Summary: My guest on this episode of Hometown to Hollywood is Michelle Danner. Michelle is an award-winning acting coach, film director, and founder of the Michelle Danner Acting Studio in Los Angeles. She trained with Stella Adler and Uta Hagen, and actors she has worked with both privately and on set include Chris Rock, Gerard Butler, Seth MacFarlane, Penelope Cruz, Salma Hayek, James Franco, Christian Slater, Zooey Deschanel, Gabrielle Union, Jennifer Coolidge, and many more. The Michelle Danner Acting Studio features an extremely broad offering of classes for kids, teens, and adults, including scene study, audition for film and TV, Improv, film script analysis, private coaching, and much more. She is also founding and artistic director of the Edgemar Center for the Arts. Join us as Michelle breaks down the basics of Meisner Technique, Lee Strasberg’s Method, Stella Adler, Stanislavski’s System, Uta Hagen, and the Chekhov technique…. and explains why she think it’s important to have more than one approach to playing a role, as well as the difference of acting for stage vs. film vs. TV, and MUCH more! Some of my favorite quotes from our conversation: “If you’re doing theatre, you’re playing tennis; if you’re doing a movie, you’re playing ping pong; and if you’re doing TV you’re playing marbles.” “People want to hire young actors that they feel will deliver, and not freeze up.” On auditioning: “You really have to understand the music of the writing, the music of the show.” The more you study, research, and do, the more you’re ahead of the game.” “The most important thing is to get out of your head.” “Be really interested in the ride. The ride is the joyful part of it.” “For 100 NO’s, there could be a yes.” “Study the actors that inspire you.” “You don’t have to wait for someone to say yes to you. You can say yes to yourself.” “Nothing is easy that’s worthwhile in this life.” Follow Michelle here: Website: http://www.michelledanner.com/ Twitter: @ActingAtEdgemar Instagram: @MichelleDannerLA Facebook: @MichelleDannerLosAngelesActingSchool
