Milton Justice - I Dont Need an Acting Class

I would like to thank my agent, Kevin Huvane. I cant resist. Its one of those things Ive always wanted to say. Kevin is Managing Director and Partner at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), and hes been part of my professional life since the mid-1980s. It never occurred to him that I would write a book, but when I told him I had, he immediately hooked me up with Mollie Glick in CAAs New York office. Mollie got me to Applause Books, where I had always hoped to be published.

The first people to slog their way through an early draft of this book were my former colleague John Vansteen and my fellow Grace Choral Society member Susan Knopf. There was so much book in that first draft, Im in awe they made it through. Both of them were enormously encouraging and gave me great advice. As did my writer friend, Mark Donnelly, who suffered through countless emails with the subject heading: Does this paragraph make sense?

My best friends in collegeJack, John, Tim, Garland, Kathy, Sally, McLure, Greg, Sharon, Chipwere all obsessed with the theater, which made my early theater days very productive. All I had to do was climb on the prom float with them. Because none of us came from a theater background, we were forced to learn from each other. Each others mistakes and insights, I should say. My early jobs, assisting Gerald Freedman, John Morris, and later Lee Grant, opened me up to a professional world that cared about theater as a creative collaboration. And my friend Margo Martindale, who was in the first play I directed, challenged me to step up my game.

When I met Stella Adler in the summer of 1976, my entire sense of theater changed. She was the embodiment of the nobility of studying an artform and I longed to be a part of it. I was like the newly converted. I moved immediately to New York and began what would be an extraordinary fifteen years of studying and learning from a true master. I accidentally slipped into teaching because my friend, Grant Show, was auditioning for a play and he was looking for some help. Suddenly there was the opportunity for me to pass on to someone else what Id been learning in Stellas classes. I found a place where I belonged. After an amusing disagreement with Stella about what would eventually happen to the Gentleman Caller in Glass Menagerie, she pointedly announced, I want you to teach for me.

I have been extremely fortunate along the way with my many co-conspirators, whove allowed me to try and fail and try again and succeed and then fail again and Well, I think its what we call a life in the theater. Tim and Bonnie, Ruffalo and Thornton, Kenny, Anthony, Kristina, Thor, Joanne, Susan, May all of these incredible people who gave me permission to grow and learn when I first started teaching. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Deb Margolin, who unrelentingly questioned me about my understanding of acting concepts as I drove her to Yale for a semesterand to Sharon Carnicke, one of my most cherished colleagues. I owe them all.

The idea for this book came from a series of email exchanges that began in about 2007. I like email. It feels like Im having a conversation with one of my students, or a class, or the cast of a play. Corresponding through email forced careful, cogent writing and communicating. Not that all of the emails in my book are overly thought-out or complete. I consider the study of acting always to be a work in progress. Its a journey that Ive had the great privilege of sharing with countless actors. But for the present, thank you: Abel, Akende, Alex, Blake, Cameron, Chris, David, Edward, Erika, Evan, Garrett, Giancarlo, Grant, Greg, James, Jay, Jean, Jenna, Jesse, JP, Justin, Justine, Kaleb, Karim, Kevin, Kyra, Mark, Maia, Marie, Matt, Mel, Michelle, Mo, Noah, Nick, Paul, Peter, Raphal, Robin, Teddy, Teo, Theresa, Tim, Tony, Victoria, Walker, Wesley the many, many actors who have dug into this work with me and struggled to find an answer to the overwhelming question: what does it take to become an actor?