Read Online How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am by Charles Grodin - Free Book Online

chair.
    Here’s an acting exercise I would use if I ever taught, which I won’t. I would instruct: Take a bottle of water and empty
     it into a tall glass, holding it over the glass until absolutely the final drop goes in. The concentration and focus required
     to be sure you’ve got that last drop is what’s needed in acting.
    I would never be interested in teaching acting because to teach suggests that acting is a viable profession to pursue. If
     kids realized the tiny percentage of people who make a living in show business, at least half the acting schools and drama
     departments might have to close up shop.
    Confidence is an absolute necessity for anyone who appears in front of a camera or large groups of people, and it’s certainly
     necessary to be prepared in every way to have that confidence. It’s startling to me how many actors underestimate the importance
     of being absolutely confident of knowing their lines. Amazingly, in ten years of studying acting I never heard any teacher
     say that. Some actors believe it’s not in their interest to know the lines too soon—they feel it will lead to an interpretation
     before they’re ready. When I say learn the lines early and thoroughly, I’m not talking about interpretation but in the way
     you would learn to count to ten. The interpretation can come whenever you want, or when the director asks for it. Some English
     directors insist you show up for the first day of rehearsal knowing the lines. Good idea.
    I was obviously getting better, because Mr. Strasberg astonishingly would cite what I was doing as an example of what to do.
     Once I missed class, and the next week he came over to me and asked if I was okay. That was extraordinary, because in my experience,
     Lee Strasberg was not a person who reached out. The two most socially uncomfortable people I’ve ever met are Lee Strasberg
     and Woody Allen.
    I studied with Mr. Strasberg from 1959 to 1962. He must have had thousands of students over the years, and yet in 1975, thirteen
     years since I had last seen him, on opening night on Broadway of
Same Time, Next Year
, a two-character play I did with Ellen Burstyn, Lee Strasberg was the first person in my dressing room after the show. He
     said, “You were very good.” I asked, “You remember me?” He said, “Of course I do.”
    After signing a letter saying if I was invited I would accept, I was then invited to join the Actors Studio. It’s ironic that
     the Actors Studio protected itself from rejection, while its members have to deal with it unrelentingly.

Julie
    T he off-off-Broadway play I was in when I was twenty-one was ominously titled
Don’t Destroy Me
. The playwright, Michael Hastings, was English. One night our director told us the agent for the playwright was coming to
     see the show. The next day the director informed us that after seeing the play the agent had committed suicide. She assured
     us it had nothing to do with our presentation of his client’s play. I completely believed her. I’m sure I’ll say this again.
     Who knows what anyone else is living with?
    Another time, the director, a lovely woman who teaches today, told me the celebrated actor Hume Cronyn had seen the play and
     said of me, “He could be very good, once he gets over his problem.” I asked, “What’s my problem?” She replied that Mr. Cronyn
     hadn’t said, but she could get his number for me if I wanted to call and ask him.
    I imagined the conversation. “Mr. Cronyn, this is Charles Grodin. I understand you saw
Don’t Destroy Me
and said I could be very good once I got over my problem. I was wondering…” I chose not to call.
    After one performance my buddy Julie Ferguson from the Pittsburgh Playhouse came to see me. We walked down the street after
     that, and I think I surprised us both when I put my arm around her shoulder.
    Julie was very different. Once we were rehearsing a scene at the Playhouse and I suggested we take a break and get a