Conversation with Mark Ruffalo

Mark: You should be proud of it [your book] Milton. I especially like the parts where you are struggling with it yourself, or when you talked about struggling with it when you were acting. I had a question about the quote when Stella says the actor “gives it away.”  What do you think she means by this?

Milton: Thank you for your cover comments. I’m overwhelmed. No matter where we go in our lives, this journey keeps at us. You’re wonderful to do this.

There’s an interesting concept about the audience. I’ve always hated the audience, feeling as if suddenly strangers have entered our living room. At one of the seminars I attended (in Prague, thank you), one of the teachers suggested that we must “include the audience and they will thank you for it.” It’s the first time I’d really taken on board Stanislavsky’’s idea that in the circle of attention, we include the audience. I think that’s what Stella was talking about. She was suggesting that we must give it to them. Not just make it an intimate experience for our small circle.

It is a bit of a stretch, since I often think of realism as you’re looking through a window into someone’s living room. Of course, that may be true, but the idea is that you must include us. Otherwise we are too removed.

Kristina brought me to drinks with Ellen Barkin who said that she was adding something to her work. Including the camera. It’s a bit obscure, but I kind of think that’s what she thinks she’s doing.

Mark: I have been bringing the camera in for years now. To deny it being there is trying to tell the truth by starting with a lie. Same thing with audience. There is a dialogue one is having with them as well. It’s a multi dimensional dialogue that is happening whether it’s live or it’s film.

It comes down to the depth of communication you are working on. Even down to the vibrational level. There is also a way to communicate on that level as well. Having sensitivity to the world happening around you grounds you in direct communication. That’s what I think she is talking about as well.

It’s like doors that open and close, doors of opportunity. The more you can say “yes” to any given moment and any given reality, ie a camera or audience, someone in your eyeline, nod from the boom operator, your long friendship and understanding of the material you are engaging. Every single reality the more opportunity presents itself in a moment. Realism is mostly about relationship to a given moment and the ability and openness to find and interact with the myriad of possibilities that are offered in any given moment or environment.

Milton: This is a really important concept that I’ve never heard anyone talk about. In the unlikely event they want another book (“I Still Don’t Need An Acting Class”), I think this is an extremely smart concept that needs discussing. I really think most actors are trained to act as if the camera isn’t there.

Mark: It’s a lie. It’s trying to tell the truth by telling a lie. Not only is it there it’s a tool.

Milton: Involving the audience that way … even if they’re watching on television … is why it lands for them.

Mark: It’s another means to actually communicate with. Why limit yourself? It comes down to control.

I think there’s a fear, however - and a lack of knowledge - of how to do it.

I talk to young actors and they want to do everything they possibly can to NOT be present. To control there performance, the outcome the camera, the set their inner life. I have done that myself. But there is nothing grand or inspired there. This is very later talent esoteric stuff with its own traps and pitfalls. It’s starts with material. Just like you say. No one is talking about it in these terms. It’s almost taboo. But it’s the truth. I have worked with actors who work on that controlled and clenched way. It’s dead. It’s only them.

Milton: I agree. I also think too many acting concepts are theoretical and this can’t be talked about theoretically.

Mark: We say. Wow what a performance but we learn nothing and feel less.

Milton: That’s a brilliant way to look at it. The demand on the actor is so fucking monumental.

Mark: I know. It’s awesome. It’s also awesome that in some ways there are no rules at and when it’s really happening you are in perfection.

Milton: Think how long it takes in the process to realize there are no rules, but the concepts are clear.

Mark: There is a term in Japanese Martial Arts. Mushin Nashen. No mind, no body.

Milton: It’s much more like sports than people realize. Even though I think it’s much more difficult. I watched a lot of Wimbledon this year and you think of the hours and hours and hours they work on the backhand or the serve or whatever. But you throw all those rehearsals out the window and then surrender to the game. There is no lesson that answers the question: “What if your opponent is in the forecourt at the side and you get the ball from back court on the same side?” You just have to take all the years and let them happen. In case you haven’t seen it, at the back of the book is the letter Stella wrote to me when I was lost in rehearsals of a play I was doing.

Mark: You have to know them all to be free of them. They live in you. Like No Mind, No Body. That’s what comes from mastery.

Milton: And it takes a lifetime.

Mark: You know them without thinking of them. Yes it’s a fucking lifetime. Hopefully I am just beginning. I didn’t get to read it. I will.

Milton: It’s funny. Stella was seventy-six when I started studying with her. I mentioned that to Holland Taylor at one point and she said, “You are so lucky to have studied with Stella in her prime.” Although I’m close, I’m not seventy-six yet. I still feel as if I’m not in my prime. Once you realize that, it’s very freeing.

Mark: That’s great.