Studying cows, pigs and chickens can help an actor develop his character. There are a lot of things I learned from animals. One was that they couldn’t hiss or boo me.
In the short span of his lifetime, an actor must learn all there is to know, experience all there is to experience, or approach that state as closely as possible.
An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer. In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at his feet.
I didn’t know what to do. How do you tell an eight-year-old boy his mother’s going to die? I tried. In my own stumbling way I tried to prepare Jim for it.
