Now you may have recently seen that the singer Adele has created a new image for herself predominately by losing 7st in weight.
Rumour has it (see what I did there?) that the real reason for this dramatic weight loss is that she has her sights set on becoming an actor in Hollyweird.
Nothing wrong with that, plenty have gone before her, but I have two words of caution for her – Jennifer Lopez.
Jennifer, back in the day, was the biggest name in the music industry and then decided to become an actor in Hollywood films. The result was acting so bad that it would make your toes curl.
There was one particular beauty which was the film U-Turn, where she starred opposite one of the best method actors in the world, Sean Penn. Now, I’m not sure where her agent and/or manager were when she accepted this because they should have sat her down and said, “Are you absolutely sure you want your acting to be seen side by side with Sean’s?”
Still to this day (I saw the film in 1997) I have PSTD type symptoms around that film. I get flashbacks now and again of acting that is likely to haunt me to the grave.
Now, you may think I’m hard on her, but at the end of the day, there is no reason why the acting has to be that bad. If you are about to work with one of the worlds best actors, and you have barely acted a day in your life, then you should engage in substantial acting training with excellent teachers. She may have taken lessons, I don’t know, but whatever she did, it wasn’t enough by a long-shot.
My fear is that Adele may fall into the same trap.
She has an immense talent as a singer and who knows maybe she has a talent for acting too, but the danger is that she approaches acting the same way she has her singing career. That’s what Jennifer did. She thought I’m a legend at that, so acting should be a walk in the park.
Writing and signing your own songs is very different from becoming another person, i.e. a character, and living their life and seeing the world through their eyes and being able to express that. I’m not saying one is harder than the other I’m saying they are different. Different skills and abilities are required and in my experience no-one is a born actor. You have to work hard to get brilliant at it.
Al Pacino studied method acting for decades. I’m not joking. He embraced the method acting credo that the learning never stops. He was coached by Lee Strasberg and later mentored by Charles Laughton even while he was recognised as one of the best actors in the world.
Now, there is one singer that Adele should be looking at very closely because there does exist an excellent example of being able to make the transition she is looking to make – Lady Gaga.
No one could quite believe how brilliant her performance was in A Star is Born opposite Bradley Cooper (who btw, is a method actor who studied for years, probably still does).
What many don’t know is that Lady Gaga studied method acting for five years before she became a singer. Hence the level of her performance.
There is no short cut if you look at the best actors in the world they all studied and dedicated themselves to the art and craft of acting.
Something to think about!
Brian Timoney
The Master Of The Method
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