#263 | How Can a Book on Acting Help You Live a More Fulfilling Life?—Stanislavski’s ‘An Actor Prepares’ Will Show You
Quick SUMMARY:
Douglas Vigliotti dives into “An Actor Prepares” by Constantin Stanislavski, discussing Stanislavski’s lasting influence on acting, especially method acting, and explains why the book is valuable for actors, writers, and anyone interested in personal growth. Vigliotti highlights key concepts like emotional memory and authenticity, sharing how acting principles can enrich everyday life. He also offers memorable quotes from the book and encourages listeners to embrace metaphor as a means of viewing the world.
Listen to the episode:
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TOPICS COVERED IN the EPISODE:
Introduction to the Episode (00:09) - Douglas introduces the podcast, the featured book, and mentions the companion newsletter.
About Stanislavski and His Influence (01:23) - Background on Stanislavski, his legacy, and his impact on acting and Hollywood.
Stanislavski’s System and Book Structure (02:43) - Explains the book’s semi-fictional format, key acting concepts, and its foundational role.
Criticism and Alternative Perspectives (04:04) - Mentions criticism of Stanislavski’s system, especially David Mamet’s opposing views.
Why This Book Matters Beyond Acting (05:24) - Discusses the book’s relevance for writers, creatives, and personal development.
Key Quotes and Life Applications (06:50) - Shares favorite quotes from the book and their broader life implications.
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement (09:34) - Encourages newsletter sign-up, subscribing, and ways to connect with Douglas.
Final Thanks and Additional Resources (10:31) - Thanks listeners, shares links, and promotes further information about the podcast.
READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do so. This week, I have a unique piece of nonfiction that actually is more like fiction, but I will explain more about that momentarily. It is titled “An Actor Prepares” by Constantin Stanislavski, and it came out in 1936, and it's around 322 pages. So I will share a lot more about the book, obviously. Why am I even sharing this book on the podcast to begin with, and why I think you should read it, and of course, more about the author and all of that good stuff. But first, I just wanted to quickly remind you about the companion newsletter that goes with this podcast. And that is just a once-a-month email that rounds up all of the episodes from that month, complete with full book and author information, all of my favorite quotes, episode summaries, as well as additional book recommendations, and some helpful links. So if you just want the meat and potatoes in your short on time, then I highly recommend checking that out, and you could sign up for it on the website BooksforMen.org.
01:23 - All right, so as I alluded to, you might be wondering why I'm sharing this book on the podcast, and that would be a great question, but I will get to that momentarily. First, as always, I wanted to share a little bit more about the author. So Stanislavski was a theatre practitioner and a theorist, but also an actor in Russia who founded the historic Moscow Art Theatre. He is probably the most acclaimed teacher of acting ever, or at least one of the most influential. Just like many other great Russian thinkers and writers who influenced different strands of artistic culture, whether it be Tolstoy, whom I've shared on this podcast with “Anna Karenina” or Chekhov or Dostoyevsky, but it wasn't until he published this book late in life, the first of a trilogy of books on the subject matter, the other two being “Building a Character” and “Creating a Role”. Did he really cement his legacy in that reach that still reverberates today? So many of the Hollywood actors that you know and love are practitioners of either his system, quote unquote, or derivative systems like Sanford Meisner Meisner technique or Stella Adler's and Lee Strasberg's Method acting. You may have heard some of these terms thrown around before.
02:43 - They all are slightly different, but they all start with Stanislavski. It was really Marlon Brando who blew open the gates of Hollywood in the 50s with method acting. That kind of put a spotlight on some of these methodologies. But other actors who trained this way included Pacino, whom I also featured on this podcast, De Niro, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, and Dustin Hoffman. It's a long, long list. Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Joaquin Phoenix, Natalie Portman, and so on and so forth. Again, they all trained under derivative systems, but I raised this to show the outsized influence that Stanislavski had on acting in movies more broadly. And the book that I am sharing with you today is really the Dao of his ideas or the foundational text of his ideas. So I think this is a good place for me to pivot into the book and of course, get into why I wanted to share it with you. So it really isn't nonfiction in a traditional sense. And actually, it's semi-fictional because Stanislavski delivers his acting system through the lens of a fictional character named Kostya as he learns the craft from his teacher, Trostov.
04:05 - It's not really a novel, though, because there is not a Story or anything like that. The point is really to teach this philosophical system and provide exercises for an actor to tap into things like their creativity, imagination, concentration, or relaxation, which is a really big part of being in the moment. And of course, explain the purpose of an actor. One of the more famous ideas is this idea of emotional memory, meaning the actor taps into something that happened in their life that has that same core emotion that they are trying to depict in the part. And this is all in an effort to get at the emotional truth of the character. But this is just one of the many ideas that you will read about in Stanislavski's work, which, of course, doesn't come without criticism. And actually, I featured David Mamet's book “True and False” on this podcast, where he contends that the Stanislavski system is bullshit for lack of a better term, and advocated almost the exact opposite advice. But this just goes to show you that there are so many ways that you can skin a cat.
05:24 - And for me, the real question is, as I alluded to, why am I sharing actor books on this podcast? And for me, this is twofold, really. One, if you are a writer or a creative person, this book, along with any book that talks about acting, will help you understand characters better, and hence, you will be able to write them better. And this is the primary reason why I first picked up these books. But the second reason is probably the more important one, and it's something that I only realized afterward or while I was reading it. And it's also something that I mentioned in the Mamet episode, and that's on some level. We're all actors playing a role in our lives, and I think so much of the advice, although not directed at everyday people, is so applicable and, in some ways, groundbreaking. To help you play the role that you are trying to play in your life, I realize this requires a little bit of metaphor or expansiveness in your thinking on how you may think about your life, but I'm of the opinion that if you are able to get there and bridge this gap, then you could have some potential breakthroughs in the way that you are looking at things.
06:50 - All right, so on that note, I want to close up this episode by sharing a few of those ideas or quotes from the book that I really like and what you can expect from reading it. So the first is probably my favorite. And I think it's very applicable to our everyday lives, especially as we juggle things like social media and the onslaught of exposure and how we portray ourselves to the world. And Stanislavski writes, “You must be very careful in the use of a mirror. It teaches an actor to watch the outside rather than the inside of his soul.” It's such a heavy quote, and of course, he's talking about a physical mirror when an actor is rehearsing. But I think in a metaphorical sense, we could see the correlation with our own lives. Another quote that I love is when he writes, “You may play well. Or you may play badly. The important thing is that you play truly.” Again, he's talking about playing the character in an honest, true way without regard to anything else.
08:09 - And I think you could do the same potentially for the role that you are trying to play in your life. The last quote that I wanted to share with you is one that Stanislavski says, “Every person who is really an artist desires to create inside of himself another, deeper, more interesting life than the one that actually surrounds him.” Of course, you can look at this through the lens of the traditional artist, but I always like to think we are the creators of our own lives and the creators of the roles that we adopt and the experiences that we make and create in our lives. And under that lens, we are all artists, and it is up to us to approach that task under the same guise as Stanislavski is saying here, the need to create a more interesting life than the one that actually surrounds him. To me, that's more of a mindset than it is anything else. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed this episode. It was a tad unique. If you did, I would encourage you to go back and listen to that David Mamet episode, because it kind of hits on the same idea and shares a lot more quotes.
09:34 - But I will also be sharing more Stanislavski quotes in the newsletter at the end of this month. So if you're interested in that, I would head over to the website Books for Men and sign up. As always, I wanted to thank you so much for listening, and if you are a regular listener of this podcast, I wanted to encourage you or ask you plead with you to please click subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on, because it's the best way for new listeners to find the show and in return inspire more men to read. If you want to reach out to me, tell me how I'm doing. Maybe what you thought about this episode. There are two ways to do so: on Instagram @DouglasVigliotti. It's the only social media that I have, or via my website, DouglasVigliotti.com. I do have a new book out that is titled “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. If you'd like to learn more about that, you can on the website AristotleforNovelists.com. Of course, all these links will be in the show notes. And finally, I wanted to thank you one more time for tuning in and listening. And if you are interested in more information about this podcast specifically, which includes signing up for that newsletter I mentioned a few times, then all you have to do is head over to the website BooksforMen.org
