LESLIE HOWARD HATES ACTING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 58, 2 August 1940, Page 12

LESLIE HOWARD HATES ACTING

And Here He Tells Why

The long runs on the stage, the boredom and monotony of work on the movie set, these are two of the reasons why Leslie Howard hates acting. In this article by himself, from the English "Woman’s _ Journal," he also says that he is not an actor. (Listeners in New Zealand heard Howard recently in a talk for the BBC)

AM one of those unfortunate people to whom any kind of public appearance is an embarTassment, for whom to have to perform before my fellow-men is a misery, wrote Leslie Howard. From the moment, when, offered accidentally and accepted economically, I got my first job on the stage and sheepishly daubed my face with grease-paint, I had an inner conviction that this was the most embarrassing occupation in the world. This belief, far from being modified by experience, I find to be only intensified with the years. I can conceive all Women at all ages wanting to act, and I can conceive certain men of an adolescent age wanting to act, but the idea of middle-aged or elderly men getting any satisfaction out of painting their faces, putting on costumes and Wigs and giving vent to their emotions in public is something I cannot understand. The truth is, that to enjoy acting one must be an exhibitionist at heart, one must revel in those exposures of the emotions which would be agonising to a shy or reserved person. He Wanted to Write As a boy the possibility of being an actor never even occurred to me. Nor could it have occurred to anybody who knew the shy and inarticulate youth that I was. I wanted to write. Then, mysteriously, a part in a play offered itself. And gradually the miracle took place. The metamorphosis of a nervous, inhibited, agoraphobic individual who had other ambitions altogether, into a quite successful actor. I can only attribute it to a growing modern taste, particularly in America, a

for what is called mental acting. And this, of course, is not acting at all, which essentially is fifty-fifty physical and emotional, and has very little to do with the brain. Routine of the Life Now for a word about the actual routine of an actor’s life. The life of an actor in the modern commercial theatre is one of deadly dullness. Let me describe it for you. A manager buys a play. Let us say it is a pretty good play by a well-known dramatist. The cast is engaged, and the play is sympathetically produced and directed. Rehearsals start in the town in which the production will finally appear. The theatre is dirty and uncomfortable and the weather appallingly hot-if it is midsummer, which it usually is. After four weeks of hard work, culminating in the agony of dress rehearsals, the company departs for their out-of-town try-out. A variety of provincial towns are visited, where the actors live in overcrowded stuffy hotels and get indigestion eating the curious food in these hostelries. Some weeks later the play comes to the big city for its great opening. There is much excitement. And it is a hit. The manager is enchanted and goes abroad to rest from his labours. The playwright is beaming. He sells the film rights and goes away to write another play. The actors look forward with varied feelings to creating the same role eight times a week for the next year or possibly two, with another year on the road to follow. Delighted-or Depressed At this prospect some are delighted and some depressed. Those who are delighted belong in one of two categories: (a) They love their art, but badly need a regular income, and (b) they loathe, detest and are bored with

their art, but badly need a regular income, Those who are depressed-and I am head man among these-are so because they know how hideous stultifying endless months of repetition of a performance can become, how utterly destructive of the spontaneity, freshness and creative urge that make acting worth while to player and spectator. Once an actor, particularly an important one, has embarked on the run of a hit play, practically nothing short of death can release him until the bitter end. There he is, in winter and summer, in sickness or health, eight times a week as long as the public will take it. No Escape From Success The alternative to a hit being a flop, it will.be asked what can be done about it? And the answer is, Nothing, without changing the whole system to the Continental or repertory idea. As the experts tell us that this is impossible in the commercial theatre, I suppose that is an end to the matter. I have a fear that the foregoing may lend colour to the theory, sometimes advanced, that acting in films is not nearly so monotonous as acting in the theatre. Let me say at once that, for me, the film actor’s life is a nightmare of boredom. A Typical Working Day Here is a typical working day for a film actor. He rises at 6.30 or 7 a.m.

He dresses and breakfasts in a hurry and dashes to the studio, reaching there between 8 and 8.30. He then makes-up and dresses, while the assistant director and his emissaries are knocking on his door urging him to hurry. He rushes to the set. The moment he is there nobody wants him any more. He sits and waits. Electricians, carpenters, painters, cameramen, property men fall over him as they go about their duties. It is too noisy to read. But if he leaves the set he will be dragged back instantly. He waits in the confusion, He has no idea what is going on. He tries to study the scene for the day. Then he is informed that this scene will not be shot. He studies the substituted scene. It seems simple. Each of the two characters concerned has three lines apiece to say. The Leading Lady Arrives The stage is finally set, but they have to wait for the leading lady, who did not expect to work that day. By eleven o’clock she arrives, looking radiant, accompanied by a retinue of make-up artists, hairdressers, costumiers and personal maids. There is an _ interlude, during which the leading lady’s appearance is discussed by the cameraman, the director and the retinue, Then the lights are put out and the two rehearse the scene. They rehearse it for a long time. The director is meticu(Continued on next page)

LESLIE HOWARD HATES ACTING (Continued from previous page) lous, the leading lady young, ambitious and inexperienced. They repeat their three lines apeice many, many times. All the technical workers who have been so busy now sit and wait. After the six lines have been rehearsed fifteen or twenty times, and the actor is on the point of screaming, the director mercifully announces he will shoot the scene. But now the cameraman says he must see the actors under the lights. So they pose for him till both are hot and tired and dislike each other heartily, while lamps are juggled round them endlessly. Then they run through the scene again so that the cameraman can see them in motion. This necessitates more changes, and finally the cameraman says "O.K." "We will take it," says the director. But now the sound man would like to hear it exactly as it will be spoken. They do it again. The sound man

now juggles his instruments round and finally says "O.K." "Let’s go," says the director, But now the leading lady’s make-up has started to run, so she goes off to attend to it. There is a pause. Lights go out. Everybody sits. The leading lady returns. The lights go on. The director says he would like another rehearsal in case they have "gone cold on it." The leading lady says it is very warm. The lights go out. They rehearse the six lines-twice. The director says it is one o’clock, and the men have to have their lunch. The lights go out. Everybody goes to lunch. And So It Goes On After lunch, following a few rehearsals, light tests, sound tests and so forth, the scene is actually shot. It is shot eight or ten times, though only one or two will be "printed." But our wretched actor has given his all, eight or ten times. Do not imagine that this ends the matter. This is only the long shot. Finally, they get the medium shot. This is also done a great many times,

And finally they reach the close-ups, in which one player is photographed at a time, the other giving the responses from the darkness behind the camera. By this time the few words, having been given at least fifty or sixty times during the day, have become gibberish, and the actors’ faces weary and meaningless masks. 9 Now if I am alone in thinking this a dreary life, then I must be unique in my idea of an interesting occupation. The screen is a fascinating story-telling medium, but it is the directors who tell the story, not the actors. So perhaps it will be understood. why I am looking for an escape from greasepaint, and for some occupation which will be sufficiently absorbing, and at the same time sufficiently remunerative to keep me in the style to which, heaven be praised, I have become accustomed.