Summary: In a recent interview Andrew Garfield said that in preparation to play Spiderman, in The Amazing Spiderman, he worked with his movement teacher from drama school to study spider’s movement and characteristics. This is a wonderful, outside-in approach to acting, even if you aren’t playing an animal or a human infected with animal DNA. Animals can inspire great characterizations; so animal studies and exercises are tried and true approaches used by many different acting schools. So, consider adding animal studies to your acting. How do you incorporate animal work into your work? The first thing is to study a particular animal that seems appropriate for the character. Notice how they move. Notice their tempo-rhythm and how they respond to things around them. Notice their faces and how they watch, listen, and communicate. Then begin to move like the animal. Stand up and try to personify the movement by embodying it on two legs. Find the animal’s movements and characteristics that seem appropriate for your character and begin to build a human based on the animal. This is working from the inside out and you’ll notice that as you move, you’ll actually begin to feel certain emotional responses triggered by the movement. It takes study-time to really get a sense of the animal and practice to integrate the movement and make it your own. By performance time, the animal movement and characteristics might be just hints of the animal, but you will find that using an animal image to build a character will be a wonderful addition to your acting. And it might be just the key to getting inside a character that is eluding you. Links: Spiderman Andrew Garfield Lee J. Cobb Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman Year of the King Anthony Sher
