and intellectual property acquisition. It also offers community building and professional networking opportunities for members and ongoing support from the Inevitable Foundation team.

Lydia Caradine, Halo Starling, Alys Murray, Zayre Ferrer and Filipe Coutinho.

“We are proud to support these talented disabled screenwriters with $5,000 professional development grants, which will help them level-up their careers and projects” Inevitable Foundation co-founders Richie Siegel and Marisa Torelli-Pedevska said in a joint statement.

Disabled people make up 20 percent+ of the population but represent less than 1 percent of writers behind the screen. The foundation focuses on increasing the odds for disabled creatives by...

“Method acting” long ago lost its meaning.

Instead, it’s become a catchall to describe an intense commitment to getting it right on stage or screen. It’s an all-out approach that sees performers pack and shed pounds, feast on live cockroaches or raw bison, extract teeth or eschew showers, and remain in character between takes. Those are just a few examples of the extremes to which Robert De Niro, Christian Bale, Nicolas Cage, Leonardo DiCaprio, Shia Labeouf, Charlize Theron, Daniel Day-Lewis and their ilk push themselves in the service of their art. For their suffering, they receive Oscars and Emmys, along with a ton of media coverage — just look at the scores of pieces documenting the gonzo things Jared Leto has done each time one of his movies get released.

The payoff can be electrifying performances that blur the lines between character and actor. But it’s an approach...

Joining an illustrious list of honorees that includes Clint Eastwood, Amy Poehler and Geena Davis, Josh Brolin is set to receive the 2023 Sun Valley Film Festival’s Vision Award, which recognizes entertainment veterans for the impact on the industry. Brolin began his career more than 35 years ago as one of the stars of Richard Donner’s “The Goonies,” and he’s since won acclaim for work in films as varied as Ethan and Joel Coen’s “No Country for Old Men,” Oliver Stone’s “W.,” Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice,” Joe and Anthony Russo’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and its sequel, “Endgame,” and more.

That many of those high-profile roles came to him more than 20 years after becoming an actor isn’t something Brolin resents now — in fact quite the opposite. “That feels amazing as opposed to somebody who came out of the gate...

Ted Donaldson, who starred as Bud Anderson on the original radio version of Father Knows Best and as Neely Nolan in the beloved family drama A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the first feature directed by Elia Kazan, has died. He was 89.

Donaldson died Wednesday of complications from a fall in his Echo Park apartment in January, his friend Thomas Bruno told The Hollywood Reporter.

In his big-screen debut, Donaldson portrayed a boy who gets his pet caterpillar Curly to dance when he plays “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” on the harmonica in the comedy fantasy Once Upon a Time (1944), starring Cary Grant and Janet Blair.

He also starred as Danny Mitchell in eight B-movies from Columbia Pictures that revolved around a German shepherd named Rusty. The first one, Adventures of Rusty (1945), featured Ace the Wonder Dog.

An only child, Donaldson was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 20, 1933. His father was...

In the post-New Hollywood era, there are movie stars and there is Warren Beatty. The sturdily built, 6'2" dreamboat could've been a fine football player, but his movie-mad sister, Shirley MacLaine, got him fired up about acting. Beatty studied under Stella Adler, and arrived fully formed as a matinee idol opposite Natalie Wood in Elia Kazan's 1961 hit, "Splendor in the Grass." Beatty took not just to the craft, but the game. He produced and starred in Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde," which, by dint of his star power, drop-kicked studios into an era of blind risk-taking.

But there was nothing blind about investing in Beatty. "Easy Rider," "Five Easy Pieces," and even "The French Connection" were long shots. Place Beatty at the top of the marquee, and you had an event. The problem for studios was that Beatty had peculiar appetites. Ideally, you'd plug him into "Love Story" or "The Way We Were.

For over fifty years, Robert De Niro has stood atop the acting profession. The man behind countless iconic roles, who has made his mark on cinema history starring in some of the greatest films of all time, De Niro has had the sort of career that young actors dream of. His accolades include two Oscars, a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, and even the Presidential Medal of Freedom. There's no denying that De Niro's career has been nothing short of marvelous.

De Niro's success has not been by luck or accident. He's an extremely skilled performer, capable of portraying a great range of characters, from a ruthless mafia boss in "Goodfellas" to an obsessive wannabe comedian in "The King of Comedy." No matter the role, De Niro has a way of putting on extremely layered and complex performances. His acting is so respected that entire books have been written about it.

Charlize Theron describes her intense method acting experience while shooting The Devil's Advocate. The 1997 film directed by Taylor Hackford also stars Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves in a story about an attorney who moves to New York City with his wife when he's hired by a big law firm, only to discover he is actually working for the devil. Theron, a South Africa native, began her Hollywood career in the 1990s and went onto win an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Patty Jenkins' Monster.

Theron now details the challenges of method acting in The Devil's Advocate. In an interview with Ozark's Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett on the podcast SmartLess, Theron discusses her experience with the controversial technique she tried at Hackford's behest. She states the director is a fan of method acting, and so everyone was encouraged to remain in character throughout production.

John Sturges' 1960 western "The Magnificent Seven" was a Yul Brynner vehicle from the jump -- it was he and actor Anthony Quinn who had acquired the rights to remake Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" epic as a western. To fill out the rest of the hired guns tasked to protect a Mexican village, the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" filmmaker would reunite "Never So Few" stars Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson as, respectively, a drifter and a broke mercenary. Robert Vaughn would play a traumatized war veteran, while Brad Dexter and "German James Dean" Horst Buchholz would round out the crew. James Coburn was last to come aboard.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly in 2001, Coburn revealed that he was one of the few cast members who had caught the original Kurosawa film beforehand. He would subsequently spend "a week straight" taking friends to see it:

"Cut to a year later,...

For Tom Hanks, "Big" was the movie that changed everything. Prior to his Oscar-nominated performance as Josh Baskin, a prepubescent kid who wakes up as a thirty-something grown man after wishing to be big, he was pretty much just that guy from "Bosom Buddies."

Sure, he'd done a few films between "Bosom Buddies" and landing the role that would net him his first Academy Award nod. Most of them leaned into his sitcom chops and portrayed his characters as smarmy, bumbling, out of their depth... or sometimes all three, like in "Volunteers." But thanks to a fortuitous sequence of events (including the likes of Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford passing on the role), Hanks landed one of his career-defining parts.

He had a couple misfires at the box office in the years to follow, most notably "The Bonfire of the Vanities," but soon enough he was back on track...

Few conversation topics get actors more riled up than “method acting.” The phrase, which originally referred to a specific style of thespian preparation as pioneered by Konstantin Stanislavsky, is now used as a catch-all term to describe actors going to extreme lengths to get inside the minds of their characters. Some of Hollywood’s most well-known actors have defended the practice, while others dismiss it as a waste of time that makes everyone on set uncomfortable.

Regardless of where you land on the approach’s merits, the renewed interest in the sometimes intense techniques actors employ to perform won’t be going anywhere any time soon. In a new interview with the New York Times, “The Sopranos” and soon-to-be “White Lotus” star Michael Imperioli reflected on some of his early years as an aspiring performer looking for guidance from the greats.

At 19, Imperioli began taking lessons at the legendary Actors Studio in New York City,...

On the set of "Full Metal Jacket," life (unfortunately) imitated art. In Stanley Kubrick's 1987 war film, Private J.T. "Joker" Davis (Matthew Modine) and Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio) are thrown together by their drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (Lee Ermey), who singles out Pyle as a target for bullying and berating. While Joker initially succeeds in helping Pyle improve by adopting a kinder, more patient approach, Hartman's sadistic tactics and peer pressure from the other recruits soon drive a wedge between them.

After being subjected to abuse by Hartman and brutal hazing by the other recruits, Pyle's mental health takes a terrifying turn for the worst, culminating in a violent outburst. But it was Modine who was almost driven to violence on-set, as he and D'Onofrio's contrasting creative approaches put them at odds with each other.

"I really wanted to [kill D'Onofrio]," Modine confessed to The Independent.

Click here to read the full article.

Taking a breather from some of the physically demanding and sometimes villainous roles she’s played of late in the likes of Marvel franchises and HBO’s Westworld, Tessa Thompson stars in The Listener as a more unsung sort of superhuman: a crisis hotline worker.

Perhaps seeing a chance to push to nearly the limit that old thespian saying — sometimes attributed to performance coach Stella Adler — that “acting is reacting,” this spare, low-tech work mostly focuses on Thompson’s expressive face as she listens to calls for help from 10 very different people in distress. The voice cast offers a mix of famous (Margaret Cho, Alia Shawkat, Rebecca Hall) and less well-known names, democratically allotted roughly the same amount of air time by the film.

The Listener represents actor-director Steve Buscemi’s fifth directing credit, the second after Lonesome Jim where’s he’s stayed strictly behind the camera.

During the casting of "The Godfather," Paramount executives did not agree with director Francis Ford Coppola's choice of Marlon Brando for the iron-willed Vito Corleone. After a string of box office failures, on-set conflicts, and personal issues, they saw him as a temperamental has-been and prima donna. In his autobiography "Songs My Mother Taught Me," Brando admits even he thought he wasn't right for the part:

"I had never played an Italian before, and I didn't think I could do it successfully. They had to be convinced that he, not someone like Ernest Borgnine or Carlo Ponti, was perfect for the role."

But Brando proved he was the ideal choice, giving a hypnotic performance of sheer intensity and measured wisdom that went on to become his most iconic and earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor (though he famously declined the trophy and sent indigenous American rights activist...

Casting movie stars can be a tricky proposition, especially if you're making a big-budget film with unproven talent. In 1987, that's exactly what Kevin Costner was. He'd appeared in three box-office bombs in 1985, and, prior to this, had been cut out of Lawrence Kasdan's Baby Boomer smash "The Big Chill." But after missing out on the more established Don Johnson (who was red hot at the time thanks to "Miami Vice"), Costner wound up being Brian De Palma's Eliot Ness in the hit-hungry director's big-screen rendition of "The Untouchables." And while De Palma had a bit of movie star insurance in Sean Connery as the veteran beat cop Malone, David Mamet's masterful screenplay screamed for a larger-than-life Al Capone.

De Palma only had eyes for Robert De Niro, and he had a history with the actor, having worked with him in the counterculture comedies "Greetings" and "Hi, Mom!

When movie fans hear the phrase "method acting," they likely associate the phrase with the horror stories of actors like Jared Leto making the set of "Morbius" an absolute nightmare, or the continued trend of romanticizing the extreme lengths actors go to prepare for "Batman" films. The ethics of method acting has been highly debated for years, with actors like Jon Bernthal and Andrew McCarthy both speaking out against the abuse of the practice, and the public's misunderstandings about what method acting actually entails. Method acting is built upon the principles of Konstantin Stanislavski, with groundbreaking theater educators Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sanford Meisner developing their own techniques to enhance "The Method."

The latest actor to throw in their two cents is Andrew Garfield, who recently expressed his feelings on method acting during an interview with Variety. "There [have] been a lot of misconceptions about what method acting is, I think,...

A lot of people have opinions on method acting without really knowing what it means. The concept of an actor staying in character all the time and being a jerk to everyone around them for the sake of art is not it. Method acting was an evolution of the system developed by Russian theater director and actor Konstantin Stanislavsky. The system was brought over to the United States in the Group Theatre and was interpreted differently among a few of its members: Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sanford Meisner. Adler's approach favored the combination of research and imagination in crafting a performance....

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