In austerity-era Portugal, an actor lands the role of his dreams as the lead in the film Being Paul Giamatti.

One of our most brilliantly iconoclastic playwrights takes on the art of profession of acting with these words: invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school. Acting schools, “interpretation,” “sense memory,” “The Method”—David Mamet takes a jackhammer to the idols of contemporary acting, while revealing the true heroism and nobility of the craft. He shows actors how to undertake auditions and rehearsals, deal with agents and directors, engage audiences, and stay faithful to the script, while rejecting the temptations that seduce so many of their colleagues. Bracing in its clarity, exhilarating in its common sense, True and False is as shocking as it is practical, as witty as it is instructive, and as irreverent as it is inspiring.

“I call this book The Intent to Live because great actors don’t seem to be acting, they seem to be actually living.” –Larry Moss, from the Introduction When Oscar-winning actors Helen Hunt and Hilary Swank accepted their Academy Awards, each credited Larry Moss’s guidance as key to their career-making performances. There is a two-year waiting list for his advanced acting classes. But now everyone–professionals and amateurs alike–can discover Moss’s passionate, in-depth teaching. Inviting you to join him in the classroom and onstage, Moss shares the techniques he has developed over thirty years to help actors set their emotions, imagination, and behavior on fire, showing how the hard work of preparation pays off in performances that are spontaneous, fresh, and authentic. From the foundations of script analysis to the nuances of physicalization and sensory work, here are the case studies, exercises, and insights that enable you to connect personally with a script, develop your character from the inside out, overcome fear and inhibition, and master the technical skills required for success in the theater, television, and movies. Far more than a handbook, The Intent to Live is the personal credo of a master teacher. Moss’s respect for actors and love of the actor’s craft enliven every page, together with examples from a wealth of plays and films, both current and classic, and vivid appreciations of great performances. Whether you act for a living or simply want a deeper understanding of acting greatness, The Intent to Live will move, instruct, and inspire you.

There is a sense that permeates most acting classes which promotes the idea that acting is hard and you need to do a bunch of traditional steps if you're ever going to get anywhere. The flame of this concept is kept lit for two reasons. One is tradition. Successful actors and teachers in our theatrical history supposedly believed in or espoused such ideas and two; it is easier for teachers and actors to follow a path that is well worn. Actors feel intimidated to challenge the ideas and teachings of past masters. But isn't that exactly how every field of endeavor evolves? Think of where we'd be in science or medicine or sports if no one questioned past methods or tried to discover new ones. This book will show you an approach that is direct and to the point, an approach that will be far easier to remember and utilize. We'll use real life. We call it acting only because people are watching. "If you're an actor, this book will restore your sanity." Steven Pressfield, Author: The War of Art, Turning Pro, The Legend of Bagger Vance

Master the art of life and happiness and learn how to live authentically with The Actor, the first of four transformative courses by Don Miguel Ruiz and Barbara Emrys.

IN presenting this autobiography to the public, the author feels it incumbent upon herself to impress upon her readers the fidelity and strict adherence to the truth, relative to the conditions which surround the player. In no instance has there been either exaggeration or a resort to imaginative creation. It is a true story with all the ugliness of truth unsoftened and unembellished. Nor is the situation presented an exceptional one. One has but to follow the career of the average actor to be convinced that the dramatic profession is not only inconsistent with but wholly hostile to the institution of marriage. Managers and actors alike know and admit this to be the truth—amongst themselves. What they say in print is, of course, merely so much self-exploitation. The success of any branch of "the show-business" is dependent on the bureau of publicity. To one intimately acquainted with the life, the effusions of certain actors' wives, which from time to time appear in magazines for women, are ironically humourous. They are to be put down as the babbling of the newly-weds or the hunger for seeing their names in print. To hear the wife of a star declare that she always goes to the theatre and sits in the wings to watch her husband act is to presage the glaring head-lines of a divorce in the not-far-distant future. If it be not now, yet it will come, for those players who go through life with but one, even two marriages to their credit are the great exception to the rule. The actor's life precludes domesticity and without domestic life there can be no successful marriages. Every community has its stage-struck girls. Year after year the Academies of Divine Art turn out graduates like so many clothes-pins. Neither aspirant nor parent appears to question her fitness for the career to which she aspires. Both are ignorant of the conditions which confront the tyro or they have a wholly erroneous idea of theatrical life—ideas culled from the articles which appear from time to time in the magazines over the signature of a prominent actress. The average reader has no way of knowing that these articles are not written by the actress herself, but by a needy scribbler to whom she grants permission to use her name, for the free advertising she will get in return. "My Beginnings," "Advice to Stage-Struck Girls Who Plan to Go on the Stage," etc., are alluring head-lines. The subject matter is a mass of glittering and trite generalities. Of the real conditions, the pitfalls, the drawbacks to be met, the outsider hears nothing. And when once in a decade a scribe dares to express himself truthfully concerning the moral atmosphere in the theatrical profession—(vide Mr. Clement Scott)—the air is rent with expostulations, denials and protestations from the members of "the profession." Interviews and letters pack the enterprising press. Many of those who protest the loudest have the least to lose.

Every year, thousands of actors struggle to navigate today's film and TV business while also wanting to grow as performers, as artists. These actors tend to be risk-takers, mold-breakers, and are interested in defining who they are. They are looking for advice and guidance about art and about commerce. The Authentic Actor is for them. The actor's path today begins with two questions: Who are you? What do you know? Beginning with personal authenticity, The Authentic Actor reveals a holistic approach that fuses discovery of the “actor's fingerprint” with skills for managing performance, career, and life — as artist, businessperson, and citizen. It addresses the toughest subjects, from mastering auditions and ?dealing with representation to bouncing back from rejection and finding your “tribe” — all with the humor, and the no-b.s. voice of an experienced mentor. The goal? To help actors forge a professional career and meaningful life while never forgetting their artistic core.