Preface

 

 

 

Dame Judith Anderson, the Australian actress, began her career on stage. She tells this story about her first movie:

When I finished a scene, the director called me over and whispered, “Watch your eyebrows.” I asked him what he meant, and he went on to explain that when you raised your eyebrows on stage it was a matter of an inch, but when you raised them in a close-up on the movie screen, it was three feet.

In that one inch to three foot equation lies a fundamental difference between stage acting and acting for television and movies. Modern stage acting has become more naturalistic and, in a way, more cinematic. Even so, in acting for film and television, there are moments, in preparation or performance, in which the actor ...

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