with John Markland

Los Angeles
May 19th - 23rd

A lot can be said about the hero, the protagonist, how to find sympathy or designredemption, but I tend to find my attention goes to the asshole. The one causing the problem. The obnoxious voice in the scene, the challenger, the one who simply doesn't give one flying f**k. I gravitate to them because they are the tension, the one element thatcould go either way. I sometimes root for them.

A few of my favorite actors have a penchant for the asshole… Philip Seymour Hoffman,pure genius when it came to the one saying what should not be said and the more regardless the better. Frances McDormand gets dirty with bare knuckled careless truths, she will behave with terrifying disregard, humiliating everything within reach and its worthy of studying. Ben Mendelsohn just gets under your skin, he’s like a burning, provoking stabbing feeling that won’t go away but you can’t look anywhere else. Tilda Swinton perfectly inhabits indifference until she needs to condescend or disgust with precise smugness.

If it comes natural to you, are you able to maintain or offer it to your characters? Often you may be this way in life but as soon as the stage or the camera are involved it runs and hides.Or is being an asshole foreign to you? You are more concerned with being liked, pleasing, agreeable and avoiding conflict? All is not lost, there is an indifferent, self-serving, maniacal piece of s**t inside of you who stands up for themselves and isn’t afraid of anything.

This will be a fun week where not only will you be letting down your nice guy/gal face, butyou’ll be also able to relax into saying exactly what you want and behaving in a way you sometimes dream of doing. Feel the power and freedom of being the asshole.

Get in early so I can get you a character to get lost in.