Expanding Range As An Actor

"If you are to do justice to [the great roles], you must fly up to them -- rather than dragging them down to you -- by expanding your range of knowledge and strengthening your imagination. Your imagination must become as real to you as your memories and feelings. What you take into yourself about psychology, politics, sociology, history and so on, will allow you to reach places in yourself you didn't know existed. No line, no image, no thought can be left general. Each must be specific and personal. Your work is not complete until this is so." - Harold Guskin

I am reading this book by Harold Guskin called “How To Stop Acting”. It is eye opening. I have been trained in Method acting in college. Rather than bringing the character down to your own personal experience and imagination, this book tells an actor to explore range, to avoid logic and intellect and to listen to one’s instincts and intuition. He gives specific techniques to do this, one of which is to take the text line by line off the page- to look at it, inhale and exhale, then look up after the exhale and deliver the line however it comes out. Guskin promotes living moment by moment rather than figuring out the character as a whole. That is up the audience. Keeping things fresh and alive for the actor, exploring even in performance is what causes inspiration for both the actor and the audience. That is art. This kind of teaching acting is new to me, but is so refreshing. The joy of performing and acting for an actor is to be inspred and alive, not just the nuts and bolts work that Method acting promotes. An actor should be free, courageous and constantly stretching themselves to try something new, dig a little deeper into oneself, to discover the things about themselves they did not know were there. That's the joy of art.