If many american actors follow "method acting" what technique do the British use?

Question

What are the differences and which one is more effective?

Answer 1

There are many, many acting techniques out there, used by actors in both countries and around the world.

Most contemporary Western acting training starts out teaching either the Method or its cousin, the System, which was developed by Russian actor/director Constantin Stanislavski around the turn of the last century. Some teachers and historians argue that the Method itself is actually a corruption of the System that happened when Stanislavski's techniques were brought to the U.S.

Basically, Method actors try to recreate emotional truth through substitution--by recalling situations from their own lives that made them feel like their characters felt. For example, if I'm playing a character who's grieving, I might try to recall and use the memory of my own father dying (or whatever). The Method is sometimes called "acting from the inside out," because the actor starts internally, using the sense memory of his/her own experiences and then tries to let those feelings create believable movement and vocal expression.

The System, on the other hand, is known as "acting from the outside in." If I were a System actor trying to play the above grieving character, I would not start with my own emotions. Instead, I would try to get my body to do precisely what it does when I myself am grieving--I might, for example, stare at the ground, make my lower lip wobbly, and make my breathing shallower and faster. The body then "remembers" these physical sensations--"oh, this is what happens when I feel grief"--and the emotions follow. In this case, the actor starts with the body and the internal process results.

Inside-out and outside-in acting both have the same goal--to create a believable character. Most actors, after their initial training, use a combination of both techniques (plus lots of others) to do their jobs. But Method acting is more well-known to the lay public in the U.S. because of its famous adherents--actors like Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe.

Answer 2

That was a darn fine answer, waldy.