The Intent to Live: Achieving Your True Potential as an Actor - Hardcover

Moss, Larry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553802070 ISBN 13: 9780553802078

Publisher: Bantam, 2004

Synopsis

“I call this book The Intent to Live because great actors don’t seem to be acting, they seem to be actually living.”
–Larry Moss, from the Introduction

When Oscar-winning actors Helen Hunt and Hilary Swank accepted their Academy Awards, each credited Larry Moss’s guidance as key to their career-making performances. There is a two-year waiting list for his advanced acting classes. But now everyone–professionals and amateurs alike–can discover Moss’s passionate, in-depth teaching.

Inviting you to join him in the classroom and onstage, Moss shares the techniques he has developed over thirty years to help actors set their emotions, imagination, and behavior on fire, showing how the hard work of preparation pays off in performances that are spontaneous, fresh, and authentic.

From the foundations of script analysis to the nuances of physicalization and sensory work, here are the case studies, exercises, and insights that enable you to connect personally with a script, develop your character from the inside out, overcome fear and inhibition, and master the technical skills required for success in the theater, television, and movies.

Far more than a handbook, The Intent to Live is the personal credo of a master teacher. Moss’s respect for actors and love of the actor’s craft enliven every page, together with examples from a wealth of plays and films, both current and classic, and vivid appreciations of great performances. Whether you act for a living or simply want a deeper understanding of acting greatness, The Intent to Live will move, instruct, and inspire you.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

When Helen Hunt and Hilary Swank accepted their Academy Awards they cited Larry Moss's unorthodox and demanding guidance as the key to their career-making performances. There is a two-year-long waiting list for his advanced acting classes. But now everyone--professionals and amateurs alike--can discover Moss's passionate, in-depth teaching.
"I call this book THE INTENT TO LIVE rather than The Intent to Act because great actors don't seem to be acting, they seem to be actually living," Moss writes in his introduction. When Larry coached Hilary Swank for her Oscar-winning role in "Boys Don't Cry," he had her live as a man for a month to prepare for the role. She bound her breasts and stuffed her crotch and had her husband introduce her as his younger brother, all so she could get inside her character's head and experience first hand the fear of being found out. He got Helen Hunt to pull all her energy down from her head into her feet, so she could play the waitress in "As Good As It Gets"--another Oscar performance. Right now, he is working with Leonardo di Caprio for his upcoming role as Howard Hughes and with Sally Fields in a Kennedy Center revival of The Glass Menagerie. All these stars--and many more, will be giving us quotes.
But THE INTENT TO LIVE is much more than wonderful theater stories. It's a meat and potatoes guide to the basic tools and techniques of acting, like how to come up with emotion-on-demand when you've been doing a stage show for months or they're filming your big final scene out-of-sequence on the first day of shooting. And even more important, it's a book about how to do the inner work required to become a true artist. In nearly 30 short, fascinating chapters he offers the case studies, exercises, and insights that enable actors to connect personally with a script, develop their character from the inside out, overcome fear and inhibition, hone their technical skills, and, above all, come alive in the moment on stage or on camera. Filled with a wealth of theater lore and appreciations of great performances, this is a delicious read for theater lovers, as well as a sure-to-be-classic text for actors.

About the Author:

Larry Moss studied his craft with such luminaries as Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, and Warren Robertson. He began his career at New York’s famed cabaret Upstairs at the Downstairs and went on to appear on Broadway in numerous productions. After teaching at Juilliard and Circle in the Square, Moss returned to Los Angeles and founded the Larry Moss Studio in 1990. His directing credits include the off-Broadway hit The Syringa Tree, which won the 2001 Obie for Best Play of the Year, and a new play opening on Broadway in spring 2005.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0553802070
• ISBN 13: 9780553802078
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368