Batson - Truth: Personas, Needs, and Flaws in the Art of Building Actors and Creating Characters

By

Susan Batson

STONE VS. STONE, INC.

9 BARROW ST.

NEW YORK, NY 10014

www.stonevstone.com

Library of Congress Cataloging - in - Publication Data

Batson, Susan, 1944-

Truth : personas, needs, and flaws in the art of building actors and creating characters / by Susan Batson. -- 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13; 978-1-59071-053-1

ISBN-10: 1-59071-053-3

1. Acting - - Psychological aspects. 2. Characters and characteristic s. I. Title.

PN 2071 . P78B38 2007

792.028019 - - dc22

2006036666

Book Design by

HSU + ASSOCIATES

COPYRIGHT 2006 BY SUSAN BATSON

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

FEBRUARY 2007

1 3 5 7 9 1 0 8 6 4 2

First Edition

Ruth Batson, my mother, taught me that lifes task is the betterment of the human condition.

Carl Ford, my son, continues to teach me unconditional love, courage, self-worth, and the power of dreams.

Their unrelenting commitment to truth and to freedom motivates me every day.

A SPECIAL acknowledgement to my sister Dorothy Batson Owusu. I started writing a book on a yellow legal pad in 1990, and it was Dorothy who typed what I wrote into her computer. She reminded me of that first attempt and encouraged me to continue.

I wish to pay homage to Bruce Bennett, who met with me regularly in my tragic flaw and coached, coaxed, and conned me into trusting his much-needed skill and insight in the creation of this book. It is his tenacious commitment to the details and the history of acting that has made Truth a far better exploration of the art form than I could have produced on my own.

I also wish to thank my publisher, Web Stone, who came to me not for movie star gossip, but for what I understood about acting.

My deepest gratitude to Nicole Kidman and Juliette Binoche. Their contributions have enhanced this book, and their friendship and brilliance have enriched my life.

There would be no book, and no Black Nexxus Acting Studio, without the vision and leadership of my son, Carl Ford, and the loyalty, dedication, strength, intelligence, and deep kindness of Greg Braun. I am also grateful to the Black Nexxus teachers in New York and L.A.Roberta Wallach, Stuart Birney, Lucille Riven, Wass Stevens, Jimmy Antoine, Corey Parker, Kirsty Carlos Leon, Portia, Matt Wurd, Jamieson Rimes. A very special thanks to Mary Setrakian for giving Black Nexxus the best musical department in theater. My gratitude to all the actors (students and professionals) who have entrusted me with their precious gifts.

I must acknowledge the mentorship of the great teachers who taught me. Herbert Berghoff taught me that acting is a Primary Art Form with a responsibility to humanity. Uta Hagen was a tough taskmaster who stripped me of my bullshit. Lee Strasberg led me to the intimacy that is the heart of acting for me and gave my talent his blessing. Harold Clurman embraced my abilities and gave me the priceless gift of responsibility to the text. Many thanks also to those great educators who encouraged me as a young amateurElma Lewis, Adele Thane, Leo Nickole, Richard E. Arnold, and Paul J. Austin.

AN ACTORS life, like any artists life, is a long, long road. But an actor doesnt walk that road alone. Acting is collaborative. Its always a group effort. If youre lucky, along the way you meet someone with whom your collaboration becomes so vital and so rich that the two of you naturally fall into step together. For me, Susan Batson is that person.

This book you hold is called Truth, and that title precisely describes the core of the work Susan and I do together. I cant create unless I have truthI have to feel it. Susan helps me to find the truth in myself and use its purity, intimacy, and honesty to make my work real. Shes helped me to nurture and protect truth in myself and in the characters that Ive played. What Ive learned from Susan is how to keep the truth alive no matter what.

Theres a beautiful mystery to acting. That mystery is irresistible to me. Every actor has his or her own feelings on this subject, but personally I see myself as a conduit. When youre acting you are a vesselthere is something beyond you that is working through you. Its not about who you are. Its not about your ego. Truthful acting is about being available and open and offering up your deepest, darkest secrets and saying, Here they are. Its about creating and morphing and changing. Anything in me or around me can wind up in the work, as long as it is true.

I first met Susan in New York just a week before I made Peacemaker. We worked together in earnest for two years on Eyes Wide Shut in London and on every film Ive done since, wherever theyve taken us. An actors work doesnt end after any one particular project, and the journey Susan and I have shared over the last twelve years has never been solely focused on one particular achievement. Theres so much more to acting than just creative success. It runs thicker and deeper than that. It has toits in my blood, it beats through me. I know that its in Susans blood, too. I feel like weve been together my whole life.

In our work together, Susan has seen all my different places and identities. She has known me as a daughter, a mother, a sister, and a wife. More than anybody in my life, Susan has access to my encyclopedia of emotions. We literally have and share words that trigger sensations in me and in the characters I play. Its a beautiful, guiding, intuitive, and very smart person that can make that happen. Susan combines a powerful intellect with a powerful emotional life. Shes as intuitive as she is intelligent. Both those sides of her are very well balanced. I try to maintain that same balance, both in my life and in my work.

We all have our protective shells. Things happen in your life that encourage you to break the shell down, and other things happen that make you build that shell back up again. This is particularly true on the sometimes quite demoralizing and sometimes quite extraordinary artistic road down which Susan and I travel. My time with Susan has taught me to work with my shell. Her collaboration has made me so much more confident as an actor, and her friendship has made me more confident as a woman. No matter what has come, Ive never crumbled. Susan wont let me.

A great teacher can make anything seem possible. So many of the actors Ive admired and idolized and, in a few lucky instances, been blessed to work with, were shaped and inspired by teachers who opened them to the possibilities of their art. Among actors, Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, and Jeff Corey are just as legendary as their pupils Marilyn Monroe, Robert Duvall, and Jack Nicholson. I am confident that Susan Batson will go down in history as one of actings legendary teachers. I only hope that my work can contribute to her legend.